AMG Review of Green Mile

William Ruhlmann
All Music Guide

Film composer Thomas Newman (son of film composer Alfred Newman and cousin of film composer Randy Newman), who wrote the score for #The Shawshank Redemption, reunites with its director Frank Darabont for another period prison film based on another novel by Stephen King. Newman's 32 music cues on this soundtrack album range from lush, sensitive orchestral passages to acoustic guitar, banjo, and Jew's harp segments evocative of the film's interwar Southern setting. Interspersed are period recordings including an excerpt from the 1935 film #Top Hat in which Fred Astaire sings "Cheek to Cheek." For the most part, Newman's music is restrained, though it is often ominous and when necessary (e.g., "The Bad Death of Eduard Delacroix") is highly dramatic. Like his cousin, Newman knows his way around the Deep South, and like his father he is steeped in the use of symphonic music to punctuate cinematic action.