The Village

1	Noah Visits / Original Score 2:35
2	What Are You Asking Me? / Original Score 6:01
3	The Bad Color / Original Score 3:57
4	Those We Don't Speak Of / Original Score 3:59
5	Will You Help Me? / Original Score 2:34
6	I Cannot See His Color / Original Score 1:31
7	Rituals / Original Score 2:01
8	The Gravel Road / Original Score 4:31
9	Race to Resting Rock / Original Score 1:16
10	The Forbidden Line / Original Score 2:17
11	The Vote / Original Score 6:03
12	It Is Not Real / Original Score 3:36
13	The Shed Not to Be Used / Original Score 2:03

Barnes & Noble

Filmmakers frequently develop a bond with a composer that carries through both careers -- e.g., Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann and Steven Spielberg and John Williams. Similarly, M. Night Shyamalan has relied on the musical skills of James Newton Howard for films dating from Shyamalan's breakthrough, The Sixth Sense, right up through the 2004 thriller The Village. Changing things up a bit, Howard taps the services of violin sensation Hilary Hahn, whose tone ranges from the pastoral, Gypsy-flavored passages that close out the opening number, "Noah Visits," to the weeping passages that invoke a feeling of vulnerability in "Will You Help Me?" In keeping with the suspense Shyamalan injects into this period piece set in rural Pennsylvania, Howard uses broad, dynamic swaths to make the listener jump at the appropriate times. "Those We Don't Speak Of" strikes an ominous mood with a mix of pounding timpani and swooping brass, while "The Bad Color" incites plenty of goose bumps with its eerie mix of simmering strings, wind chimes, and a far-off howl of unknown origin. Once again, Howard proves that his compositional prowess fits hand-in-glove with Shyamalan's masterful storytelling. Dave Gil de Rubio

All Music Guide

Brought to life by the Hollywood Studio Symphony and solo violinist Hilary Hahn, James Newton Howard's score for The Village, M. Night Shyamalan's twisty parable of fear and love, is one of the film's most compelling assets, and arguably more eloquent in expressing its themes than its often stilted dialogue. Likewise, Hahn's solos rank among the film's best performances; the painstaking delicacy of her work on the bittersweet "Noah Visits" and the growing anguish on "I Cannot See His Color" rival Joaquin Phoenix and Bryce Dallas Howard's on-screen turns. Moodwise, most of the score hovers between brooding and hopeful, as exemplified by "What Are You Asking Me?" and "Will You Help Me?," but, as The Village is tangentially a horror film, "It Is Not Real," "The Bad Color," and "Those We Don't Speak Of" mix some eerie atmosphere and scary noises into the more meditative feel of the rest of the music. While the titles of those compositions and "The Shed Not to Be Used" unfortunately bring to mind the stiff, faux-antiquated dialect of the Villagers, all of these tracks are both more restrained and expressive, conveying much more with sound than the film's words do. The Village is a moody, often lovely score with a richness that benefits from the movie's not entirely successful ambitions while sounding complete on its own terms. Heather Phares