Into It
I don’t know how old this report is, but it’s a more-than-worthwhile visit with Social Network composer Trent Reznor by N.Y. Times “Carpetbagger” Melena Ryzik. Best Picture is a lost cause, but it would be terrific, at least, if Reznor could win the Oscar for Best Score.
If you keep making great posts I will come back every day to keep reading!
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It seems you are playing a disingenuous game of jinx/anti-jinx. You won’t jinx it if you say you want it to win and it has a good chance.
I think you are more over-the-top this year than previously, but I guess there must be some evidence that people are enjoying it.
Would be so great if these guys won. And it feels strange saying that because Alexandre Desplat is one of my favorite working film scorers. But his work on The King’s Speech was totally unmemorable, and if anything his score for Harry Potter should have been nominated instead.
I’d also be okay with a Hans Zimmer win. Hard to argue that his Inception score wasn’t the most iconic of the year, and it’s hard to think of that film without it.
Fincher is right, the score made the movie. It’s the best thing it has going for it. A mediocre story that has great direction, great cinematography and a score that is so outside the box.
Hardly a mediocre story but keep spreading that swill. Hope it’s paying off for you.
Zimmer should win
This would be awesome, but unlikely? Don’t they have a prejudice against rock musicians amongst the Score category?
I agree with zumpano I worry it’s too modern and edgy to win; though having said that I didn’t expect it even get nominated, let alone, win a Golden Globe…so maybe the Academy’ll surprise us all and give the bald fella to a non-traditional, non-orchestral score for a change (I think the last time they did was for Vangelis & “Chariots…”). Here’s hoping…then again, these are the people that thought James Horner’s “Titanic” score was worthy of an Oscar.
BTW Thnx for posting this Jeff, As a non US Reader I probably would have missed it otherwise…
Agreed. Too modern and edgy, but I think it does capture the moment very well. Not sure there’s an Oscar in it.
How is Reznor’s score “edgy”? Because it’s Trent Reznor? Edgy compared to boring orchestral muzak?
I hope Social Network wins this one. Great score without being obtrusive.
Zimmer? No way. Typical blockbuster bluster. Boring.
Action lover: I meant ” edgy” (speech marks intentional) in the eyes of the Academy – not mine…
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“Zimmer? No way. Typical blockbuster bluster. Boring.”
I’ve been critical of Zimmer in the past, but I would have to disagree with you on this one: maybe the INCEPTION music was bluster, but it wasn’t typical or boring.
Zimmer’s was typical blockbuster? What? You would think that after it came to light he slowed down Piaf’s song, and ramped up the horns for that ominous, and great opening (which is also important narratively) people would appreciate it more. It was a perfect complement to what was onscreen.
Reznor’s attempt to ape Tangerine Dream wasn’t as smooth. I can’t even say it helped the movie really. I can’t think of a single scene besides the Henley Regatta, where I even remember the combination of music with the scene. And that composition wasn’t even his.
Comparing Zimmer’s score to Reznor’s is a little pointless to me, seeing as they’re such different beasts…simmer’s is definitely closer to a traditional Hollywood score compared to Reznor’s, which is more sound design-y…
Rashad: surely the point is how well the score works in the movie not as music in it’s own right…
I liked both scores, I’d just sooner have TSN win as it’s the more unusual and atypical of the two (at least by Hollywood standards) and also I think Zimmer’s work on “Inception” is nowhere near as innovative as his scores for “The Dark knight” and “Sherlock Holmes” both of which should have one Oscar’s in my opinion
That’s the interesting thing about Reznor’s score. It doesn’t work by itself. But in the context of the film, it heightens everything. That scene where Zuckerberg’s creating Facesmash in his dorm with Eduardo and those beats kick in with the synth — just awesome. Makes hacking feel actually bad ass. But the instrumental piece alone is just okay.
In contrast, Zimmer’s score works as a stand alone score, but to me, didn’t work within the context of the film. It just felt, I dunno, disjointed. Maybe because I just didn’t think INCEPTION was very good. But my friend made the comment that the score didn’t work within the film either, so…
“That’s the interesting thing about Reznor’s score. It doesn’t work by itself.”
Really? I’ve been listening to it on my iPod repeatedly.
If Desplat wins it’ll be a travesty.
I have the album too. But I can only listen to one track (Pieces Form the Whole). The others, to me, only work when I’m visualizing the scene that they belong to. They’re not great stand-alone pieces — in my opinion. But man, they work well with the film.
I guess we disagree on that then. For me, there are several stand-out tracks – the obvious ones being ‘Hand Covers Bruise’ and ‘In Motion,” but also several throughout the album.
I loved Zimmer’s work on Inception, but just think that The Social Network is that bit more unique and innovative (for a Hollywood film) that it deserves recognition this year.
Zimmer has been great recently, though. For a while he was coasting a bit, and a lot of his scores seemed like rehashes of others, or meshed-together assemblies from various Remote Control composers. But it seems he’s taken a more hands-on role recently and has upped his game considerably. Even the contrast of quality between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight is significant.
Rachel Portman’s score for Never Let Me Go should have been ahead of Desplat. And I thought Daft Punk would have got a look in.
Daft Punk should have totally gotten a nom. I’ve been rocking out that soundtrack for a few weeks now. Really great stuff.
Agreed. Daft punk getting snubbed was criminal… But hopefully it won’t be the last score they do…
Daft Punk = Robbed of a nom. But they never would have won in a three way against Inception & Social Network.
But, question is do you award based on a film score ability to enhance the film or it’s ability to innovate as a score? Personally, Inception while not as edgy (barf) as TSN, is the more manages to accomplish both. The music keeps the movie chugging is so many ways, it’s absolutely intergral to the films propulsive structure. And besides, it’s kind of great the music is an actual device in the plot and that the entire score was built around that single piece of music. Pretty inovative…
You want to know a real crime? I just realized that Nick Cave & Warren Ellis never got nothin for their score for Assasination of Jesse James. God that movie got the shaft. That score is magical.
Another crime, my spelling & punctuation. Jesus!
Well, of course Daft Punk, wouldn’t have won…but it would been nice to see them get nominated…
Sandwich: in answer to your question it should preferably do both, but enhancing the film has to come first – otherwise it’s not fulfilling one of the primary goals of film music – to support the action on screen, if it’s innovative too so much the better; but there have been plenty of great (and Oscar-winning) scores that aren’t the least bit innovative…
As I said before I love both scores and I’d be happy if either won, however I’m rooting for TSN a little more because, as composer myself, ANY film that has the guts to go with something other than just the typical “100 piece orchestra wailing over the top of every scene” that has become the norm in Hollywood, deserves to be congratulated…
“Rashad: surely the point is how well the score works in the movie not as music in it’s own right…”
I never said it did; I said it wasn’t memorable to the scenes.
Zimmer’s score was to me, and his first track is even entwined within the narrative of the film.
“Reznor’s attempt to ape Tangerine Dream wasn’t as smooth.”
Go away, D.Z. Jr.
I’m in agreement with most that the scores for both Inception and TSN are about equally brilliant, but nearly impossible to compare. Kind of hard to imagine the Academy going outside of their comfort zone and awarding the Oscar to a media iconoclast such as Reznor, but I guess that “old guard/new guard” dynamic is kind of in keeping with the spirit of Sunday’s narrative (which seems like had already been written by pundits as far back as October).
Lame as it sounds, I do think the victory is probably within the nomination for TSN — there was NO love for The Dust Brothers in ’99 when they delivered a very similar score (as “edgy” as that might have sounded in a mainstream film, that kind of music had already been around for a solid 15 years at that point). I guess what I’m saying is we can all look forward to a Daft Punk Oscar in 2020 when they’re commissioned to add the sound and music to Fincher’s Rendezvous with Rama.
Here’s hoping, anyway.
Well said Citizen
Rashad: Sorry you’re right, didn’t read it carefully enough. My bad.
Kaned, that isn’t me talking. Fincher told Reznor he wanted a Tangerine Dream 80s like score. That’s even why he compared this to a John Hughes picture. It’s the whole theme he was going for
I’m a bit surprised Jeff keeps posting videos from the NY Times.
Haven’t we established that rather than a group of skilled journalists deserving of remuneration that the Times staff is really a bunch of “jowly middle-aged slackers” who are “lucky to have a job,” and who need to “Wake up and smell the 21st Century?”
How are these people producing watchable Internet videos of interest to which Jeff is able to link for free??
Colour me confused!
Probably way late to this party, but glad CitizenKaned brought up Fight Club and Dust Brothers, with some perspective on it I agree with: Much as everyone’s crowing about the TSN score being some OF-THE-MOMENT super-hip with-it thing that the kids are all listening to!, it’s very much the trademark ’90s Reznor sound, with beats and blips that would’ve been right at home on the LOST HIGHWAY soundtrack he contributed to, and motifs that seem similar to the Dust Brothers’ work on FIGHT CLUB. It’s kind of the best score that 1997 never produced.
I’m not bagging on it, because I LOVE that sound, it’s awesome, it reminds me of my heyday… but at heart, Fincher is REALLY a ’90s guy (he rolls with and mentors buddy Fred Durst), and it’s a 2010 movie about the 2010 world that’s set in 2003 but scored to the sound of the late-90s.
Daft Punk, too even… kind of 1997 there, no? They had a track on the (awesome) SAINT soundtrack like 14 years ago… Chemical Brothers are doing HANNA… Awesome as it is that these electronica/industrial era war-horses are scoring big-time movies, it’s a little funny reading film critics and blog commenters acting like it’s some revolutionary new sound, and not pretty much THE same stuff they were doing 15 years ago.
Lex: That’s pretty funny. It’s like they’re the modern equivalent of Phil Collins or Randy Newman or Elton John, moving into well-paid movie music jobs to supplement their royalties as their energy for touring subsides a bit.
I’m sure Fincher used the Fight Club score as a temp track on TSN, because there are one or two cues that sound incredibly similar.
Off-topic: You’re going to LOVE Charlie Sheen’s latest rant if you haven’t heard it already. Sounds like it could have been scripted by you in one of your CELEBRITIES ARE GODS moods. Funny stuff.
The most interesting scores never win oscars: Howard Shore should have won awards for both NAKED LUNCH (Ornette Coleman collaboration) & CRASH (dissonant guitar). Clint Mansell for THE FOUNTAIN (post rock mogwai collaboration) & MOON. Phillip Glass for THE FOG OF WAR. (You could also make a case for THE HOURS) Nick Cave/Warren Ellis for ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES.
If you want to really reach back in time and talk about rock stars and film scores: Peter Gabriel’s LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST was the direct godfather for Graeme Revell’s score for THE CROW (also great) and John Debney’s THE PASSION (less good). Gabriel’s RABBIT PROOF FENCE is also great.
Many of the example were innovative, particularly enhanced/worked well with the film, or both. I don’t think the merit of the music matters in this category. People vote based on whether they liked the film.
Some really good stuff in this thread.
I’m glad you brought up TLH, Lex. I’m kind of disappointed I didn’t cite that soundtrack in my original comment because in listening to the “sound” of TSN it’s pretty clear that the two most obvious precursors to it are Fight Club and Lost Highway (which Reznor also produced, in addition to contributing music to).
There are literally countless examples of music in movies from, say, roughly the 5 year era between ’94-’99. Obviously The Matrix, but also Spawn, Blade, Trainspotting, Pi, Thirteenth Floor, Lord of Illusions, most of the “bad” Paul Anderson flicks (esp. the REs), parts of Fifth Element (but that picture’s so damn over-the-map with its Frenchness, I’m not even sure it should count), almost anything by GRAEME REVELL (including the aforementioned Saint, in addition to the awesome score for The Crow, which often gets overlooked due to its perhaps ever-so-slightly more awesome soundtrack).
All of which brings me to Dark City. I am still at an absolute LOSS how this movie — not to mention the music in it — didn’t breakout circa ’98 like a bad case of SARS in Toronto. Was it too early by a year? The presence of Rufus Sewell? Only the Movie Godz know for sure, but give the following — which is admittedly more traditionally orchestral than the rest of it — a listen and tell me it isn’t pretty much EVERYTHING you want in a score:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiES2uyoRvo
Okay, so the He-Man-esque title of the track isn’t the greatest, but regardless — “You Have the Power” POWER.
Ugh@bad formatting. Now it all looks really ironic in the middle.
So sorry.
I’ll also second LFF’s praise of The Fountain, both aurally and visually.
I pretty much feel the same way about that film (“criminally underrated”) the way I do about DC, albeit to a slightly lesser extent.
Don’t think the score for TSN is the same as what Reznor was doing 15 years ago but it IS the same as what he’s been doing for the last 4 or so years, starting from “Year Zero” onwards and yes I agree it is similar to what the Dust Brothers did with “Fight Club”…
Citizen: re: Dark City, much as I love the film and agree it was woefully ignored – the soundtrack sounds like the same synths with orchestra style that was made popular later by films like “The Matrix” and which Zimmer has been coming up with since the late 80s…I like that style of film music too but, it’s certainly not that innovative – neither then or now… I have a lot of respect for composer Trevor Jones though, who is criminally underused – when you think that he scored “dark city” and then “Notting Hill” within a year of one another that’s quite a broad range… His score for “Angel Heart” back in the day was great too…
By the way when you were listing innovative scores of the 90s you missed out “Heat” and “The Insider” , which IMHO were pretty usual scores, come to think of it most of Mann’s film’s have had interesting scores… Except perhaps “Ali”….
Oh, I don’t think there’s anything “innovative” about music used in Dark City (I even admitted as such in comment #26), either. I’m just surprised that it never became popular in the same mainstreamy way that The Matrix did. But there’s really never any accounting for “zeitgeist” popularity — it seems to be an amalgamation of all those random intangible factors such as timing, coincidence, and momentum.
Anyway, you’re right about Trevor Jones (I don’t think that name even meant anything to me when I saw Angel Heart — love that score!), and even more right about Mann films almost always having interesting scores. I think Collateral might actually be my favorite. He got a lot of shit back in the day for using a song from the now-defunct supergroup Audioslave — who I liked, anyway — but that was seriously one diverse collection of music. Almost Tarantino-esque in its eclecticism (but not at all in its actual aesthetic sound, of course).
LOVE the score to Angel Heart. Good call on a really underrated composer.
Funny thing about Mann’s scores… I always wonder how, short of a temp track, certain directors get similar scores in all their films no matter who composes. I used to hilariously and naively think Michael Mann would just bring in whoever was doing the music (James Newton Howard, Tangerine Dream, Michael Rubini, Elliot Goldenthal) and try explaining what he wanted using phonetics: “Okay, in this part where Will Graham sees the glowy eye chick I want the synth to go BRWWWWWORRRRR then DZZZZZZZ and WRRRRRRREEEEEWWW!), or that Tony Scott would call in Harry Gregson Williams and go, “So, this moment of truth for Mo’nique here should sound like the moment of truth where Goose dies or when Clarence Worley gets shot, so get out your piano and go PLINK PLINK PLINK.” But I guess that get all that across with temp tracks.
Re: the HEAT score… for years I thought since ELLIOT GOLDENTHAL was the composer of note, he did EVERYTHING on that, all that wailing and the whammy guitar shit when Pacino tails De Niro on the freeway. But, yeah, 90% of it’s Moby tracks and weird foreign chants that Mann unearthed… I used to base my entire ELLIOT GOLDENTHAL IS THE GREATEST COMPOSER EVER riff on the mistaken belief he did all the scenes in that. Now, when I see the movie, I can’t even figure out what if anything Goldenthal actually DID, since it’s wall to wall cuts from other ambient artists.
At last the server’s back up and I can finally post this:
Lex: the whammy guitar stuff is Goldenthal, so is the chanting and eerie string stuff, which he did with Kronos Quartet, who would later go on and do “requiem for a dream” with Clint Mansell, I have the special edition DVD of “Heat” where Goldenthal talks about how a lot of the score was influenced by stuff like Glenn Branca’s Guitar orchestras…The one major set piece in that movie that lots of people think is Goldenthal, but isn’t; is the percussive piece at the start of the bank robbery. – that’s Brian Eno, believe it or not… And Goldenthal went on to xerox the whammy guitar thing on “S.W.A.T.”…
He probably did do the phonetics thing with Tangerine Dream though
Citizen: I agree: it always bugged me too that “Matrix” was huge while Dark City got totally ignored… in hindsight it’s the better film…
Next on Mann’s platter: Buckethead.
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