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THE FILM MUSIC OF DANNY ELFMAN: A SELECTIVE DISCOGRAPHY
On 26 JuIy 1985, the film Pee-Wee's Big Adventure was unleashed onto a baffled world. Pee-Wee Herman, the comic persona of comedian Paul Reubens, already had some meaningful name recognition from his stage performances and occasional appearances on late-night television; far less prominent in the credits were the names of director Tim Burton and composer Danny Elfman. The bizarre tale of a bow-tied man-child searching for his stolen bicycle was generally attributed to the manic creative energy of Reubens, and less to the imagination of Burton and Elfman, who were merely names at the time.
Yet Elfman's musical accompaniment for Pee-Wee's quest was a critical element in the artistic success of the film. For this, his first major film score, Elfman drew stylistic inspiration from the energetic, quirky scores written by Nino Rota for the films of Federico Fellini. Elfman's themes emphasize repeated notes, perhaps reflecting the narrowly-focused obsessions of the Pee-Wee character; they veer off wildly into unrelated keys, only to return abruptly to the home key. Irregular phrase lengths are the norm and sudden, non-sequitur brass outbursts are common. The score also contains obvious references to the film music of Bernard Herrmann, whom Elfman has repeatedly cited as his major compositional influence; when Pee-Wee discovers that his beloved bicycle is missing, Elfman deploys slashing strings in an homage to Herrmann's score to Psycho.
Elfman was born 29 May 1953 in Amarillo, Texas. He claims no formal musical training, but taught himself the rudiments of music notation by transcribing Duke Ellington works. His early musical experiences centered around two theatrical troupes founded by his brother, Richard Elfman, in the 1970s: Le Grande Magic Circus and The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo. The latter group eventually narrowed its focus to become a rock band known simply as Oingo Boingo, with Danny Elfman leading in the triple role of singer, guitarist, and composer. Oingo Boingo provided the music for Forbidden Zone (1980), Richard Elfman's film directing debut; although this score (released on compact disc on Varèse Sarabande VSD-5268 [1983]) is sometimes considered to be Danny Elfman's first film score, Forbidden Zone remained an obscure cult film and Elfman's career as a film composer might have ended...