Recently the International Film Music Critics Association were the last critics group to offer their (specialized) thoughts on the 2010 film year. The announcement made for an interesting counter to the year in score awardage. And the eventual nominees for Best Original Score reflected, if nothing else, a continued break with tradition.
The music branch has been slowly initiating new blood as of late, though it hasn’t completely relinquished its trademark consistency. A big step was made in the recognition of one of the year’s more atypical scores, though a big opportunity was lost with Daft Punk’s failure to register what could have been a truly exciting tip of the Academy’s hat.
The nominees are:
“How to Train Your Dragon” (John Powell)
“Inception” (Hans Zimmer)
“The King’s Speech” (Alexandre Desplat)
“127 Hours” (A.R. Rahman)
“The Social Network” (Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross)
One wouldn’t be out of line in thinking a potential sweep for the year’s Best Picture frontrunner will extend to this field. But it could also be an interesting place for consolation voting in a few other areas, so maybe the race is more wide open than we think.
The film most likely on the bottom of the list (though one never knows) is “How to Train Your Dragon,” which made good on positive critical opinion of its robust score by landing a first nomination for John Powell. It’s actually one of the more accomplished and technically proficient pieces of work on the list, floating from tribal rhythms to ominous percussion with ease and packing every corner of the animated hit with musical flavor. It’s possible this could be seen as a consolation vote for those who pass on the film in its only other category (Best Animated Feature Film), but it’s also up against four Best Picture nominees, all of which will be vying for similar consolation along the way. Nevertheless, it’s lovely to see it make it this far when it really is one of the deserving contenders of the year.
Hans Zimmer has been considered a formidable possibility in this category ever since “Inception” hit theaters in the summer. His work on the film — loved by some, dismissed by others — was a bombastic piece of flavor that few would argue failed to contribute to the film’s identity. He’s also seeing a slight renaissance with Academy favor as of late, nailing down his second nomination in as many years. He just competed against himself for a Grammy Award for his work on the film (the only one of the nominees eligible for Grammy consideration to be nominated this year) and his film will likely be looking to pick up consolation votes throughout the below-the-line fields. Still, all of that feels like an equation for the man and the work coming up a bridesmaid this season to me.
The likely winner, it appears, fresh off a BAFTA victory, is Alexandre Desplat for his work on the Best Picture frontrunner “The King’s Speech.” After bursting onto the domestic film scoring scene in 2003, the composer has been consistent with quality, witnessed by four Oscar nominations to date (this one being his third in a row). Few would argue that he’s one of the most prolific composers working today. It kind of just feels like it’s time to honor him with an Oscar, especially in a year that saw peripheral award-worthy work in “The Ghost Writer.” Of course, the Academy at large won’t be thinking in precisely those terms. They’ll remember the frolicking piano rhythms of their favorite film of the year and feel perfectly content to chalk up another vote for the film.
One score that is well-respected among musicians and would likely have a better shot if it were just the discipline voting is A.R. Rahman‘s inventive work on “127 Hours.” The film is a one-man show largely dependent upon its aural identity, and the musical contribution to that is considerable. Whether it be soft cues dropped in over sun-drenched Utah or manipulated string pulses over dramatic narrative beats, the score always seems to be working organically with the imagery. It’s a lovely nominee and it’ll bring in a few votes, but it’ll be tough going against Best Picture thoroughbreds and the year’s memorable blockbuster entry. Not that Rahman has much to complain about, two years removed from a pair of Oscars in a Best Picture sweeper of his own.
For a moment there it seemed like Trent Reznor (alongside Atticus Ross) was going to add an Oscar to his long list of achievements. The Nine Inch Nails front man came aboard David Fincher’s “The Social Network” at the director’s request and tackled things from a completely unique and atypical angle, without knowing the “correct” way to go about scoring a film. It was probably for the best, as he and his partner concocted an unmistakable sonic identity for a film that is tough to imagine without it. The awards began to pour in, making the film seem like the Best Picture frontrunner, and then, a Golden Globe, a television acceptance speech…the gold guy was within reach. But the Oscar season can be cruel that way. Perhaps it’s still in the cards, but the Globes feel like ages ago now, no?
Will win: “The King’s Speech”
Could win: “The Social Network”
Should win: “The Social Network”
Should have been here: “TRON Legacy”
Check out my current rankings for this race at its dedicated Contenders page here.
What do you think deserves to win the award for Best Music (Original Score)? Have your say in today’s sidebar poll!
[Photos: DreamWorks Animation, The Weinstein Company]
Comments
68 responses to “OSCAR GUIDE: Best Music (Original Score)”
I really wish that Desplat had been nominated for his score for “The Ghost Writer,” as it’s a much better, and much more memorable, work than his score for “The King’s Speech.”
I’ll go with The Social Network for “should win” — a great score that served the story very well.
I’ve seen The King’s Speech three times and I really can’t recall the music. Maybe that’s the way it was supposed to be.
Should Have Been There: Tangled
“Few would argue that he’s one of the most prolific composers working today.”
Made me laugh.
Tron Legacy should have been here. Wendy Carlos never scored a nomination for any of her efforts but I hope Daft Pank will fare better if they continue working in this field.
The Golden Globes really feel like a LONG time ago for any Social Network fans
Is it arguable, Maxim? Five scores this year (including HBO’s The Special Relationship), seven last year, three in 2008, six in 2007, etc., etc.
Globes feel like they were a long ago because Gervai’s routine felt so old.
I think that if the music branch votes for Alexandre Desplat, it’s gonna be of how productive he’s been this year for the film industry (The King’s Speech, The Ghost Writer, Harry Potter 7P1, Tamara Drewe), moreso than his score being from the movie they love (supposedly).
The King’s Speech’s score’s great anyways, but…
Will win: The Social Network.
Could win: The King’s Speech.
Should win: Inception.
Should have been here: I Am Love, TRON: Legacy.
Kris, again you misunderstood. It made be laugh precisely because it was completely inarguable and objective.
It wasn’t a dig at you, I just happened to find that sentence humorous.
(Feel like I sould add this) It really has more to do with my own sense of humor then with you. So relax.
To get slightly back on topic. Elfman’s scores weren’t half-bad either. I would have had Alice in my top if that main themes wasn’t reprised five times.
Should Have Been There: Harry potter( TKS OUT)
I’m relaxed, I was just confused why it was funny. But fair enough if you found it humorous.
Oops. I forgot to put The Illusionist in my ‘should have been here’. Lovely score.
I hope Desplat wins, because then I can tell myself that everyone really voted for him because of The Ghost Writer, and that it really was an Oscar for that an not his lesser score for The King’s Speech.
Other than that I don’t really care. They excluded too many of the year’s finest scores for me to really care.
I feel silly trying to explain it but I guess it was just the choice of words that did it for me plus knowing exactly what you meant. Had you said “few would argue that he’s one of the hardest working composers today” I wouldn’t have reacted.
It (totally randomly) brought up a mental image of someone actually willing to argue that Desplat isn’t prolific enough. A really cocky dude with “I’m not amused” expession on his face. And an image of Desplat going “must… produce.. harder!”
It doesn’t really translate into words, I’m afraid.
I find it puzzling that so many are so high on The Ghost Writer score and so low on The King’s Speech score. I can only figure it’s attributable to overall disapproval of the latter, because the scores are actually quite similar at times.
For me, the most memorable music in “The King’s Speech” wasn’t Desplat’s but Beethoven’s. That said, still solid work, although I liked “The Ghost Writer” score better.
I have to say I’ve never understood the love for Daft Punk’s Tron score, which I thought was as heinous, dull, and overwrought as everything else in that god-awful movie that I can’t believe I wasted ten bucks to watch.
But whatevz. I’m thinking The Social Network should win, though I’d really love to How To Train Your Dragon pull off a victory.
I feel a little ambivalent about Desplat’s likely victory, though. He became one of my favorite film composers after watching The Queen when it came out, and has obviously only continued to impress for years. He clearly deserves an Oscar. But the problem is that The King’s Speech has probably the most innocuous score of the nominees, and Desplat himself composed better scores this year.
But I won’t complain when he wins.
I remember when right after he saw True Grit, Kris was predicting it for the win in this category. After I had a chance to see the film for myself, I knew why. Adapted or not, its a mighty sounding score, especially in the last part of the film. Very strong.
To say The Social Network is a better score than How to Train your Dragon is quite a respectable opinion. I had quite the opposite.
Powell’s score is a masterpiece at so many levels (structure, movie adaptation, intensity, complexity, characters definition, the description of the feelings, etc).
Social Network is cool for me but I still think it doesn’t work as a score, it’s not a score in my own opinion. This “samples compendium” can be attached to the story if you put some effort but I would say no one could really guess something about the movie just listening to the score. And it totally lacks of an structure, it’s like one sample in front of the next one with no interaction.
King’s Speech is Desplat doing something pretty weak for him. The thing that he recorded the music just with real King George VI’s microphones can also be cool but I quite don’t get the point of doing that. It probably feels like listening to something old but in the end it really hurts the sound of the music.
I never expected the music branch to do the right thing at the Oscars (the best score of the year is Newton Howard’s The Last Airbender) but it would be nice if the whole Academy finally decides to give the award to John Powell.
@P-Dawg Agreed. The second movement of Beethoven’s 7th is always a ticket straight to tears for me, so using it over the climactic scene like that? Damn you, Hooper!
I like the main theme of TKS well enough (it plays over the scene where Bertie, Liz, and Mrs. Logue meet). If we are talking about scores integral to the films they accompany, however, the tops are Inception and TSN. My personal pick would be Inception (surprise!), but after finally sitting down to listen to TSN’s score, I wouldn’t fault it as a worthy winner.
But, come on….
BRRRRAAAAAAAAWMMM BRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWMMMMMM.
I’m a huge admirer of Desplat, who approaches every project with ideas tailored to the subject matter. (Example: for The King’s Speech, he recorded his music on 1940’s microphones.) I liked his piano themes for The King’s Speech quite a lot and would be happy to see him walk away with an Oscar.
My only caveat is that the film’s biggest moment — the climactic Speech — is scored to Beethoven’s 7th Symphony, one of the best of the romantic orchestral compositions and one that does a lot of heavy lifting to make the speech not only dramatic but epic. So there’s something that feels slightly wrong about rewarding Desplat for this film. He didn’t write the music for its biggest moment.
My favorite is The Book of Eli… I mean The Social Network score.
“(Example: for The King’s Speech, he recorded his music on 1940′s microphones.)”
Vn brought this up earlier, and, like him, I’m not really sure what the point of this was, as far as film scoring is concerned. Maybe it all works in the context (I haven’t seen the film).
At the same time I’m not really sure I understand how someone could like the score to “The Social Network” and dislike the score to “Tron Legacy”. I’m not implying that they are similar to there’s a similarity in both the execution and concepts. Thee’s a at least two tracks in each score that wouldn’t sound completely out of place on the other’s album. I think one of the reasons why I prefer “Tron Legacy” is is because it feels more musical and maybe a touch more confident. I got over their non-traditionalism long ago. Both are accomplished works.
“I find it puzzling that so many are so high on The Ghost Writer score and so low on The King’s Speech score. I can only figure it’s attributable to overall disapproval of the latter, because the scores are actually quite similar at times.”
The reason why I feel this way is that the score for TKS is not as creative, therefore not as memorable. It sounded like it was given to him at the last minute and just came up with some nice sounding background music. And for the most memorable moment in the movie, they used Beethoven, so that didn’t help.
As for TGW, while it did have Desplat’s signature notes, it was unlike anything I had heard from him. It was like it was challenging work, and he delivered. And there are plenty of memorable tracks, like the title track “The Ghost Writer” and best of all “The Truth About Ruth”, which accompanied that shot of the paper going from hand to hand perfectly and added to the tension.
So, for me, The Ghost Writer is one of his best works. The King’s Speech is nice, but not something that I think people will talk about in the future as being one of his best moments. That is unless he wins the Oscar, then they will talk about it as his “makeup” Oscar
“And for the most memorable moment in the movie, they used Beethoven, so that didn’t help.”
This borderline criticism (which began with Lisa Schwarzbaum’s misguided piece a few weeks ago) is becoming irritating. There’s a perfectly legitimate directorial reason for using the 7th, and it’s not manipulative in any way. It recalls the first time Bertie recorded a clear track while reading Shakespeare and listening to classical music in Logue’s office. Logue says in the final scene, “Just say it to me.” The Beethoven is kind of in Bertie’s head as he pushes everything else out of his mind, and it’s a nice reflection of that earlier moment, I think. What would have been more forced, I think, would be to concoct a big original piece of music around the sequence. THAT would have been more manipulative, IMO.
Sorry, just had to get that off my chest.
I find the Ghost Writer score to be substantially better than Kings Speech and it has nothing to do with my views on the films.
I think Rachel Portman deserved a nod. Some of her Never Let Me Go stuff got me.
“There’s a perfectly legitimate directorial reason for using the 7th, and it’s not manipulative in any way.”
Jeez, Kris. Who said anything about it being manipulative? Simply saying that the most memorable music in the film wasn’t original may seem unfair to Desplat, but it’s a very different thing altogether.
@Derek 8-Track…Atticus Ross who worked with Raznor on TSN also did the score for THE BOOK OF ELI
@ Kel D… Fact
My misgivings about Beethoven’s 7th began when I watched the film (not with Schwarzbaum’s article, which I thought was pretty thin). I can be convinced that the Beethoven is “in Bertie’s head” but that doesn’t change my point that the film’s climax wasn’t scored by the guy who might win the Oscar for scoring the film.
As for the use of mics from the 40s, Desplat makes the point that the quality of sound is different with older technology and thus adds to verisimilitude to the overall sonic atmosphere. These nuances of sound quality are probably lost on most of our ears but I still find it interesting to learn about the ideas that infuse Desplat’s process. He doesn’t simply compose the same kind of thing over and over without tailoring it to the specifics of the film itself (which is how some composers, like Elfman or Williams, strike me).
All that said: If I had a ballot I’d be voting for Reznor/Ross.
I think as far as a musical piece, HTTYD is clearly the best (at least in my opinion). However for how it works with the movie, TSN score is probably the best. I didn’t like Inception nearly as much as most seem to though, and TKS score was ok and fit the movie well. The score was one of the few redeeming factors about 127 hrs though.
It’s hard to decide whether to pick the one that is a better piece of music or the one that complements the movie perfectly. Obviously the best scores do both, and HTTYD is the one that does that best in my opinion.
*I didn’t like the Inception score nearly as much…
“He doesn’t simply compose the same kind of thing over and over without tailoring it to the specifics of the film itself (which is how some composers, like Elfman or Williams, strike me).”
That strikes me like a uniquely narrow view of what consitutes tailoiring a score to specifics of the movie.
I’ll point out the obvious: a decision on how to record a score using older technology, apart from being rather literal – i.e. the one thing scores shouldn’t be, doesn’t really do much in the way of tailoring itself to a particular movie so much as to a particular era. The fact that they were the King’s microphones really means little here, the sound is defined more by their era then anything else.
It feels very wrongheaded to use a composer like Williams who approaches each project individually and uses a variety of instruments, accents, etc to make each project sound unique as an example of someone who doesn’t consider specifics of his every film? Have you listened to his scores? Or heard him speak about his process and how used violins and cellos to represent individual characters in “Memoirs Of A Geisha” to use a recent example? The guy created a new musical soundscape for Star Wars. To think that this is somehow inferior to what amounts to recording gimmickry (and I hate to say this because I really like Desplat and respect his work a lot).
And Elfman too, definitely considers projects he’s working on and his non-Burton scores sound different too. Check out “Taking Woodstock” for example. He uses Steve Bartek for arranging though.
Maxim: Not necessarily here, but it’s a talking point I’ve seen raised a number of times. Believe it or not there is a world outside of In Contention. Crazy, I know.
I got pissed when i first heard the music in TKS because i knew that this was exactly the type of simplistic, but pretty sounding score that the Academy loves. Honestly, his work in Harry Potter was much more dynamic and integral to the film. But as for who should win, i too have to go with The Social Network.
You said “This borderline criticism” and that made it sound like you were adressing a person on here. Crazy, you know?
The King’s Speech score felt really distracting and overpowering to me, for some reason. It’s the same way if felt about its cinematography, actually. Like they felt they needed to add something extra to the scenes of two people talking.
Desplat should have been nominated and won for “Birth,” Reznor and Ross should win for “The Social Network” … so goes my thoughts on the two. But, I also think that the scores of both of those movies elevate them into a completely different realm of greatness.
I think 127 Hours or How to Train should win.
Should have been here: Let Me In, Animal Kingdom, The Ghost Writer, Black Swan, Harry Potter
Desplat’s score for The Ghost Writer was more memorably and more integral to the film, whereas the score for The King’s Speech was largely forgettable compared to his best work. It’s not a BAD score, it’s just not one of his very best, and it’s kind of a shame that he’ll (probably) win the Oscar for something that isn’t one of his finest. It’s like John Williams winning the Oscar for Hook instead of Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark or Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Wade, totally agree. It felt like they unsuccessfully attempted to make the film more cinematic than it really was.
Will win: TKS
Should win: Inception
Should be given a special award for most awesome score of all time: Inception
Will Win: The Social Network
Could Win: The King’s Speech
Should Win: (Out from these Nominees) The Social Network
Oh my Gosh! In almost every category it is a race between The Social Network and The King’s Speech!
Picture, Director, Score, …
We apparently don’t do a good job of understanding each other, Maxim. Though “is becoming irritating” should have been your cue that it’s an on-going thing not relegated to what was said by the one person I was responding to here.
By the way, Tron:Legacy score is a very good approach even if is not THAT good, is a much more impressive work compared to The Social Network.
I also liked The Ghost Writer more than The King’s Speech. I actually prefer if he does not win the Oscar. I prefer another mistake from the Academy giving the Oscar to a doubious good score than seing Desplat winning for a boring score. He deserves an Oscar for some great score. And he does a few every year, but King’s Speech is not.
Will win: I honestly have no idea. Could be any of the three frontrunners.
Should Win: Inception
Should have been here: TRON: Legacy and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
Though not counting ineligibilities, True Grit should have walked away with this.
The King’s Speech score was lovely but nothing really special. The rest offers much more original stuff and really add to the experience of the films. Desplat will probably win this but don’t rule out The Social Network either, hell even Zimmer, who was considered the frontrunner once could perhaps take it. Oh and the Daft Punk snub is equally bad to the Nolan one for Best Director.