Fran Magazine: Issue #91

Fran Magazine explores the film scores of last year

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Maestro moment

I wrote about whatever a “Bradley Cooper film” is for Vulture — a piece many months in the making. I can’t talk about the Golden Globes or the Critics Choice awards and the extent to which it is over for Maestro. Instead, enjoy this photo.

This film should be played loud!

It’s hard to remember when the construction next door started. I spent so much time out of the apartment in the fall that the days and weeks all blur together, punctuated by periods of time like “NYFF” and “when I was in Europe for one week.” We have buildings on either side of our apartment building, and the one to the north of us has been under construction for what feels like forever. I think it’s always kind of this way, at least in New York. At the old apartment, not that far from the new apartment, I would sit in the office and listen to drilling and hammering and banging and then one miraculous day, it all just stopped and didn’t start up again. I keep hoping that today will be the day it stops here. There have been a few fake outs in the interim — Phil went down to talk to the crew one day and they told him they’d be done that day (a lie), once they towed away bags and bags of garbage and woodscraps. We thought, maybe that’s all the trash and now it’s done. That wasn’t true either. They work almost every day, including Saturdays and mail holidays.

I don’t really believe in doing something like “filing a noise complaint,” because the building has to be built (or fixed) and it’s not really possible to do something like “use a hammer softly.” I am content to make due, though I wish I didn’t have to. In order to cope and maintain relative sanity, I’ve been listening to classical music louder than ever before. Fran Magazine is no stranger to listening to classical music loudly; in fact, it is the recommended method!

I have been thinking a lot about the relationship between film and music. It’s been a few years since I kept up with the Best Original Score category at the Oscars. Not to be “like this,” but it’s been a long time since something innovative and deserving won. Like a lot of other technical categories at major awards shows, people seem to appreciate when something has the most of that specific quality. An example: a film that wins best editing is, perhaps, the most edited. I think there is a tendency to reward the most score — loudest, evocative. Does this mean the score is good? Sometimes! But usually no. In my humble opinion, the last good Best Original Score winner was Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for The Social Network. You look up all the others and tell me what I’m missing. The two most memorable scores in the interim were Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s score for Mank (not kidding) and Isobel Waller-Bridge’s score for Emma.

I wanted to shed some light on the Best Score shortlist ahead of this year’s nominations — the good, the bad, the boring, the loud — as well as share my pick for the best score of last year. I promise this is the last time I’ll talk about 2023. The less that is continued to be said about last year, the better!

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Haven’t seen it but probably will and no idea what it sounds like

American Symphony (Jon Batiste)

The premise of this movie feels impossibly grim to me — like Ed Sheeran doing promo for his most recent album, talking on and on about how his wife had cancer. I’m sort of like, shouldn’t we all just be at home here? That said, I like Batiste’s music and I’m curious to know what this sounds like. The single they released is not promising, however.

The Color Purple (Kris Bowers)

I am gonna watch this!!! It’s probably great.

Haven’t seen it, probably won’t, and have a pretty good idea of what it sounds like

Elemental (Thomas Newman), Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (John Williams), Society of the Snow (Michael Giacchino)

At this point, an algorithm could make what constitutes a “Pixar score.” Newman has been phoning it on every movie since Skyfall, minus maybe Let Them All Talk (but who remembers the score for Let Them All Talk?). I was listening to a single track from this when Phil came into the room and he said, “this sounds like puzzle game music.” Damning!

Re: John Williams and the Dial of Destiny: not much to say beyond this.

I tend to like the output of Michael Giacchino, but there are two things going on with this particular score for this particular movie.

1. I’m not seeing this fucking movie!!! Let’s be serious. I’m not seeing a late-to-the-landscape Netflix movie about people who survive a harrowing plane crash by eating each other. I have enough going on in my life! J.A. Bayona??? Like — what’s going on here.

2. If I wanted to listen to Michael Giacchino do a score for a media enterprise where people get into a plane crash, I would simply rewatch all of Lost!!!

Some interesting stuff but not quite there

American Fiction (Laura Karpman)

I quite like Cord Jefferson’s debut film, but I think the film suffers from two big issues: the first is that it’s shot to look like television, the second is the tonal whiplash throughout between sharp satire and observed family dramedy. I don’t mind the latter point, personally, but I do feel like the dotty piano scoring of this film overemphasizes what is funny and what is not. Briefly I considered what I think of when it comes to a good score for a domestic movie, and all I managed to come up with Manchester by the Sea which has a score by Lesley Barber — not really the vibe of American Fiction.

Barbie (Mark Ronson, Andrew Wyatt)

The Barbie score has high highs and low lows, like with any big Ronson production. I like the stuff that sounds like it would play in the background of a fashion show (all the good parts of the movie Barbie) and I dislike all the sad music that plays in the background when the characters are thinking (all the worst parts of the movie Barbie). With all due respect, no one is talking about the original Barbie score. They are talking about the jukebox songs. This should not even have qualified, really, even though the music is serviceable.

Didn’t like but I respect it

Killers of the Flower Moon (Robbie Robertson)

RIP for real — it seems like “The Band” was good (? remember I only listen to, like, Shostakovich for eleven months of the year) — but this score is one of the weakest parts of Scorsese’s film. The work is intrusive and cloying, and I’ve never found the instrumental scores the best part of his filmmaking outside of, say, The Age of Innocence.

Didn’t like and don’t respect it

The Holdovers (Mark Orton)

Not unlike the original score to Barbie, when you think about The Holdovers, you are not thinking about the twangy guitar music they play whenever they’re driving to the bar. You are thinking about the Christmas carols or whatever else they’re listening to once they get to a bar. Silly!

That’s a lot of music

Oppenheimer (Ludwig Göransson)

Can you hear the music?? Not through this dreck. Just kidding — if I am going to pick a Nolan movie with frustrating sound editing and a Ludwig Görensson score, then you know I’m picking Tenet. I quite like the Oppenheimer score in isolation, but in the film itself, I found it oppressive and prescriptive. That movie is begging you to feel something — the opposite reason I engage with Nolan as a filmmaker. I won’t begrudge this film’s score’s eventual win — the music is quite memorable — but I found myself frustrated by the condescending nature of this soundtrack.

Poor Things (Jerskin Fendrix)

Probably the worst score of the year! This guy has a name like a character from Saltburn! Just terrible nonsense — similarly over-prescriptive and frankly just plain annoying to listen to in a movie that’s already too long.

Haven’t seen it but listened anyway

The Boy and the Heron (Joe Hisaishi)

Joe Hisaishi is, for my money, the most underrated film composer currently living and working. I listen to the Howl’s Moving Castle soundtrack all the time — it is the only film score I have on my classical playlist, for reasons that make sense only to me. One of the things I think a film score should do is add to the texture and tone of a film, rather than dictate how to feel. Hisaishi, more than a lot of other contemporary composers, understands how to build a universe within music rather than serve only as supplement to narrative.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Daniel Pemberton)

I liked Pemberton’s work on the first Spider-Verse movies. You get another great example of a score that lends texture rather than dictate mood. I also liked Pemberton’s work on Slow Horses. And his work on another movie this season! More on Daniel Pemberton soon.

Yay

Saltburn (Anthony Willis)

For all of my various beefs with Saltburn, I think it’s probably the only movie this season that neatly balances both an original score and memorable needledrops. Yes, I think it does a better job on this than Barbie! Sue me! There’s a case to be made that it’s shamelessly ripping off Nicholas Brittell’s work for Succession; wrong: it is shamelessly ripping off Dario Marianelli. Forget it, Jake, it’s Saltburn!

The Zone of Interest (Mica Levi)

If there is one thing I actually wholeheartedly like about this film, it is the use of score, which is overwhelming as a point. For some, I understand that they feel the way I did watching Oppenheimer. I understand this — but Mica Levi is a much more interesting composer than Ludwig Göransson. None of this matters anyone because no one has seen this movie outside of general festival audiences and Fran Magazine subscribers who are somehow various guild members (hello). I wonder if Levi’s work will ever be, I dunno, normal enough to garner a mainstream award. They did win at Cannes for this particular score! I sort of think if Hildur Guðnadóttir can get in there with a score for Joker, maybe Levi can get in there for, I don’t know, Doctor Strange 4. To be clear, I don’t think Mica Levi needs an Academy Award; I just think they’ve gotten close enough times to warrant this kind of speculative curiosity.

My personal favorite scores of the year left off the Academy shortlist

Ferrari (Daniel Pemberton)

That Ferrari is a relatively plaintive, talky adult drama about fast cars and hot guys is the reason why Michael Mann is otherwise unparalleled in a certain genre of guys who are trying to hard to do their jobs no matter the cost. Ferrari avoids a self-indulgence with a gentle, moving score by the aforementioned Daniel Pemberton. There’s good tension added to the racing scenes, but that this film never reaches a dramatic peak until it really reaches a dramatic peak is one of the reasons I’ve found it so moving and tragic.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross)

I like that this is a film score for an adult movie superimposed onto a children’s movie — one of many great things about last year’s Turtles film.

Enys Men (Mark Jenkin)

He directed the movie! He wrote the movie! He did his own film score! Everyone I saw it with got so mad at the movie in the theater. But I loved it.

Asteroid City (Alexandre Desplat)

If I am going to throw my hat in the ring with a guy who has been doing the same type of score for forever, then I am going to give it up to the plenty-lauded Desplat who does — like always — the main thing he always does, a twinkly jumpy sweet little score for a nice movie. I love this! Here is a score where we also see the literal instrumentation (percussion) in conversation with the film’s topic (little machines that beep and boop).

Eileen (Richard Reed Parry)

As longtime Fran Magazine readers know, I love to be surprised by a film. Though I have much disdain for Eileen the novel, I much preferred William Oldroyd’s adaptation of the book (with Moshfegh’s screenplay). One of the most thrilling elements of this film was the score — jazz, unnerving, even a little romantic. It sort of sounds like someone is fucking up the score for Carol in real time. Unlike The Holdovers’s unmemorable guitar strumming, this is an unobtrusive score that lends a certain unease to the normal scenes and normalcy to the weird scenes. That’s a neat trick!

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What stands out to you in this year’s pool of film scores? Sound off (ha) below…