Welcome to Breakdown, an unofficial resource and discussion list about the innovative guitarist/producer Michael Brook. This site is infrequently updated, but contains a great deal of background info which will remain online. For up-to-date news and information, visit Michael Brook's official site and MySpace page.

Affliction
from the Angelika Filmbill
April / May 1999
[archived here without permission]

Nick Nolte's star turn as the emotionally stunted son of an alcoholic and abusive father in Affliction is well-matched by Michael Brook's score. The music emotes where Nolte's character dares not, whether in despair with the slow cry of strings, or anger with their sharp glissandi, the music's dissonance evokes his turmoil.

Brook's synthesizer ekes out woeful cries and wails, doom-laden chimes, or fatefull steps, while the guitar plucks hopeful refrain chords only to be shattered by the almost painful discord of violins.

The bleak setting of winter in New Hampshire is met in "Opening Titles" with crisp guitar and gently blown pipes, only to melt after three notes on a French horn. Affliction represents Brook's most challenging work to date after relatively accessible scores to Heat and Albino Alligator. Apart form a few moments respite, Affliction is dark, tense and unyielding, yet, like the film, unforgettable.