OVP: Best Original Score (2005)
The Nominees Were...
Gustavo Santaolalla, Brokeback Mountain
Alberto Iglesias, The Constant Gardener
John Williams, Memoirs of a Geisha
John Williams, Munich
Dario Marianelli, Pride & Prejudice
My Thoughts: There is only one composer on this blog that I have a tag for, and that is John Williams. Years ago I decided to be a bit more judicious with tags (because there are limits on Blogger and I knew at my then-rate I'd hit them), but Williams is such an omnipresent force at the Oscars, that it felt inevitable that I'd want to keep track of his citations. He, has to date, been nominated for 52 Academy Awards, but up-until-this-point we've honestly only discussed five of those 52, so we have a lot more Williams to get to in this series. Today the Academy made it a bit easier to get some of his films off of the list by putting two of his citations in the same category.
Memoirs of a Geisha seems like one of those times where Williams' truly wanted to win, and didn't. He brings out the big guns here, with Itzhak Perlman & Yo-Yo Ma featured on the score, and it's a lovely bit of music (he doesn't make bad music)...it's just not always great within the confines of the film. Williams' penchant for overpowering the screen with his music happens throughout the film-it almost feels like a second player, with acting initially helped then drowned out by a cascade of stringed instruments. It plays better as a stand-alone score than it does within the actual movie, and as this isn't the Grammys, I have to consider both in my assessment.
I liked Williams' other score better under such parameters. It isn't as distinctive as Memoirs, but it plays better onscreen. This might be helped by the script itself-it is more feeling & less dialogue than Memoirs, and has some great action set-pieces that work well with his full-bodied orchestra. In many ways the film borrows from Spielberg's other giant tragedy, Schindler's List, with a similar reliance on strings and wind instruments, but if you're going to borrow, borrow from some of your most lasting work. The chant-singing that happens at certain turns of the film along with the score, though, pull me out-it's a cliche that had run its course by 2005, and had been done better a decade earlier with The English Patient.
There were, of course, scores that weren't by John Williams in 2005 (though he did have Revenge of the Sith and War of the Worlds, so a triple nomination wasn't out-of-the-question), including Dario Marianelli getting his first Oscar nod for Pride & Prejudice (all of his nominations to date have been in Joe Wright movies). Marianelli had an odious task here, as the most recent Pride & Prejudice remake (with Colin Firth) had a very robust & memorable score, so you have to find a way to not draw comparisons while still keeping to the mood of the film. Marianelli does this well, though, by having an elegant, piano-driven score that feels understated in the film. The music is playful & romantic, a play on the comedy of the movie but also on the enchanting aspects of the story that has made it a staple for film/book lovers for 200 years.
Alberto Iglesias was also kicking off his career with Oscar in 2005, here with The Constant Gardener. Iglesias has run the gamut in these OVP write-ups, with me loving his nod for Tinker Tailor and hating his citation for The Kite Runner. Constant Gardener comes somewhere in the middle. This isn't a case of the score overpowering the film, and I liked the subtle notes of African music along with individual string & percussion instruments, especially in the film's first half. However, the score is really repetitive-it underlines the same points over-and-over, and feels, for lack of a less-punny term, one-note in its approach to the thriller.
Finally, there's Brokeback Mountain, and yet another debut with Oscar (Gustavo Santaolalla's first nomination). We have another minimalistic score, but unlike Pride or Constant Gardener, it plays as instantly iconic in the film. It's a bit surprising that the Academy, who tends to favor flash in this category, would have gone for a score such as Brokeback, but it's because it's so brilliant. There are hints of country music, borrowing from the song-heavy soundtrack, but the music is expansive, sounding like what you expect a sunrise to feel like with it feeling wide and freeing. I love this score-it's one of my favorite aspects of the film, as it's small, but comes up in poignant, specific moments of the picture.
Memoirs of a Geisha seems like one of those times where Williams' truly wanted to win, and didn't. He brings out the big guns here, with Itzhak Perlman & Yo-Yo Ma featured on the score, and it's a lovely bit of music (he doesn't make bad music)...it's just not always great within the confines of the film. Williams' penchant for overpowering the screen with his music happens throughout the film-it almost feels like a second player, with acting initially helped then drowned out by a cascade of stringed instruments. It plays better as a stand-alone score than it does within the actual movie, and as this isn't the Grammys, I have to consider both in my assessment.
I liked Williams' other score better under such parameters. It isn't as distinctive as Memoirs, but it plays better onscreen. This might be helped by the script itself-it is more feeling & less dialogue than Memoirs, and has some great action set-pieces that work well with his full-bodied orchestra. In many ways the film borrows from Spielberg's other giant tragedy, Schindler's List, with a similar reliance on strings and wind instruments, but if you're going to borrow, borrow from some of your most lasting work. The chant-singing that happens at certain turns of the film along with the score, though, pull me out-it's a cliche that had run its course by 2005, and had been done better a decade earlier with The English Patient.
There were, of course, scores that weren't by John Williams in 2005 (though he did have Revenge of the Sith and War of the Worlds, so a triple nomination wasn't out-of-the-question), including Dario Marianelli getting his first Oscar nod for Pride & Prejudice (all of his nominations to date have been in Joe Wright movies). Marianelli had an odious task here, as the most recent Pride & Prejudice remake (with Colin Firth) had a very robust & memorable score, so you have to find a way to not draw comparisons while still keeping to the mood of the film. Marianelli does this well, though, by having an elegant, piano-driven score that feels understated in the film. The music is playful & romantic, a play on the comedy of the movie but also on the enchanting aspects of the story that has made it a staple for film/book lovers for 200 years.
Alberto Iglesias was also kicking off his career with Oscar in 2005, here with The Constant Gardener. Iglesias has run the gamut in these OVP write-ups, with me loving his nod for Tinker Tailor and hating his citation for The Kite Runner. Constant Gardener comes somewhere in the middle. This isn't a case of the score overpowering the film, and I liked the subtle notes of African music along with individual string & percussion instruments, especially in the film's first half. However, the score is really repetitive-it underlines the same points over-and-over, and feels, for lack of a less-punny term, one-note in its approach to the thriller.
Finally, there's Brokeback Mountain, and yet another debut with Oscar (Gustavo Santaolalla's first nomination). We have another minimalistic score, but unlike Pride or Constant Gardener, it plays as instantly iconic in the film. It's a bit surprising that the Academy, who tends to favor flash in this category, would have gone for a score such as Brokeback, but it's because it's so brilliant. There are hints of country music, borrowing from the song-heavy soundtrack, but the music is expansive, sounding like what you expect a sunrise to feel like with it feeling wide and freeing. I love this score-it's one of my favorite aspects of the film, as it's small, but comes up in poignant, specific moments of the picture.
Other Precursor Contenders: The Grammys eligibility window for the best film score nomination is not the same as Oscar's so oftentimes you'll see films from two different years getting citations, and that's the case here. At the Grammys held a few weeks before the 2005 Oscars, John Williams & Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith lost to Ray, while at the following year's Grammys Williams won for Memoirs of a Geisha, besting himself for Munich as well as Harry Gregson-Williams for Chronicles of Narnia (those were the only 2005 films cited in the category). The Globes eligibility window matches up exactly, so we have Memoirs of a Geisha beating Syriana, Chronicles of Narnia, King Kong, and Brokeback Mountain, while at the BAFTA Awards we spotted Memoirs defeating Brokeback, Constant Gardener, Mrs. Henderson Presents, and Walk the Line. My gut says that the sixth place was King Kong rather than the more-cited Chronicles if only because in 2005 there were a lot of new faces, more than you'd normally see at the Oscars, and James Newton Howard is an AMPAS favorite.
Films I Would Have Nominated: This isn't a bad list at all, to be honest. I tend to favor some of the sounds in a movie like Chronicles of Narnia or King Kong, as I like that very specific sort of grandeur that only really happens in gigantic movie epics, but this isn't a lineup Oscar should be ashamed of, and avoids the one obvious stinker we'd normally get from the music branch.
Oscar’s Choice: Oscar went with an upset here. The precursors indicated that John Williams would get his long-awaited sixth Oscar (to the point where they broke tradition at the telecast and showed the composers' faces while the winner was announced, something usually only reserved for the acting & directing races), but Oscar went with Brokeback Mountain, the only one of Brokeback's wins on Oscar night that wasn't a foregone conclusion (it would, of course, lose one of the wins that was considered a foregone conclusion, but we're still a few weeks away from that).
My Choice: Brokeback is also my choice, followed by Munich, Pride, Memoirs, and Gardener.
Those are my thoughts-how about yours? Are you with Oscar & I on the late-breaking love for Brokeback, or are you still crushed about Memoirs losing here? If not Geisha, when should John Williams' sixth trophy have happened? And speaking of long-running streaks-is James Newton Howard ever going to win an Oscar? Share your thoughts below!
Also in 2005: Original Song, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2005
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