Danny Elfman

Men in Black's score is composed by Danny Elfman, a.k.a. the Hollywood composer who isn't John Williams. We aren't trying to be dismissive here, but there are times when it seems like these two prolific composers are scoring every film coming out of Hollywood.

While Williams tends to favor classic orchestral scores, Elfman enjoys working more in an unconventional style. His reputation for peculiar compositions stems from his long relationship with the equally peculiar director Tim Burton (and the musician's penchant for orange hair helps, too). Elfman has scored Burton's films for about three decades and even provided the singing voice for Jack Skellington in The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Elfman began his collaboration with Burton with Pee Wee's Big Adventure, his first orchestral film score. And if you're going to build a reputation for idiosyncratic compositions for quirky films, there could be no better film to start with. The Elfman-Burton duo has collaborated on Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Mars Attacks, and Alice in Wonderland to name a few.

While we're focusing on Elfman's more unusual efforts because they tie well into Men in Black, this guy has range. He composed the somber score for Good Will Hunting and the adventurous tunes of Brian De Palma's Mission Impossible and Sam Raimi's Spider-Man. He can also go dark and brooding as evident by his Red Dragon and Batman scores. In fact, he won a Grammy for his work on Batman, just one of his roughly 60 award wins.

He also composed The Simpsons theme song—the pop culture ditty to rule them all.

With Men in Black being a quirky, mysterious, science fiction, buddy cop, action comedy lick—good luck finding that category at your local Redbox—Elfman drew on his varied history to compose a score that blends several elements to match its narrative counterpart.

One Punchline Man

Overall, Men in Black's score plays towards the strengths of the film's premise as well as Elfman as a composer. It's quirky, playful, and upbeat, and it mixes with the images on screen to constantly subvert our expectations. The score also plays with the images and dialogue of the film, cutting out at just the right time to let the film deliver the punchline the music has been building towards.

The Main Theme, the section played during the film's opening credits, is a perfect example. It opens with something darting across the starry night sky like an unearthly ship or shooting star that's lost its way. As we watch this unknown object, the music picks up with horns and the slight shrill of strings to present an air of mystery. There are even some underlying electronics in keeping with the flavor of the science fiction genre.

When the object is revealed to be just a dragonfly, a piano and gossamer chimes play a delicate tune. But as soon as it flies overhead to dominate the frame, the section immediately picks up into the Men in Black statement. Winds and percussion follow the dragonfly with the rhythm of a foot chase with flutes adding high-note blasts. It's exciting and breathless and a little weird, the perfect accompaniment to the film we're about to see.

As the dragonfly dodges danger after danger, the final statement builds in intensity and builds and builds until splat: the bug meets its crunchy death against a van windshield. The musical section is punctuated with this splat, a playful subversion of our expectations.

Many of these musical elements return throughout the film but are remixed to be appropriate for the mood of that scene. For example, the section "Edgar's Truck – A New Man" plays when Edgar investigates the UFO that crashed into his truck. A tuba and shrill strings call back to the opening credits but with a more foreboding atmosphere, hinting in advance of Edgar's imminent total-body dermatology surgery.

Again, the instruments build in intensity as Edgar is skinned alive and the bug crawls out of the hole. The ending note comes not in the music, but when the creature cracks its neck as it adjusts to its human disguise. The whole effect is silly in an otherwise dark statement. Instead of a beast from the cold reaches of space, our villain will be played by a bungling farmer Joe. Again our expectations are subverted.

Finally, let's consider "The Suit." Here, the opening drums have a military or marching band quality to them. As the section continues, trumpets and flutes play and cymbals clash triumphantly as J tries on his suit for the first time. The music builds and builds in intensity until J comes on screen wearing his black ensemble as he slides on his Ray-Bans. The music stops and is again punctuated with a joke as J says, "You know what the difference is between you and me? I make this look good."

While Jay becoming an agent is what we'd expect, his one liner isn't. Imagine if Luke Skywalker made a quip after becoming a Jedi or Elrond had cracked wise after choosing the Fellowship of the Ring. We expect our heroes to treat these uplifting moments with grandeur or solemnness. But in Men in Black, the film's score cuts out to allow Jay's one-liner to serve as the punchline to the statement as well as the scene.

For his work in MiB, Elfman scooped up a 1997 Oscar nom for Best Music for an original comedy score. We'd expect nothing less from the lead singer of Oingo Boingo.