Various Artists - Bleed for This OST

Pitchfork 60

Every year, the film industry reliably churns out a new biographical boxing film with aspirations towards artistry and, hopefully, awards. This year’s entrant is Ben Younger’s Bleed for This, starring the famously boorish Miles Teller (Whiplash, Fantastic Four) as Vinny Paz, a world championship boxer on the road to recovery from a devastating car accident. It was executive produced by Martin Scorsese, in itself setting up an unfortunate parallel to the already-existing Raging Bull. The soundtrack, meanwhile, pairs selections from artists like Willis Earl Beal with some period-specific ’80s glam, and, intriguingly, several selections from the composer and performer Julia Holter.

Holter provides ten of the eighteen songs on this soundtrack, each a piece of new music from her. It is definitely an odd fit, and the soundtrack doesn’t make any efforts to make sense of it: In its first few tracks we are treated to selections from Billy Squier and Bad Company, selections that serve a scene-setting purpose in the film that they do not serve here. Songs from Willis Earl Beal’s 2013 album Nobody Knows are peppered throughout to add a dash of emotional depth, but Beal’s probing and leftfield soul is mismatched with the film’s rote aggression. This disjunction is even more apparent when Holter’s music appears in the film.

For the most part, her contributions are short, almost weightless, instrumental pieces that lean towards ambient. Almost none of the pieces are over a minute long, making them closer to sketches. In the film, they are deployed where easy emotion needs to be summoned. No matter how beautiful some these tracks can be, they are forced to serve utilitarian ends: “Fighting Dele,” one of the most well-executed pieces, only exists to heighten the tension of Vinny Paz’s title fight against Gilbert Dele. Instead of the old tricks of heavy breathing, audible heartbeats, shaky camera angles, or even silence, Holter’s song is used to make a difficult moment in the fight (right before the telegraphed victory) seem ethereal, almost divine. The strategy ends up making her music feel silly when tied to the film.

Worse, Holter’s songs are given the hoary old agenda of making the aggressive and masculine edges of the film seem more sensitive, softer, and intimate. Bleed for This does not break any stereotypes about boxing films. It follows a narrative arc, a cast of characters, and explores a set of emotions (failure, redemption, victory) that are well trodden. The score’s best songs, “Fighting Duran,” (a grandly wrought three-minute ambient song), “Home Movies,” (a short minimalist epic of luxuriant and melancholic strings) and “Vinny’s Trumph” (the score’s triumphantly horn-filled closer) make clear just how mismatched Holter’s sensibilities are to this ultimately lazy and formulaic film, filled with scenes of sweaty gyms, casino floors, and other places of contest. Holter admirably writes music that attempts to complicate these spaces, but in the end she is mismatched with this film. And that’s a bummer, because any film would be lucky to have her contributions.

Holter’s work for Bleed for This is her first film score. Without a doubt her music will continue to appear in film because it is subtle, spectral, and densely packed with energy without being plodding or gaudy. Bleed for This like any run-of-the-mill white-elephant film vying for critical success is going to do away with those kinds of qualities, in order to activate base pleasures in a movie viewer. This film’s palette of emotions and events is only made of primary colors, while Holter’s music often exists in a spectrum that is murkier and less defined. The kind of film that Holter’s work may be suited for will more fluidly incorporate the hypnotic pace of her compositions. It will be a film that chooses not to retell the same story over and over again.