Not a shocker. Even though The Hurt Locker was racking up awards, everyone talked about how they cried during Up's 4-minute sequence showing of Carl and Ellie's life together, and the music was prominent.
Up's score is refreshingly old-fashioned - prominent themes, exhuberant instrumentation, and unafraid to express the emotion of the characters. There are musical allusions to classic films like the Wizard of Oz. The music breaks through. So many Hollywood scores are like wallpaper - tasteful wallpaper appropriate to the scene - but very few connect emotionally like Up. I've been a fan of Michael Giacchino ever since he scored the PS2 video game Medal of Honor: Frontline.
The Hurt Locker's score, by Marco Beltrami, is practically the opposite. It's restrained to the point of being sound design as much as it is music. Dissonances and middle eastern modes make the deserted Baghdad streets dangerous and alien. Beltrami's scores can be very restrained (including the recent remake of 3:10 to Yuma). Both films have characters who are strung out, thirsty, without sleep, and near death. His minimal style suits scenes of such exhaustion.
One hears complaints among composers that we're in a very "cool" period for film scores - meaning that directors don't want melodies, or anything that might be showy or obvious. Perhaps out of fear of condescending to the audience. Or perhaps out fear of sounding corny. The Hurt Locker, and also No Country for Old Men, are very much in this camp.
Either way, these 2 composers have styles that were well-matched to their respective films.
The montage for the Best Score was done well - it's nice to get a decent listen to the music before the award is given out.
After all that controversy over the Dark Knight (which wasn't even nominated), A.R Rahman won both Best Song and Best Score.
My choice for the score would have been Thomas Newman for Wall*E. I thought he gave the story grace.
Slumdog Millionaire certainly appeared to the favorite before the show. It certainly has the most entertaining and original score. I thought folks voting would be discounted somewhat for musical simplicity and a bit of a soundtrack-like approach, but it was Slumdog's and ARRahman's night.
Like "Batman Begins" and "There Will Be Blood", the score for "The Dark Knight" has been disqualified for having too many collaborators. From Variety:
Sources inside the committee said that the big issue was the fact that five names were listed as composers on the music cue sheet, the official studio document that specifies every piece of music (along with its duration and copyright owner) in the film.
The unanswered question is why does it matter if the Best Original Music Score has 1 composer or 10? The best score is the best score, leave it to the members to decide.
This does matter. Students of film composing look to the past, and a nominee from 30 or 40 years past is far more likely to be studied than an unnominated modest box-office success like There Will Be Blood. We lose something from future composers if we exclude successful scores from the competition.The "The Dark Knight" most memorable music may be what plays behind Heath Ledger's monologues. Strings gather into a cluster that then slowly glissandos upward, sort of a super-slo-mo version of those famous strings screeching in the "Psycho" shower scene. Just drawn out much longer, so it's way scarier.
So delicious...why disqualify it over a couple of names on a cue sheet?
"Academy members, change thy rules!" sayeth the fan!
The music cue starts about 2:30 into this clip:
Winners are listed here.
Alexandre Desplat won for "The Painted Veil", the score features Lang Lang playing piano.
And Prince won best song for "The Song of the Heart" in "Happy Feet". Very old school, it's Prince being Prince while playing it very safe...check out this dancing penguin music video using footage from the movie.
The Golden Globe Nominations are out today, here are the noms for original score (I've added in past films for the nominees).The Painted Veil
The only one I've seen is Da Vinci Code, of course.
Composed by Alexandre Desplat (Syriana)
The Fountain
Composed by Clint Mansell (Doom, Sahara)
Babel
Composed by Gustavo Santaolalla (Brokeback Mountain)
Nomad
Composed by Carlo Siliotto (The Punisher)
The Da Vinci Code
Composed by Hans Zimmer (Gladiator, Black Rain, and also did you know he was in the Buggles, the band that did "Video Killed the Radio Star", the first video ever aired on MTV?
