OVP: Score (2000)

OVP: Best Original Score (2000)

The Nominees Were...

Rachel Portman, Chocolat

Tan Dun, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Hans Zimmer, Gladiator

Ennio Morricone, Malena

John Williams, The Patriot

My Thoughts: When we did this category for 2001, our most recent OVP before 2000 (all past contests are linked below), I talked about how it was the hardest race we'd encountered in 22 seasons of this series, with a battle royale between Howard Shore's The Fellowship of the Ring and John Williams' Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  This year has some strong contenders (like 2001, this is one of the better lineups that Oscar pulled together), but thankfully it's not as hard, and I won't lose any sleep over my selection even if there's two worthy winners.  It does, however, become a battle between a Best Picture nominee and John Williams for which film I like the best.

Let's start with that John Williams score, since I want an entry point into this race.  This is one of the extremely rare scores by Williams that doesn't feature George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, or Chris Columbus in any capacity, and so it also isn't trading off of something that he normally does, working within their storytelling styles.  Williams brings a colonial aspect to this music, giving us pipes & a lot of winds, frequently feeling like we're hearing the music from the band on a battlefield or coming out of a one-room church.  I really loved this music, and it has a sentimental aspect to me because it was one of the first movies I remember watching in theaters (I was a teenager when this came out) and thinking the score was the best part of it.

John Williams is sitting on 53 Oscar nominations and counting (he was just shortlisted for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, which could get him yet another nomination in a few weeks).  Tan Dun, on the other hand, only had Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon for his nominations, but what a way to make an impression.  The beautiful use of strings, some of them featuring cello solos from Yo-Yo Ma, is intoxicating and the most memorable of any of these scores.  I also give bonus points for the way that it weaves the wonderful "Love Before Time" into many of its romantic themes, giving the end credits song a lot more resonance as the film closes.

Malena features my other favorite modern composer (along with Williams), though Ennio Morricone's scores were not cited as often by Oscar (he only went for his biggest hits).  This is gorgeous work too, really giving us a grandeur to a film that doesn't always deserve it.  That juxtaposition, though, isn't something I'm going to criticize Morricone for, as it's feeding the hoped-for vision of the film rather than just inserting something that doesn't feel at home in the picture.  The score relies on strings, maybe too much, but that's a minor quibble, and the theme has been used in many other instances (you'd recognize it from trailers if you don't recognize it from this picture).

The same could be said for Chocolat, which got its only tech nomination here with Rachel Portman.  It's hard to tell if this is iconic music, or if it's just a CD that my mom played constantly when I was a kid.  Either way, it works really well.  The thing about Chocolat is that it's a fun, good movie, even if it has no business in the Best Picture lineup (it would be considerably better than a lot of recent Best Picture nominees that got less hatred, though).  The score is a good indicator of that-playful, bouncy, and just a little bit of the ocean coming in...you get a sense of the wind coming through with the piccolo as a running theme.

The only one of these scores that I genuinely feel ambivalent toward (though not hatred, it's not bad in that way) is Gladiator.  This isn't a default nominee just because it's a Best Picture winner (it's by Hans Zimmer, after all...he could've gotten in for something without mention anywhere else), but it feels so generic compared to the rest of these scores.  Zimmer also struggles with too much bombast in his films.  At his best this can be used really well (I loved what he did with Dune), but here it is too repetitive, too loud, and too percussive.

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.  In 2001, we had Gladiator as the only nominee (losing to American Beauty), while in 2002, the victor was Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, with Chocolat, Traffic, and Men of Honor (a military drama starring Robert de Niro & Cuba Gooding, Jr.) all losing to it.  The Globes and BAFTA have more conventional eligibility windows.  HFPA picked Gladiator as its winner against All the Pretty Horses, Chocolat, Crouching Tiger, Malena, and Sunshine, while the Brits awarded Crouching Tiger atop Almost Famous, Billy Elliot, Gladiator, and O Brother, Where Art Thou?.  In terms of sixth place, I'm going to guess that it was...maybe none of these?  Billy Elliot is probably the best bet given Stephen Warbeck had just won an Oscar for Shakespeare in Love (this is a clique-y branch), but given Disney's domination in this category for the previous decade it quite frankly could've been James Newton Howard's Dinosaur.

Films I Would Have Nominated: Harry Gregson-Williams has to be one of the best (and most prolific) living film composers to never get an Oscar nomination.  The time to do it was 2000, and it would've been the perfect way to recognize the genius of Chicken Run.

Oscar’s Choice: A tight battle between the two main Best Picture contenders, but this wasn't a trickle down win for Gladiator, with Oscar instead giving it to Tan Dun's Crouching Tiger.

My Choice: I'm also going to go with Tan Dun.  I think his work is more original than what Williams is doing in The Patriot, though it's probably closer than you'd think (I gave my personal award to Williams at the time).  This means that while I have given Williams OVP statues (2011's War Horse, 2012's Lincoln), I will not give him a single gold medal in the My Ballot I'll hopefully publish later this month (we're going to cruise in the coming weeks through 2000) for a film this century despite six silver/bronze medals (I am confident he'll win something when we get to the 1970's & 80's though).  Behind these two are Chocolat, Malena, and then Gladiator.

Those are my thoughts-how about yours?  Oscar & I picked Crouching Tiger-do you concur?  What is the most recent Oscar win you would've given John Williams?  And was it Billy Elliot or Dinosaur who was in sixth place?  Share your thoughts below!

Also in 2000: Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2000

Past Best Score Contests: 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022