Debuting at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, here’s a look at the new trailer and posters for SICARIO.
From director Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners, Incendies) comes a searing emotional-thriller that descends into the intrigue, corruption and moral mayhem of the borderland drug wars.
When Arizona FBI agent and kidnap-response-team leader Kate Macer (Golden Globe winner Emily Blunt) uncovers a Mexican cartel’s house of death, her shocking find leads to profound consequences on both a personal and global level.
Kate is recruited to join a covert black-ops mission headed by a mysterious Colombian operative known only as Alejandro (Academy Award winner Benicio Del Toro, Best Supporting Actor, Traffic, 2000) along with special agent Matt Graver (Academy Award nominee Josh Brolin, Best Supporting Actor, Milk, 2008).
Even as Kate tries to convince herself she’s on a hunt for justice, she is thrust into the dark heart of a secret battleground that has swept up ruthless cartels, kill-crazy assassins, clandestine American spies and thousands of innocents.
The jagged line of the U.S. and Mexican border is now awash in some of the most pressing questions of our times – drugs, terror, illegal immigration, corruption and an escalating swath of dark crime that has left people on both sides frightened and vigilant.
Sicario explores the journey of an intelligence operation that pushes the rules to engage with those who don’t play by any.
Written by Taylor Sheridan, the behind-the-scenes team, who bring to life the unseen no-man’s-land that lies on, and below, the U.S.-Mexico border, includes eleven-time Oscar nominated Director of Photography Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC (True Grit, 2010; No Country for Old Men, 2007), Oscar nominated Production Designer Patrice Vermette (The Young Victoria, 2009; Prisoners, C.R.A.Z.Y.), Oscar-nominated Editor Joe Walker, ACE (12 Years a Slave, 2013), Visual Effects Supervisor Louis Morin, Costume Designer Renée April (Prisoners, The Day After Tomorrow), Casting by Francine Maisler, and Music by Oscar nominated composer Jóhann Jóhannsson (The Theory of Everything, 2014; Prisoners).
Varèse Sarabande will release the SICARIO – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack digitally and on CD September 18, 2015, the same day that the Lionsgate film premieres in limited release, before opening wide on September 25.
Varèse Sarabande will release the SICARIO – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack digitally and on CD September 18, 2015, the same day that the Lionsgate film premieres in limited release, before opening wide on September 25.
The album features original music by Academy Award nominated composer Jóhann Jóhannsson (THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING, PRISONERS).
SICARIO debuted at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, earning rave reviews for both the film and the score. Vanity Fair Magazine called the score “rumbling, evocative” and “he (Jóhannsson) has a wonderful knack for balancing eye-popping technical flourishes with more organic texture and mood.”
Sicario is Jóhannsson’s second collaboration with director Denis Villeneuve, for whom he scored the 2013 film PRISONERS.
“Denis didn’t use temp music while editing, so I began writing the music with a completely blank slate. This was both daunting and exhilarating,” said Jóhannsson. “Like Prisoners, it’s quite tense and has a certain sense of dread, but the instrumentation is very different. While Prisoners had practically no drums at all, there is a lot of percussion in Sicario; I recorded 5 different drummers and did a lot of electronic manipulation of the recordings.”
A video posted by Jóhann Jóhannsson (@johann_johannss) on
Jóhann Jóhannsson is a Berlin-based composer originally from Iceland. His varied and eclectic output includes commissioned works for Bang on A Can, Theatre of Voices and the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra as well as a collaboration with the New York-based experimental filmmaker Bill Morrison on the film The Miners’ Hymns. His debut album “Englabörn” appeared in 2002 and he has since released 5 solo albums on the labels Touch and 4AD.
Writing music for plays, dance and theatrical performances led to work on film soundtracks. Jóhannsson has scored more than a dozen movies, including The Good Life (Eva Mulvad, DK 2010), Varmints (Marc Craste, UK 2008) and For Ellen (So Yong Kim, US 2012) before his recent work with director Denis Villeneuve on Prisoners and Josh C. Waller on McCanick. His music has also found a home in art house films across the globe, from Lou Ye’s Mystery (CN 2011) to Janos Szazs’ prize winning drama, Le Grand Cahier (HU 2013).
Jóhannsson was awarded a Golden Globe in January 2015 for Best Film Score for The Theory of Everything, directed by James Marsh. His music for the film also earned Jóhannsson both Oscar and BAFTA nominations for best original score. (Interview)
In Mexico, SICARIO means hitman. In the lawless border area stretching between the U.S. and Mexico, an idealistic FBI agent (Emily Blunt) is enlisted by an elite government task force official (Josh Brolin) to aid in the escalating war against drugs. Led by an enigmatic consultant with a questionable past (Benicio Del Toro), the team sets out on a clandestine journey forcing Kate to question everything that she believes in order to survive.
“I was partly inspired by the spectral writing of composers like Gerard Grisey and Horatiu Radulescu while the percussive aspect of the score was partly inspired by the group Swans – I wanted to capture a kind of relentlessly slow and mournful but still ferocious and brutal energy,” Jóhannsson described. “I used a combination of 65-piece orchestra and individual soloists, combined with extensive electronic manipulation of the recordings, to create the score. The orchestral writing is textural rather than melodic.”
Earlier this month, we showed you the first photos from the upcoming film SICARIO.
Today you get a first look at the poster for director Denis Villeneuve’s searing emotional-thriller that descends into the intrigue, corruption and moral mayhem of the borderland drug wars.
Lionsgate’s drama will screen this month In Competition at the Cannes Film Festival 2015.
When Arizona FBI agent and kidnap-response-team leader Kate Macer (Golden Globe winner Emily Blunt) uncovers a Mexican cartel’s house of death, her shocking find leads to profound consequences on both a personal and global level. Kate is recruited to join a covert black-ops mission headed by a mysterious Colombian operative known only as Alejandro (Academy Award winner Benicio Del Toro, Best Supporting Actor, Traffic, 2000) along with special agent Matt Graver (Academy Award nominee Josh Brolin, Best Supporting Actor, Milk, 2008).
Even as Kate tries to convince herself she’s on a hunt for justice, she is thrust into the dark heart of a secret battleground that has swept up ruthless cartels, kill-crazy assassins, clandestine American spies and thousands of innocents.
The jagged line of the U.S. and Mexican border is now awash in some of the most pressing questions of our times – drugs, terror, illegal immigration, corruption and an escalating swath of dark crime that has left people on both sides frightened and vigilant. SICARIO explores the journey of an intelligence operation that pushes the rules to engage with those who don’t play by any.
With the screenplay by Taylor Sheridan, Villeneuve closely collaborated with editor Joe Walker, who recently garnered an Oscar nomination for TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE, to carve out the film’s high-anxiety rhythms. He also reunited with PRISONERS composer Jóhann Jóhannsson, the Icelandic native known for his entrancing melodies and insistent percussion, who created a haunting aural backdrop for Sicario that matches the film’s fierce action and lingering emotions.
Earlier this year, Jóhann Jóhannsson received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score for his work on THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING. Read our interview with the Oscar nominated composer HERE.
Villeneuve is currently in pre-production on two additional projects Story of Your Life, starring Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner and Forest Whitaker and the Untitled Blade Runner Project, starring Harrison Ford and Ryan Gosling.
SICARIO is a visceral inside portrait of the drug wars. It exposes a world of hard questions and even harder answers while testing human and emotional strength in a world where one is forced to grapple with emotions, desire and morality where there is no clarity and the only inviolable law is the law of staying alive to fight another day.
Also featuring Victor Garber and Jon Bernthal, SICARIO opens in theaters on September 18, 2015 (limited) & September 25, 2015 (wide).
Lionsgate has announced that their upcoming drama, SICARIO, will open on September 18, 2015 in limited release and September 25, 2015 in wide release.
The cast includes Emily Blunt, Benicio del Toro, Josh Brolin, Jon Bernthal and is from director Denis Villeneuve.
In the lawless border area stretching between the U.S. and Mexico, an idealistic FBI agent (Emily Blunt) is exposed to the brutal world of international drug trafficking by members of a government task force (Josh Brolin, Benicio Del Toro) who have enlisted her in their plan to take out a Mexican cartel boss.
The film, scored by Jóhann Jóhannsson (THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING), is the composer’s second collaboration with Villeneuve (PRISONERS). Read our interview with Jóhannsson HERE. The cinematography is from Roger Deakins.
SICARIO is written by Taylor Sheridan and produced by Basil Iwanyk, Molly Smith, Trent Luckinbill, Thad Luckinbill, Edward McDonnell.
Filming began on June 30, 2014 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Jerry Goldsmith, PLANET OF THE APES (1968) Nominee for Best Original Score for a Motion Picture
By Michelle McCue and Melissa Thompson
As 2014 comes to a close, we take a look back at some of the best movie music from this past year. The backbone of any movie, audiences heard rocket engines roar, traveled through LEGO worlds and made spiritual connections all thanks to the musical vision of the composer.
In a mix that was soulful, haunting and fun, this year’s soundtracks covered a range of emotions, from light to dark, to atmospheric and assaultive.
Our Top 15 scores wouldn’t be complete without an honorable mention…
Michael Giacchino – DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES
The story about the birth of a civilization and “restart” for the planet Earth was no more prevalent than with the emotional reality of composer Michael Giacchino’s score. Director Matt Reeves’ sequel to 2011’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes found its musical language through the empathetic sounds of the apes in the environment Caesar has created for them.
Making his fifth collaboration with filmmaker Christopher Nolan, composer Hans Zimmer steered clear of any musical expressions he’d explored in the past with the director, and invented a whole new palette for the film with the earthy yet elevating notes of an organ.
We went for a spectacular adventure on a journey into the universe and Zimmer’s score gave humanity’s mission to the stars a very primeval quality.
2. Alexandre Desplat – THE IMITATION GAME, GODZILLA and THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL
Three of the best scores this year, six-time Academy Award Nominee Alexandre Desplat’s music was heard by audiences throughout 2014.
Desplat developed one of his most unusual scores for THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL – one played entirely without traditional orchestral instruments. Instead, he brought in a host of Central European instruments, including balalaikas and the cimbalom, a type of hammered dulcimer common to Eastern European gypsy music.
With THE IMITATION GAME, the composer took us to the Bletchley Park codebreaking centre and inside the Enigma machine. Desplat may see his first Oscar win with his beautiful score to the Alan Turing biopic.
Lastly with the great force of GODZILLA propelling the action and keeping the tension high, Desplat made a big sonic impact with the music. “I’ve never done a monster movie before, so coming to this with more than a hundred musicians—double brass, double horns—allowed me to open the frame of my imagination to another territory, and that’s very exciting.”
3. Jóhann Jóhannsson – THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING
Filled with a charming score, composer Jóhann Jóhannsson’s music for director James Marsh’s THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING was a mix of orchestral instruments and synthesized sounds giving the story of astrophysicist Stephen Hawking and Jane Wilde an ethereal, lovely sound.
David Fincher returned again to work with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (THE SOCIAL NETWORK, THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO) for the surging undertow to GONE GIRL.
Trent Reznor said, “In terms of the palette of sounds what’s unique on this one is that we used a more organic, less synthetic soundscape. We didn’t want it to feel too slick so we used a lot of interesting homemade equipment. There are moments where the rhythm is just me tapping on a wooden box so it feels repetitive but drifts around a bit like a human heartbeat.”
5. Antonio Sánchez – BIRDMAN or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance
Drums, cymbals, sticks, mallets and rods were used for the percussion heavy score in director Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s BIRDMAN or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance. Four-time Grammy Award winner and composer Antonio Sanchez effectively sets the pace and rhythm to convey Riggan Thomson’s (Michael Keaton) tonal tightrope between comedy and pathos, illusion and reality.
Composer John Powell’s fantastic soundtrack on HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 was filled with emotional triumphant orchestral pieces and a resounding chorus making it one of our favorites scores of the year.
7. Henry Jackman – BIG HERO 6, THE INTERVIEW and CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER
Jackman had three big scores in 2014.
He composed a grandiose action score for North Korea’s favorite film – THE INTERVIEW. While building on his previous collaboration with Evan Golderberg and Seth Rogen on THIS IS THE END, Jackman scored the film as if it were a classic action-blockbuster to ground the film’s comedic moments. Jackman also created a score that celebrated the comic-book style action of BIG HERO 6, while weaving in the original music from American rock band Fall Out Boy.
But none was more epic than Jackman’s contemporary take on his superhero score for CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER. Up next for Jackman is Kingsman: Secret Service and Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War.
Just as Price did on his Oscar-winning score for GRAVITY, where the sounds of radio waves were incorporated into the score, the British composer was able to find a distinctive voice for the music of FURY by using unusual and unconventional instruments in a fusion with the orchestral, choral and solo writing featured throughout. The daunting sounds put the audience inside the WWII tanks alongside Brad Pitt and his crew.
Marco Beltrami’ s created a rustic sounding landscape in director Tommy Lee Jones’ THE HOMESMAN. Alongside his work on SNOWPIERCER, THE GIVER and THE NOVEMBER MAN in 2014, the Oscar-nominated composer’s score for THE HOMESMAN evoked the desolation of the homesteaders by drawing out the essence of the wind with an innovative wind piano that contained 175 feet long wires.
10. James Newton Howard – MALEFICENT and THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY – PART 1
The sweeping emotions and volatile moods of THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY – PART 1 and MALEFICENT are evoked not only in the performances and visual designs but in the music, which once again is driven by an original orchestral score from eight time Oscar nominee James Newton Howard. The music for both films cover the whole breadth of experience from scenes of epic action to moments of epic heartache and intimate poignancy.
Howard also composed the score for Dan Gilroy’s NIGHTCRAWLER and Edward Zwick’s PAWN SACRIFICE.
11. Hanan Townshend – THE BETTER ANGELS
Directed by A.J. Edwards, executive produced by Terrence Malick with a beautiful score by Hanan Townshend (TO THE WONDER), THE BETTER ANGELS music took a poetic approach to Abraham Lincoln’s childhood in the harsh wilderness of Indiana.
12. EDGE OF TOMORROW – Christophe Beck
The composer created a score that captured the suspense, the action and the fun of Cage (Tom Cruise) and Rita’s (Emily Blunt) extraordinary journey in director Doug Liman’s awesome EDGE OF TOMORROW.
Combining a rich orchestral score with familiar rock tunes, composer Tyler Bates’ score for director James Gunn’s GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY was one of the most popular of the year.
The soundtrack featured classic 1970s songs like Blue Swede’s “Hooked on a Feeling,” “I’m Not in Love” by 10cc, Redbone’s “Come and Get Your Love,” and The Runaways’ “Cherry Bomb.”
Bates also composed the score for the heart-pounding revenge thriller JOHN WICK starring Keanu Reeves.
Another beautiful score from composer Alex Ebert (ALL IS LOST), the haunting music for director J.C. Chandor’s A MOST VIOLENT YEAR transported audiences into the treacherous yet stunning landscape of NYC, 1981. Ebert’s score uses piano, synth, and percussion to capture the tension and emotional pressure faced by Oscar Isaac’s Abel Morales, as he fights to protect his business and family.
Displaying his versatility, Ebert also recently composed the score for Disney’s animated short FEAST, which is currently being shown in theaters prior to BIG HERO 6.
Brick by Brick, composer Mark Mothersbaugh’s fun score for THE LEGO MOVIE
Filmgoers went along for the hilarious ride with Emmet, Wyldstyle, Vitruvius, Lord Business, Unikitty, Batman, Benny the Spaceman and Bad Cop/Good Cop and it truly was the most AWESOME time at a movie theater this year!
Listen as The Hollywood Reporter discusses with Marco Beltrami (The Homesman), Danny Elfman (Big Eyes), John Powell (How To Train Your Dragon 2), Trent Reznor (Gone Girl) and Hans Zimmer (Interstellar) the process behind scoring the top films of the year.
From Focus Features comes the inspirational drama THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING. Starring Eddie Redmayne & Felicity Jones, the opens in select cities this Friday, November 7th.
Starring Eddie Redmayne (“Les Misérables”) and Felicity Jones (“The Amazing Spider-Man 2”), this is the extraordinary story of one of the world’s greatest living minds, the renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, who falls deeply in love with fellow Cambridge student Jane Wilde.
Once a healthy, active young man, Hawking received an earth-shattering diagnosis at 21 years of age. With Jane fighting tirelessly by his side, Stephen embarks on his most ambitious scientific work, studying the very thing he now has precious little of – time. Together, they defy impossible odds, breaking new ground in medicine and science, and achieving more than they could ever have dreamed.
Based on the memoir Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen, director James Marsh went with Icelandic composer and musician Jóhann Jóhannssonfor the movie’s score. Prior to the film’s release, Mr. Jóhannsson spoke with me over the phone about capturing the emotional themes for the moving and unusual love story that is THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING.
Mr. Jóhannsson started studying piano and trombone when he was 11 years old. In high school, he ceased formal music studies. At age 18, he started performing in rock bands in Reykjavik, and continued to for 10 years after studying literature and languages at university; he concentrated on feedback-saturated compositions, using layers of guitar to sculpt soundscapes. Setting the latter instrument aside, he started writing music for strings, woodwinds, and chamber ensembles – and combining acoustic and digital electronic sounds for a unique, seamless blend.
Among Mr. Jóhannsson’s notable compositions is “IBM 1401 – A User’s Manual,” incorporating sounds that his father, one of Iceland’s first computer programmers, created. He has recently done two ambitious multimedia projects with filmmaker Bill Morrison, including an expanded Calder Quartet interpretation of the latter composition; and “The Miners’ Hymns,” which pays tribute to the coal-mining culture of Durham, England, and which he performed with the American Contemporary Music Ensemble and brass bands at venues in the U.S. last winter.
His varied discography also includes Virthulegu Forsetar, a fanfare for pipe organ and brass; Fordlandia, a cinematic ode to the city that Henry Ford tried to build in the Amazon jungle; and “Copenhagen Dreams,” a visual and musical reflection on the city and its people.
In 1999, Mr. Jóhannsson was a founding member of Kitchen Motors, an art collective that encouraged collaboration among practitioners of jazz, classical, punk, metal, and electronic music. His first solo album, Englabörn, was a suite based on music written for the troupe’s theater piece of the same name. Writing music for plays, and for dance and theatrical performances, led to film.
He has since scored a number of movies, including Eva Mulvad’s documentary feature The Good Life; Marc Craste’s animated short Varmints; So Yong Kim’s For Ellen, starring Paul Dano; Lou Ye’s Mystery; Josh C. Waller’s McCanick, starring David Morse and Cory Monteith; János Szász’s Le grand cahier (a.k.a. The Notebook); Phie Ambo’s documentary Free the Mind; and Denis Villeneuve’s hit PRISONERS, starring Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal, on which Mr. Jóhannsson cultivated large string and woodwind presences as well as the distinctive Cristal Baschet and Ondes Martenot instruments.
WAMG: I was listening to the soundtrack again last night – it’s absolutely lovely. It has an old world classical charm about it, as if it was from a film in the 1960’s.
Jóhann Jóhannsson: Oh thank you.
WAMG: The film’s warm, romantic look about a scientist was further enhanced by your score – what made you choose the piano to convey the story?
JJ: We went with the piano as the lead instrument because it’s a film about an astrophysicist, a cosmologist, but it’s also very much a love story. The story about the relationship between Stephen and Jane – it’s this odd love story at heart. We needed to emphasize the emotion and humanity of the story.
Of course, the science of the physics is also a part of the story and a part of Hawking’s life and character, but the relationships are really the heart of the film. I didn’t formulate the piano – it kind of suggested itself naturally. When I tried to analyze it, I found it to be very expressive and precise instrument. It has this mathematical and mechanical kind of quality to it which unites the emotions and human aspects with the cerebral, scientific parts.
WAMG: You can hear a four-note piano ostinato throughout the film’s score – it’s so simple but it’s a lovely theme.
JJ: Yes, the first track on the soundtrack, “1963,” which is the music for the intro of the film, was a theme that came early on in the process. It’s a theme that needed a kinetic, driving quality that suggested a young Hawking in the full vigor of his youth as a young doctoral student at Cambridge. We had to capture that energy and the first theme shows him cycling at full speed through the cobblestone streets. That four-note motif needed a lot of power and the way that I harmonized that motif became the building blocks for many of the subsequent cues.
The four-note motif is deconstructed, played in a minor mode to break it up and used throughout the score. Regarding the harmony, I used it from the first to the last cues. It’s this lecture theme at the end of the film where Hawking is being acclaimed as this great scientific mind and he delivers this lecture where he’s demonstrating his ideas about life and God and the Universe.
The intro appears there again in a very thoughtful and philosophical mode for a much more serene kind of version.
WAMG: A few of the tracks like “The Spacetime Singularity” and “The Theory of Everything” mix in orchestral instruments along with synthesized sounds. With those themes, did the director James Marsh tell you what he was looking for beforehand and were you going for a lofty tonality?
JJ: A lot of the score is very orchestral, but there are cues like “The Spacetime Singularity” that are more ethereal and studio creations.
WAMG: I like the blend of the music with the mechanized sounds.
JJ: I love doing that. It’s my signature sound in many ways. For example, the score I did for PRISONERS is much more in that vein where I do a lot of blending of orchestral instruments with electronic sounds. They’re not really electronic, they’re more of an acoustic recording which I treat and process and create these soundscapes out of.
I love these homogeneous textures that work well with a live orchestra, so it almost becomes one sound. It’s something I really enjoy doing.
WAMG: Who are your favorite film score composers?
JJ: There are so many but one of the first I got obsessive about, way back, was Bernard Herrmann. He’s remained one of my favorites. I really love his writing. His relentlessness and beauty the of his harmonies – Also his simplicity. He’s a very minimalist composer, even though he predates minimalism.
I love Ennio Morricone. I’m a huge fan. I love his 60’s and 70’s scores. Amazing experimentation he went through and creating his amazing sounds in the studio. Of course, his melodies and orchestrations are remarkable.
JJ: I’m in the middle of a film score right now with Denis Villeneuve from PRISONERS. He’s doing a new film called SICARIO (2015) starring Benicio del Toro, Emily Blunt, and Josh Brolin and that’s very exciting.
WAMG: My thanks to Mr. Jóhannsson for taking the time to discuss his score for THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING.
Wind back the clock with Eddie Redmayne & Felicity Jones in a new clip & behind-the-scenes footage from THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING.
Starring Eddie Redmayne (“Les Misérables”) and Felicity Jones (“The Amazing Spider-Man 2”), this is the extraordinary story of one of the world’s greatest living minds, the renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, who falls deeply in love with fellow Cambridge student Jane Wilde.
Once a healthy, active young man, Hawking received an earth-shattering diagnosis at 21 years of age. With Jane fighting tirelessly by his side, Stephen embarks on his most ambitious scientific work, studying the very thing he now has precious little of – time. Together, they defy impossible odds, breaking new ground in medicine and science, and achieving more than they could ever have dreamed.
The film is based on the memoir Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen, and is directed by Academy Award winner James Marsh (“Man on Wire”).
Composer Jóhann Jóhannsson scores the film and the soundtrack will be available on November 4th on Back Lot Music.
The film boasts a beautifully poignant score by Jóhannsson depicting the ups and downs of their love story as Hawking faces a virtual death sentence from ALS. Jóhannsson’s score includes his signature blend of acoustic instruments and electronics. A keystone composer in the modern classical movement, Jóhannsson is distinguished by his ability to create soundscapes by electronically manipulating orchestral instrumentation, with an emotional range that spans from inspirational to harrowing. Jóhannsson explains, “It always involves the layers of live recordings, whether it’s orchestra or a band or solo instrument, with electronics and more soundscape-y elements which can come from various sources.”
“It’s a film about an astrophysicist, but it’s in essence a love story,” explains Jóhannsson. “The music stems in a way from the tension between the Hawking the man and Hawking the scientist. Most of the score is derived from very simple elements that are announced in the first frames of the film — a four-note piano ostinato which then slowly expands into more complex forms and appears and re-appears evolved, deconstructed and re-assembled in various renderings throughout the film.”
THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING opens in select cities starting Friday, November 7th.
Composer Jóhann Jóhannsson scores Focus Features’ THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING, directed by James Marsh.
World-premiering next month at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival in advance of its November release in the U.S and Canada, THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING stars Eddie Redmayne (“Les Misérables”) and Felicity Jones (“The Amazing Spider-Man 2”) in the extraordinary story of one of the world’s greatest living minds, the renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, who falls deeply in love with fellow Cambridge student Jane Wilde.
Jóhann Jóhannsson’s previous film credits include last year’s thriller PRISONERS, starring Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal, as well as the crime drama MCCANICK starring David Morse and Cory Monteith’s final appearance in a feature film.
In THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING, once a healthy, active young man, Hawking received an earth-shattering diagnosis at 21 years of age. With Jane fighting tirelessly by his side, Stephen embarks on his most ambitious scientific work, studying the very thing he now has precious little of – time. Together, they defy impossible odds, breaking new ground in medicine and science, and achieving more than they could ever have dreamed.
The screenplay by Anthony McCarten is based on the memoir Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen, by Jane Hawking, and is directed by Academy Award winner James Marsh (“Man on Wire”). The film’s cast also includes Charlie Cox (“Daredevil”), Academy Award nominee Emily Watson, Simon McBurney (“Magic in the Moonlight”), and David Thewlis (“Harry Potter”).
THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING opens in select cities starting November 7th.
The film boasts a beautifully poignant score by Jóhannsson depicting the ups and downs of their love story as Hawking faces a virtual death sentence from ALS.
Jóhannsson’s lovely score includes his signature blend of acoustic instruments and electronics. A keystone composer in the modern classical movement, Jóhannsson is distinguished by his ability to create soundscapes by electronically manipulating orchestral instrumentation, with an emotional range that spans from inspirational to harrowing. Jóhannsson explains,“It always involves the layers of live recordings, whether it’s orchestra or a band or solo instrument, with electronics and more soundscape-y elements which can come from various sources.”
Named a Top 12 Film Composer “On The Rise” in 2014 by Indiewire, Jóhannsson began his career composing for theater, so transitioning into film was a natural progression, as well as his involvement in scoring experimental video art projects. Jóhannsson compositions have been released through the legendary label 4AD, including IBM 1401: A User’s manual, an album composed of the sounds of an old mainframe computer.
Other recent projects include the indie dramaI Am Here, starring Kim Basinger. He is currently scoring the crime drama Sicario, starring Emily Blunt and Benicio Del Toro, in theaters 2015.
Contributed by Melissa Thompson and Michelle McCue
The sets. The hair and makeup. The cinematography. The story. The sound. All of the work of talented crafts people are pulled together under the very heart of any good movie – the score.
With the Academy Award nominations on Thursday, January 16, looming like the drumline at the head of a marching band, we thought we’d have a look back at some of the finer scores of 2013.
Listen and watch a handful of Hollywood’s leading composers discuss the art of scoring a film in The Hollywood Reporter’s round table discussion. With one hundred fourteen scores from 2013 vying for nominations in the Original Score category for the 86th Oscars, we suspect some of these names will be announced .
Honorable Mention: INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS from T Bone Burnett.
The soundtrack for INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS transported us to another time and place. The documentary feeling of the film stems from the Coens Brothers decision to shoot and record the music live with no playback and we joined right in the folk-song revival.
For more on the music, read a Q&A with T Bone Burnett HERE.
1. GRAVITY – Steven Price
For Alfonso Cuarón’s thriller, Price created a groundbreaking score, blurring the lines between electronic and organic sounds, incorporating a wide range of elements, from glass harmonicas to string and brass sections. The score captures the on-screen emotion and vacuum of space as another character in the film and left our hearts pounding.
American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Mike Patton, best known as the lead singer of the alternative metal/experimental rock bands Mr. Bungle and Faith No More, has composed a brooding and emotionally charged original score. Patton’s music guides the viewer through this multi-generational drama, linking characters, time periods, and locations with a harmonic convergence of jazz, folk, rock, blues and classical.
Patton’s score features an eclectic selection of music including selections by Arvo Part and Ennio Morricone.
3. ALL IS LOST – Alex Ebert
In a film so devoid of dialogue, this great musical score assumed special importance. Director J.C. Chandor turned to acclaimed singer-songwriter Alex Ebert, leader of the band Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, to compose the film’s score—his first such project.
“It was sort of a shocker in some ways,” says Ebert. “It’s amazing that J.C. would have that kind of faith in someone who hadn’t scored a film.”
Ebert says Chandor initially asked him to deliver very subdued materials, drones and low notes that sustained over scenes. He also specifically requested that the instrumentation avoid piano. That was challenging for the composer, who had already written some pieces on piano, but he understood Chandor’s reasoning.
“The piano has this inherent emotion to it,” he says. “We didn’t want anything that was ’emotion in a can’ or ‘tension in a can.’ But eventually I started taking more chances, and after some back and forth with J.C., we landed in this middle spot that I think was perfect.”
“It’s about beauty,” he says. “It’s emotional and everything that comes along with life and death, and nothing less. I think that’s the primary subject of humanity—and it’s something that you might want to stay away from because it would be overdramatic. But this dude’s in the middle of the ocean on a raft. Let the music be emotional because it is emotional. We followed the movie’s lead.”
The very emotional score from Alexandre Desplat’s PHILOMENA broke our hearts. We laughed and cried from beginning to end with Philomena Lee’s heart-wrenching story.
5. OBLIVION – Anthony Gonzalez, M83, Joseph Trapanese
The score was one of the best of 2013 and an intregral part of OBLIVION’s sci-fi landscape.
Jackman displays versatility in capturing both the intense, desperation and terror in the story of Captain Richard Phillips’ hostage situation with Somali pirates as well as the humanity of the circumstances. Hitting the right musical balance of drama and intensity was a challenge in minimalism for Jackman, so as not to manipulate the audience.
7. NEBRASKA – Mark Orton
A member of the bluegrass folk collective Tin Hat, Orton’s vibe for Americana music was sought out by director Alexander Payne. Horns, acoustic strings and organ are some of the primary elemental instruments fueling the musical emotion to this story, capturing both the vast landscape and people of the flyover states. Orton, a graduate of the Sundance Filmmaker Institute, also scored the music to the 2014 Sundance premiere Drunktown’s Finest.
A celebrated musician and former member of the platinum-selling group Simply Red, Pereira sings to the hearts of children through his scores for Despicable Me 2. The sequel, which follows the further adventures of the notorious spy Gru, Pereira created specific themes for the new characters, specifically 1960s romantic comedy tones for his love interest Lucy and Latin-mariachi rhythms for the evil El Macho.
9. SAVING MR. BANKS – Thomas Newman
Newman has composed music for nearly 100 motion pictures and television series and has earned 11 Academy Award® nominations and six Grammy® Awards. His score goes hand-in-hand with the back story of Walt Disney and PJ Travers making of MARY POPPINS and left us looking for tissues by the film’s end.
10. FROZEN – Christophe Beck
The second of Disney’s movies that showed young girls it was okay to be their very own heroes!
11. RUSH – Hans Zimmer
With their collaborations on blockbusters from The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons to more intimate projects such as Frost/Nixon, director Ron Howard and Hans Zimmer, a Grammy, Golden Globe and Academy Award® winner, once again joined forces for the sounds of RUSH.
Balancing the racers’ simple desires with their frenetic-yet-controlled behavior on the track was a challenge for Howard and Zimmer as they created the soundtrack to the film. The composer captured the spirit of the Formula 1 world.
12. EPIC – Danny Elfman
The rousing score for The Leaf-Men. Enough said.
13. PACIFIC RIM – Ramin Djawadi
Okay, so maybe it didn’t live up to everyone’s expectations, but hot damn if the score to PACIFIC RIM wasn’t one of the coolest of 2013. Made us want to suit up as Jaeger pilots and make a last stand in our ‘Gipsy Danger’.
14. WORLD WAR Z – Marco Beltrami
Animal skulls and teeth combined with percussion add to the tension of utter panic and anxiety in a world being overrun by a Zombie pandemic.
Giving you the sense of dread and desperation, Jóhann Jóhannsson’s score for PRISONERS left us with aches and chills over a parent’s worst nightmare.
We couldn’t end our list without a quick mention for composer Alan Silvestri’s music for THE CROODS. While the film score conveyed beautiful themes and resonated on a deeper level than words could ever say, we were fans of how Silvestri combined the Abbey Road Orchestra and the USC Trojan Marching Band… especially the percussion section!
