The Proposition is a neo-western about the struggle for civilization. But, unlike most westerns, the conflict surrounding civilization is not between colonizer and colonized. Instead, it is between Australia’s criminal, lawless roots and encroaching British imperialism wishing to bring law and order to the chaos it created. Nick Cave and Warren Ellis’ score embodies this tension.
The lead colonizer makes his goal quite clear: “I will civilize this land.” But, before he can impose “civilization,” he must level the existing society. By the 19th century, Australia accomplished this. It had killed the last of the criminal bushrangers, quashed aboriginal rebels, and began exploring the island’s interior. Cave and Ellis use somber, sparse tracks of droning piano and violin to mirror this version of Australia, of a country cleared away and ready for reconstruction. They add in delicate, skeletal melodies, the genesis of more complex songs perhaps yet to come. There is potential for growth, but it has not yet been realized. These are songs of emptiness, a shallow cover over a great void.
But, no matter the civilizer’s intent, they cannot control who comes to fill this void. Man’s primal nature rises up, overtaking the emptiness with bursts of deafening, cacophonous noise, the sounds of discord and entropy. As the film approaches its climax, pitting law against lawless, the score switches between its two faces every few seconds, creating a sonic clash as tense and striking as the one on screen.
