The Quiet American [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]

In adapting Graham Greene's tale of a love-triangle set against the political intrigues of '50s Vietnam, director Philip Noyce didn't shy away from the novelist's unsettling, still-timely subtext: That America has historically fomented acts of terror to justify intervention. Composer Craig Armstrong responds to that challenging dramatic landscape with a musical score of carefully measured tension and brooding elegance. The composer's main theme sets the tone, infusing longing string passages with nervous, synthetic percussion and the vocals of Hong Nhung to produce music that subtly transcends boundaries of geography and genre. The solo piano version of his main theme recalls Thomas Newman's evocative work, with its spare, bittersweet melody hanging hauntingly in the air. Armstrong's compelling cues may be rooted in orchestral scoring traditions, but they are injected with bracing doses of contemporary production and arranging touches that give the story a crucial sense of timeless parable. --Jerry McCulley