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Audio/Visual: A Decade of Music in Film – We Are Movie Geeks

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Audio/Visual: A Decade of Music in Film

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I chose my previous two film scores based on both their distinctiveness in both context and content, but also because they had certain weaknesses that, while important to their character, still kept them from being the kind of landmark works that are universally acknowledged as ground-breaking and important. The three scores I’m highlighting this week were chosen specifically for both their widespread popularity and critical success.
Let’s begin with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. This is a score that many, many people who are even remotely familiar with the film are aware of in terms of importance. Like the other films I’m focusing on here, the music of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon goes hand in hand with the other elements of the movie, but it could be said that, out of the three, this score is the most potent accompaniment. This is mostly because of the movie’s setting; feudal China. The score for CTHD was composed by Tan Dun, a Chinese composer who moved to New York City to study modern classical composition, and later worked on the score for the film “Don’t Cry, Nanking”. Unlike the other composers in this group, Dun came from a classical background, and it’s immediately apparent. But what is surprising is how much emphasis Dun placed on his collaborator, world-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
In fact, Yo-Yo Ma’s performance is the most prominent element of most of the score. Occasionally, for some of the martial arts sequences, Dun utilizes powerful and exhilarating percussion, but more often than not, the score of CTHD is a work of beauty and inestimable grace. Yo-Yo Ma produces one of the most vocal and emotional ranges in the work of a solo string musician I’ve ever heard. To say that his playing is affecting would be understatement. In versa Jon Tavener’s work in Children of Men, it is not a light comment to compare the power of both as equal, when Tavener drew from a massive and versatile arsenal of symphonic tropes. Dun and Ma almost never resort to heavy-handed drama, and when they do it’s strictly in the service of the on-screen action. The key appeal of this soundtrack is the virtuoso skill of Ma drawing together all the breath-taking beauty and emotion of the film (no easy feat) into a few mere strings, at the behest of Tan Dun.
The score for There Will Be Blood is the polar opposite of the former. A film that sticks its fingers into the open wounds of a man bound to self destruction, only a score as unsettling as this could possibly be worthy of the Coen Brothers’ most ambitious work. And with a fortuitous moment of serendipity, the Coen Brothers managed to wrangle Radiohead’s guitarist and composer, Jonny Greenwood. Greenwood did score a film prior to There Will Be Blood but it was a little known documentary that gave Greenwood free reign to experiment without any real format. Creating music for There Will Be Blood was an entirely different beast; this was a period piece based loosely off a novel, and Greenwood would have to meet not only the expectations of the Coen Bros. fanbase but that of his own, not to mention make it a relevant and appropriate work of music.
He succeeded with flying colors. The strength of his score for There Will Be Blood lies in Greenwood’s purposeful malevolence in rendering the colors and tones of the various pieces comprising the body of the soundtrack. He intended, out and out, to unsettle and violate the conceived expectation of what the period music would sound like. He did use traditional strings and maintained the proper elements through the whole film, but he subverted more often than not, seeking purposefully to disturb the listener with dissonant electronics and tense moods that underlined every scene of the film with a powerful dread or creeping anxiety. It could’ve easily been the score to a powerhouse horror film but instead, it became a great example of how a score can unwrap a film’s true life; one of bleak misanthropy and gritty fatalism.
Last, but not least, is Kevin Shield’s “score” for Lost In Translation, Sofia Coppola’s second film after The Virgin Suicides. Unlike the soundtrack for The Virgin Suicides, which consisted entirely of songs written by various artists, Lost In Translation’s score was composed by Kevin Shields, he of the critically adored My Bloody Valentine. Much of the music in the film was chosen together by Coppola and Shields, but the pieces Shields wrote for the soundtrack are as appealing and wonderful as any song that appears during the film’s narrative. What’s vital to the sweet taste of the score’s placement alongside the film is how very intimate their relationship is; Sofia is as much to be credited for the music as Shields, and that’s disappointingly rare in the world of film.
What a breath of fresh air it is to hear a whole collection of music that is as much a part of the beating heart of a film as the visuals are; the songs and pieces are probably, out of the entire spectrum of scores presented, the most appealing outside of their original context. It has been said, and it holds true, that the Kevin Shields-created tracks from this soundtrack are the My Bloody Valentine songs that never existed, but that’s not entirely accurate. These are far more enjoyable and accessible than the noise-pop of My Bloody Valentine and, by necessity, they ring a far more potent range of emotion than his former band could marshal (if anything, it echoes the synth wonder of Air, the French band who assembled the music for Virgin Suicides). Of particular note is the end piece, simply titled “Goodbye”. Paired with what I personally consider the most effective and moving endings I’ve seen from a romance film, it struck a powerful broadcast that most of the film’s fans will enthusiastically endorse.

there will be blood

I chose my previous two film scores based on both their distinctiveness in both context and content, but also because they had certain weaknesses that, while important to their character, still kept them from being the kind of landmark works that are universally acknowledged as ground-breaking and important. The three scores I’m highlighting this week were chosen specifically for both their widespread popularity and critical success.

Let’s begin with CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. This is a score that many, many people who are even remotely familiar with the film are aware of in terms of importance. Like the other films I’m focusing on here, the music of Crouching Tiger, HIDDEN DRAGON goes hand in hand with the other elements of the movie, but it could be said that, out of the three, this score is the most potent accompaniment. This is mostly because of the movie’s setting; feudal China. The score for CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON was composed by Tan Dun, a Chinese composer who moved to New York City to study modern classical composition, and later worked on the score for the film “DON’T CRY, NANKING”. Unlike the other composers in this group, Dun came from a classical background, and it’s immediately apparent. But what is surprising is how much emphasis Dun placed on his collaborator, world-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

In fact, Yo-Yo Ma’s performance is the most prominent element of most of the score. Occasionally, for some of the martial arts sequences, Dun utilizes powerful and exhilarating percussion, but more often than not, the score of CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON is a work of beauty and inestimable grace. Yo-Yo Ma produces one of the most vocal and emotional ranges in the work of a solo string musician I’ve ever heard. To say that his playing is affecting would be understatement. In versa Jon Tavener’s work in Children of Men, it is not a light comment to compare the power of both as equal, when Tavener drew from a massive and versatile arsenal of symphonic tropes. Dun and Ma almost never resort to heavy-handed drama, and when they do it’s strictly in the service of the on-screen action. The key appeal of this soundtrack is the virtuoso skill of Ma drawing together all the breath-taking beauty and emotion of the film (no easy feat) into a few mere strings, at the behest of Tan Dun.

The score for THERE WILL BE BLOOD is the polar opposite of the former. A film that sticks its fingers into the open wounds of a man bound to self destruction, only a score as unsettling as this could possibly be worthy of Paul Thomas Anderson’s most ambitious work. And with a fortuitous moment of serendipity, PT Anderson managed to wrangle Radiohead’s guitarist and composer, Jonny Greenwood. Greenwood did score a film prior to THERE WILL BE BLOOD but it was a little known documentary that gave Greenwood free reign to experiment without any real format. Creating music for THERE WILL BE BLOOD was an entirely different beast; this was a period piece based loosely off a novel, and Greenwood would have to meet not only the expectations of the PTA fanbase but that of his own, not to mention make it a relevant and appropriate work of music.

He succeeded with flying colors. The strength of his score for THERE WILL BE BLOOD lies in Greenwood’s purposeful malevolence in rendering the colors and tones of the various pieces comprising the body of the soundtrack. He intended, out and out, to unsettle and violate the conceived expectation of what the period music would sound like. He did use traditional strings and maintained the proper elements through the whole film, but he subverted more often than not, seeking purposefully to disturb the listener with dissonant electronics and tense moods that underlined every scene of the film with a powerful dread or creeping anxiety. It could’ve easily been the score to a powerhouse horror film but instead, it became a great example of how a score can unwrap a film’s true life; one of bleak misanthropy and gritty fatalism.

Last, but not least, is Kevin Shield’s “score” for LOST IN TRANSLATION, Sofia Coppola’s second film after THE VIRGIN SUICIDES. Unlike the soundtrack for THE VIRGIN SUICIDES, which consisted entirely of songs written by various artists, LOST IN TRANSLATION’s score was composed by Kevin Shields, he of the critically adored My Bloody Valentine. Much of the music in the film was chosen together by Coppola and Shields, but the pieces Shields wrote for the soundtrack are as appealing and wonderful as any song that appears during the film’s narrative. What’s vital to the sweet taste of the score’s placement alongside the film is how very intimate their relationship is; Sofia is as much to be credited for the music as Shields, and that’s disappointingly rare in the world of film.

What a breath of fresh air it is to hear a whole collection of music that is as much a part of the beating heart of a film as the visuals are; the songs and pieces are probably, out of the entire spectrum of scores presented, the most appealing outside of their original context. It has been said, and it holds true, that the Kevin Shields-created tracks from this soundtrack are the My Bloody Valentine songs that never existed, but that’s not entirely accurate. These are far more enjoyable and accessible than the noise-pop of My Bloody Valentine and, by necessity, they ring a far more potent range of emotion than his former band could marshal (if anything, it echoes the synth wonder of Air, the French band who assembled the music for THE VIRGIN SUICIDES). Of particular note is the end piece, simply titled “Goodbye”. Paired with what I personally consider the most effective and moving endings I’ve seen from a romance film (even succeeding BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN’s heartbreaking tragedy), it struck a powerful broadcast that most of the film’s fans will enthusiastically endorse.

These three scores are what I personally would label as objectively possible as “The Best Of The Decade”, but that’s keeping in mind my own slight bias. With that, I’m ending my reign of attempted objectivity. I love and appreciate all three of the aforementioned soundtracks, but they are not as personally meaningful as the next five, and the fact is that I’m simply not talented or patient enough to craft an entire list of ten films I could objectively rate and be satisfied with. Instead, I’ll be highlighting my personal favorites and explaining why they, above all, make my five favorite film scores of the past decade. Still, a reminder; these past five films are what I focus on as being, objectively, the best films scores of the past decade. The next five are my own personal picks.

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Born in the suburbs of Saint Louis, the son of a letter carrier and a Western Union operator. A nonidentical twin and born geek, raised on a healthy diet of Super Nintendo, Ray Bradbury, and early Santana (involuntarily). An aspiring writer of all things strange, dabbling in electronic music, working overnights at the local grocery. Helping the environment by not driving anywhere. Lower your expectations.