OVP: Best Original Score (2015)
The Nominees Were...
Thomas Newman, Bridge of Spies
Carter Burwell, Carol
Ennio Morricone, The Hateful Eight
Johann Johannsson, Sicario
John Williams, Star Wars: The Force Awakens
My Thoughts: We return to 2015 this Tuesday with a look at the Original Score nominees from that year, which reads in some ways like a greatest hits of favorite composers for the Academy. In recent years the Oscars have vacillated between having more newcomers nominated here and having years where almost all of the nominees are in the "inner circle" of the Academy, usually only allowing one new nominee into the group, if any at all. 2015 was one of those insular years, with the only first-time nominee in the bunch being Carter Burwell, one of those composers who has had such a long, storied career it's shocking that this was his first nomination, and perhaps even the chummy Academy thought they'd already invited him to the dance.
Burwell's score to Carol is gorgeous and lush, much like the movie that it's highlighting. Haynes is a highly-stylized director, so he is definitely a filmmaker who uses his score as another actor on the call sheet in some scenes, with a deep reliance on the winds section on some of the film's best interludes. There's a desperation in select aspects of the movie, but in a way foretelling how the film will turn out, we see more hope in Burwell's score than we're used to in an LGBT-themed movie. The most dramatic or desperate music in many ways sticks to Kyle Chandler's Harge, not to the central romance between Carol and Therese. It's also just a beautiful stand-alone score-it easily recalls the film upon re-listen, but is a fine piece of music even distinct from the picture. Burwell's chameleon-like abilities as a composer (he's not the showiest of musicians considering how much genre film-work he's done), makes this stand out as one of his best pieces since he gets a chance to shine, and while he should have been invited to the Oscars before this, this is a worthy first citation for the composer.
On the opposite end of the spectrum from Burwell, enjoying his first nomination in 2015, is John Williams, locking down his 50th. Even if Williams frequently feels like an "automatic" inclusion, his work in the Star Wars universe actually wasn't cited for any of the prequels, so this wasn't entirely a given at the time despite him scoring several precursors. Williams work in recent years is frequently misjudged or overlooked because everyone just assumes "it's John Williams, so that's why it got nominated," but there's a playful nostalgia to his pieces in The Force Awakens. As old characters return to the fold (Han, Leia, Luke), he feels like one of them, and there's a sense of history in his composition, relying in some parts on past musical turns but always with a straining echo behind them, as if he's making it seem like this is the final ride with these characters, and soon we'll have to give them up. I also love the touches around a character like Snoke, where we get a completely new villainous rhapsody that is fresh to the Star Wars universe. Yes, it is relying upon past scores from the franchise, but the Star Wars score is one of the most iconic in film history so he's standing on his own legend, and let's be honest here-everyone borrows from John Williams at this point, so it's hard to begrudge him doing it himself.
It's weird to see John Williams name in this pantheon and not have it attached to the Steven Spielberg film, but due to Williams being unavailable (and reportedly unwell at the time), Thomas Newman was asked to replace Williams as Spielberg's go-to composer for the first time in 30 years (the last being Quincy Jones with The Color Purple, though three years later Spielberg would also default on Williams in favor of Alan Silvestri in Ready Player One). Newman's approach to Bridge of Spies feels a bit more reliant on a less orchestra-heavy approach than Williams would have allowed. This works in select scenes (Williams' greatest fault as a composer may be that he's too big for the movie), but this also makes the score itself less memorable. The use of a one-handed piano melody reads a bit played out, and while Spielberg rightly makes the right decision for his movie by simply letting his sound team tackle the best scene in the film (the flight ejection of Austin Stowell's Francis Gary Powers in his plane), you can hardly give Newman credit for not having music in a scene. As a result, Newman's score fades so far into the background of the picture as to be generic, and while he's more-than-capable of doing great work, it's hard not to compare this to John Williams and come out the lesser.
This was the final nod for Johann Johannsson, who died at the age of 48 earlier this year from a drug overdose. Johannsson's work here is more melancholy than you'd expect from the movie's tone, perhaps giving away hints of what is to come before Blunt & del Toro's ultimate showdown. The score is good in parts, with the beautiful string bass pieces in quieter moments, but underwhelms in crucial junctures of the picture. Think of arguably the best sequence in the movie, the showdown scene at the Mexican border where we see, in broad daylight, a seemingly routine display of gun violence reading as rough to our eyes (and Emily Blunt's . Johannsson's score is quiet, but ultimately unnecessary and in many ways feels cheap compared to the strong work that Blunt & del Toro are doing in the scene to establish their characters. Perhaps that is the most damning aspect of Johannsson's score in Sicario-it feels overused, as if we don't need it to aid the tension. One of my main criticisms of the film was it felt underwritten, and Villeneuve's reliance on Johannsson's score is part of that; it's too generic when he means to use it as a crutch, making scenes that should be thrilling feel a bit more expendable in what occasionally feels like a great, original thriller.
The final nomination is for iconic composer Ennio Morricone, returning to Oscar's fold after a 15-year dry spell. The Hateful Eight is a terrible movie, a truly dull waste of a cast that is weighed down by Tarantino's inability to edit himself without Sally Menke and even a weakening of his abilities as a screenwriter. The one saving grace of the movie is Morricone's lush, mysterious score, reliant in many ways on his best work (films such as Once Upon a Time in the West and The Mission), but frequently completely original on its own. It's hard to imagine a composer in his 80's creating something that could be considered a defining work of a career, but there's so much nasty enigma in the opening chords of The Hateful Eight, as he plays along with percussive bells, sharp trumpets, and timpani to create a quickly recognizable tune. It's hard for a composer to stand out in a big way in a Tarantino film, as his ability to blend soundtracks is one of the director's hallmarks, but Tarantino does that with character, and Tarantino, perhaps not lacking all of his skills here, puts Morricone's score, his film's best element, front-and-center in select scenes to maximum effect.
Burwell's score to Carol is gorgeous and lush, much like the movie that it's highlighting. Haynes is a highly-stylized director, so he is definitely a filmmaker who uses his score as another actor on the call sheet in some scenes, with a deep reliance on the winds section on some of the film's best interludes. There's a desperation in select aspects of the movie, but in a way foretelling how the film will turn out, we see more hope in Burwell's score than we're used to in an LGBT-themed movie. The most dramatic or desperate music in many ways sticks to Kyle Chandler's Harge, not to the central romance between Carol and Therese. It's also just a beautiful stand-alone score-it easily recalls the film upon re-listen, but is a fine piece of music even distinct from the picture. Burwell's chameleon-like abilities as a composer (he's not the showiest of musicians considering how much genre film-work he's done), makes this stand out as one of his best pieces since he gets a chance to shine, and while he should have been invited to the Oscars before this, this is a worthy first citation for the composer.
On the opposite end of the spectrum from Burwell, enjoying his first nomination in 2015, is John Williams, locking down his 50th. Even if Williams frequently feels like an "automatic" inclusion, his work in the Star Wars universe actually wasn't cited for any of the prequels, so this wasn't entirely a given at the time despite him scoring several precursors. Williams work in recent years is frequently misjudged or overlooked because everyone just assumes "it's John Williams, so that's why it got nominated," but there's a playful nostalgia to his pieces in The Force Awakens. As old characters return to the fold (Han, Leia, Luke), he feels like one of them, and there's a sense of history in his composition, relying in some parts on past musical turns but always with a straining echo behind them, as if he's making it seem like this is the final ride with these characters, and soon we'll have to give them up. I also love the touches around a character like Snoke, where we get a completely new villainous rhapsody that is fresh to the Star Wars universe. Yes, it is relying upon past scores from the franchise, but the Star Wars score is one of the most iconic in film history so he's standing on his own legend, and let's be honest here-everyone borrows from John Williams at this point, so it's hard to begrudge him doing it himself.
It's weird to see John Williams name in this pantheon and not have it attached to the Steven Spielberg film, but due to Williams being unavailable (and reportedly unwell at the time), Thomas Newman was asked to replace Williams as Spielberg's go-to composer for the first time in 30 years (the last being Quincy Jones with The Color Purple, though three years later Spielberg would also default on Williams in favor of Alan Silvestri in Ready Player One). Newman's approach to Bridge of Spies feels a bit more reliant on a less orchestra-heavy approach than Williams would have allowed. This works in select scenes (Williams' greatest fault as a composer may be that he's too big for the movie), but this also makes the score itself less memorable. The use of a one-handed piano melody reads a bit played out, and while Spielberg rightly makes the right decision for his movie by simply letting his sound team tackle the best scene in the film (the flight ejection of Austin Stowell's Francis Gary Powers in his plane), you can hardly give Newman credit for not having music in a scene. As a result, Newman's score fades so far into the background of the picture as to be generic, and while he's more-than-capable of doing great work, it's hard not to compare this to John Williams and come out the lesser.
This was the final nod for Johann Johannsson, who died at the age of 48 earlier this year from a drug overdose. Johannsson's work here is more melancholy than you'd expect from the movie's tone, perhaps giving away hints of what is to come before Blunt & del Toro's ultimate showdown. The score is good in parts, with the beautiful string bass pieces in quieter moments, but underwhelms in crucial junctures of the picture. Think of arguably the best sequence in the movie, the showdown scene at the Mexican border where we see, in broad daylight, a seemingly routine display of gun violence reading as rough to our eyes (and Emily Blunt's . Johannsson's score is quiet, but ultimately unnecessary and in many ways feels cheap compared to the strong work that Blunt & del Toro are doing in the scene to establish their characters. Perhaps that is the most damning aspect of Johannsson's score in Sicario-it feels overused, as if we don't need it to aid the tension. One of my main criticisms of the film was it felt underwritten, and Villeneuve's reliance on Johannsson's score is part of that; it's too generic when he means to use it as a crutch, making scenes that should be thrilling feel a bit more expendable in what occasionally feels like a great, original thriller.
The final nomination is for iconic composer Ennio Morricone, returning to Oscar's fold after a 15-year dry spell. The Hateful Eight is a terrible movie, a truly dull waste of a cast that is weighed down by Tarantino's inability to edit himself without Sally Menke and even a weakening of his abilities as a screenwriter. The one saving grace of the movie is Morricone's lush, mysterious score, reliant in many ways on his best work (films such as Once Upon a Time in the West and The Mission), but frequently completely original on its own. It's hard to imagine a composer in his 80's creating something that could be considered a defining work of a career, but there's so much nasty enigma in the opening chords of The Hateful Eight, as he plays along with percussive bells, sharp trumpets, and timpani to create a quickly recognizable tune. It's hard for a composer to stand out in a big way in a Tarantino film, as his ability to blend soundtracks is one of the director's hallmarks, but Tarantino does that with character, and Tarantino, perhaps not lacking all of his skills here, puts Morricone's score, his film's best element, front-and-center in select scenes to maximum effect.
Other Precursor Contenders: The Grammys eligibility window for the best film score nomination occasionally leaves different nominees from opposing years, but that is not the case in 2015. Along with Stranger Things Vols 1 and 2, we have citations for Star Wars (the victor), Bridge of Spies, The Hateful Eight, and The Revenant. The Globes also found room for The Revenant (Hateful Eight won), with The Danish Girl, Steve Jobs, and Carol making up a much more singular group of nominees than Oscar came up with. Finally you have BAFTA with almost a carbon copy of Oscar (including Hateful Eight once again winning), but here we have Carol substituted out for The Revenant. I know the obvious answer given precursors is that The Revenant was #6, but the composers are complete unknowns, and a duo (big no-no here), so I actually think Alexandre Desplat's The Danish Girl just missed, potentially depriving us of a Carter Burwell citation.
Films I Would Have Nominated: I'm not as beholden to previous nominees as Oscar is, so I surely would have found room for Michael Brook's call-to-the-sea in Brooklyn, a beautiful compliment to the film's low-key romance. Max Richter, who is getting to that absurd place of "how are you not a nominee yet?" also would have been included for his rich, detailed work in Testament of Youth. Finally, Stephen Rennicks work in Room is arguably too pretty for the film, but it still works in a weird juxtaposition, and I'm a fan-considering how well it did with Oscar, it's a shame he couldn't get this boost in his career.
Oscar’s Choice: A legendary composer who's never won does one of the best pieces of his career and has slower competition? There was no way Morricone wouldn't win-I kind of think Newman, also a long-time bridesmaid, was in second.
My Choice: I'm going with Morricone. It's a tight battle between he and Burwell, but I think Morricone's score is more iconic/fitting, and this is one of those rare instances where someone wins an "old age" award but genuinely deserved it. Following them would be Williams, Johannsson, and Newman at the rear.
Those are my thoughts-how about yours? Are you with the consensus of The Hateful Eight or were you hoping that Williams would finally score his sixth Oscar? Which of the seven Star Wars scores is genuinely the best? And will Thomas Newman ever win an Academy Award? Share your thoughts below!
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