• The Academy announces 248 feature films eligible for this year’s Best Picture Oscar. [Oscars.org]
• James Franco’s reps advised him against hosting the Oscars (naturally). [Awards Campaign]
• Mike Fleming, meanwhile, chats with Franco’s co-host (and “Love & Other Drugs” star) Anne Hathaway, [Deadline]
A great score can take a film from memorable to unforgettable. Whether it be Vangelis’s synthesizer on the beach in “Chariots of Fire,” Nino Rota’s haunting waltz from “The Godfather” or John Williams’s blaring, adventurous march from “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” scores can elevate amazing images to bring the director’s vision to even greater fruition.
The last time I discussed this category, I noted how it is very hard to predict in advance without having heard the scores. Synopses and stills give clues in other categories to an extent frequently not seen here. That said, most contenders have screened, if not opened, now, so we can make safe assumptions.
But I still think this can be one of the most difficult categories to predict. But in the way of patterns, films that feature noticeable, loud, memorable and often exotic music are usually contenders. And being in a Best Picture frontrunner never hurts matters, as always.
This branch certainly has its favorites, and I expect to see past nominees and winners prominent in the race this year. The composers don’t frequently embrace new nominees. Usually only one newcomer is welcomed per year.
Venice Film Festival
If any one title in the Shakespeare library has been sufficiently fiddled about with on screen, it’s “The Tempest,” among the most tonally malleable of his comedies, and a fantasy that gifts filmmakers with obvious opportunities for spectacle.
“Forbidden Planet,” a terrific 1956 sci-fi riff on the play, perhaps took this adaptability furthest, but it only set the ball rolling for assorted free interpretations: Derek Jarman gave it a homoerotic spin in 1979, Paul Mazursky rewrote it as a neurotic modern-day sex comedy in 1982 and Peter Greenaway played all manner of metatextual games in 1991’s “Prospero’s Books.” At this point, about the most radical thing a filmmaker could do with “The Tempest” on screen is play it straight.
That is evidently not a view shared by one Julie Taymor, whose murky, lunk-headed and signally boring new film tricks out Shakespeare’s text with gaudy CGI saturation, a wardrobe from “Zoolander”‘s Derelicte collection and a key sex change in the lead, as sorcerer and doting father Prospero here morphs into Helen Mirren’s Prospera, a highbrow voodoo priestess of sorts with a permanent Patty Hewes-style scowl.
I am marveled by the accomplishments of all the crafts artists who elevate our films, but this is particularly the case with respect to music composers. Composing equals genius as far as I am concerned.These musicians join the film at the end, when usually only the director, editor and perhaps the sound mixers are still working. But capturing the mood and feel of a film that has been created in your absence must be extraordinarily difficult.And I do not need to count the ways in which a brilliant score can make a good film truly unforgettable.
The category of Best Original Score is one of the hardest to predict in my opinion, even shortly before the nominations are announced. So what sort of music is rewarded by this branch? Certainly being noticeable in the film helps. Loud music and/or music which plays for lengthy parts of the film with minimal dialogue can do well, too. Being an animated film or a Best Picture contender hardly hurts either.
For years, we could count on John Williams to take a spot among the nominees. But given that Williams is only composing for Steven Spielberg these days, his name has been absent from the nominees for five straight years now. (I suspect we’ll see him finally move past Alfred Newman on the all-time list next year.)
Nevertheless, while the branch is not quite as insular as it was in the earlier part of last decade, it remains a fairly exclusive club. Seldom do composers get first trips to the Kodak – usually only one a year. In fact, of the past 11 years, only three have seen two new nominees, and only one has seen three.
LA Times music critic Todd Martens has posted a useful series of short interviews with the men behind some of the year’s most distinctive film scores. Indeed, it’s group of five names that isn’t too hard to imagine mirroring the year’s eventual Oscar slate: Alexandre Desplat for “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” Michael Giacchino for “Up,” Randy Newman for “The Princess and the Frog,” Marvin Hamlisch for “The Informant!” and Elliot Goldenthal for “Public Enemies.”
There are nice quotes and musical snippets peppered throughout all the profiles, but I was particularly drawn to read Desplat’s take on his “Fox” score, given how curiously — yet happily — the jangly Americana and English folk notes in the work sit with his more Euro-flavored oeuvre:
“I just felt that if we found a sound that would belong to these little puppets, it would make them come alive,” Desplat said. “I suggested to Wes that we do a sort of puppet orchestra. I wanted to make everything sound like they were play- ing. I wanted little things — the mandolin, the banjo, the whistle, the recorder and all these little families of instruments. They weren’t toys but kind of toy-ish instruments.”
Some categories haven’t had that much renewal since I last reviewed them. Best Original Score is an exception. Principally, this is because the category is very difficult to judge before hearing the scores, not to mention last minute personnel changes (as composers always seem to be the most disposable members of film crews).
As I said last time, the music branch, though it has opened up to newbies slightly in recent years, is notoriously one of AMPAS’s most insular branches. Best Picture nominees tend to do reasonably well, but the category also tends to award “loud” music, and as of late, world music has been a favorite.
One thing that has not changed, in my opinion, is that Michael Giacchino continues to lead this category for his score for Pixar’s “Up.” Giacchino was nominated two years ago for “Ratatouille” and again composed a soundtrack which was sad, joyous and suspenseful. The film is likely headed towards a Best Picture nomination and I expect Giacchino to show up as well.
At the same time, I also can’t help but wonder if Giacchino maybe, just maybe, could pull off a double nomination this year for his compositions on J. J. Abrams’s “Star Trek.” The music was quite original and bombastic. And, of course, the film a huge hit. I don’t see a lot of surefire nominees in this category, so this could be a place where it finds a home.
It’s that time of year, when studios roll out their awards-centric websites for films in play. You get screening info, news and notes, reminders of how AMAZING their films are (with critical quotes to back it up), goodies like screenplays and such, etc. It’s a good way to see how wide the net is cast during the season (since any and everything gets a “For Your Consideration” blurb), but I’ve always found it’s a good way to revisit the year’s films.
First up, Universal Pictures has put together its standard assemblage hawking “Public Enemies,” “Bruno,” “Funny People” and “It’s Complicated.” Skimming through the “Public Enemies” section I was instantly reminded that Elliot Goldenthal’s score was actually quite wonderful and could be a sleeper to watch in a field that is notorious for its insularity. You can even skim through tracks in a dedicated section and download the screenplay.
“Funny People” has a similar set-up, with score toggling, the script, etc., while “Bruno” has no script to offer. But you can listen to the raved out score again if you wish. The “It’s Complicated” section has material to come and only mentions “in all categories” as it pertains to FYC business.
Lauded composer Elliot Goldenthal doesn’t deign to work all that much in film these days — the lure of stage and opera work is great, particularly when he gets Pulitzer recognition for it — and when he does, it’s not always in projects worthy of his gifts. (Anyone want to hazard a guess why he scored “S.W.A.T.” in 2003?)
But this year finds him thoroughly immersed in the big screen again, renewing two partnerships that have proved productive in the past. We’ve already heard his work on “Public Enemies” — his first pairing with Michael Mann since “Heat” in 1995 — which was largely muted and effective, with a contemporary acoustic edge that landed on the right side of anachronistic. (I maintain, however, that the use of Diana Krall was a miscalculation.)
But more eyes (or ears, rather) might be on his next collaboration with personal and professional partner Julie Taymor, whose screen interpretation of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” is wavering between a 2009 or 2010 release. Anne Thompson profiles the composer and drops some intriguing hints about the latter project:
Goldenthal’s now finalizing the score for Taymor’s demi-musical “The Tempest,” starring Helen Mirren as Prospera and Ben Whishaw as a singing Ariel. The movie uses Shakespeare’s own songs. “It’s a challenge to find something mysterious and not arcane, and not Elizabethan sounding,” he says. “It has to sound like something you’ve never heard or can categorize. I have to compose around the Shakespeare meter.”
• Ahead of the latest Harry Potter instalment, a profile of no-longer-boy wonder Daniel Radcliffe. [The Guardian]
• Ever a must-read, Nick Davis continues reviewing the decade, taking on “American Psycho.” [Nick’s Flick Picks]
• Dredging up the Marion Cotillard 9/11 “controversy” … again? Jeez. [Times of London]
• Nathaniel Rogers tweaks his Oscar predictions, elevating “The Lovely Bones” to pole position. [The Film Experience]
• A Brit offers his perspective on the ten-wide Best Picture field … and remains on the fence. [ScreenDaily]
• List of the day: the top 10 “apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic” movies. [Rope of Silicon]
• Jim Fusilli chats with “Public Enemies” composer Elliot Goldenthal. [Wall Street Journal]
• Andrew O’Hehir catches up with the wonderful oddity “Tony Manero,” which is gradually making its way across the the U.S. [Salon]