OVP: Best Original Score (2023)
The Nominees Were...
Laura Karpman, American Fiction
John Williams, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Robbie Robertson, Killers of the Flower Moon
Ludwig Goransson, Oppenheimer
Jerskin Fendrix, Poor Things
My Thoughts: I do not generally gamble on the Oscars, mostly because no one will bet against me. Even when I've had predicting contests in the past, it's usually me putting up the prizes while other people are just betting to see if they can take me down...the only thing I get when I win (which I have done all but two years I've done an official contest) is pride. But I did bet on this race that John Williams would get a nomination, and won $10 (Cody, I suspect you're reading this, and yes, I am bragging about this months after the fact 😎). This was John Williams' 54th nomination, and potentially his last. While Williams has stated that he doesn't intend to retire (he initially did but changed his mind while doing press for Dial of Destiny), he is the oldest Oscar nominee in any category at the age of 91, and has no other projects lined up. The only one of his frequent collaborators to have a movie out this year is Chris Columbus with The Thursday Murder Club (the composer has yet to be announced), but it's worth noting that Columbus & Williams have not worked together since 2002's Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, so I suspect this might be the right bookend for Williams.
The OVP is very long and despite being in our 25th season, we still have 38 John Williams nominations after this to get through, so we will be discussing him a lot even if he never shows up again in real life (which I hope he does, I love John Williams). If he is going out here, he's doing so with a beautiful piece of music. Dial of Destiny is the fifth and final Indiana Jones film with Harrison Ford (Williams has done all five pictures), and while it does borrow from some of his past work, it's still an engaging and refined score. Working with strings, in many ways Williams is leaning a bit on John Barry-style James Bond music, particularly with the luxurious woodwinds of "Helena's Theme." I was enraptured, and nostalgic the whole picture listening to this orchestra.
We do know for sure that this will be the final Oscar nomination for Robbie Robertson, who won his first and only citation for Killers of the Flower Moon. Robertson died of prostate cancer in 2023 at the age of 80, so this is the rare posthumous nomination, and it's a nice touch that he got it for a Scorsese film given they've worked together regularly since Raging Bull. The film does a good job of combining some of the expected from Scorsese's filmography (an edgier, rougher composition, here combining Osage woodwind instruments with a drum & bass guitar). It's not as memorable as I think you'd probably want it to be, but it's a fine piece of music when you revisit it.
Jerskin Fendrix's score to Poor Things is memorable. I don't think that should be a distinguishing thing (you shouldn't get a win for being the most unique, particularly in a category full of "classical" music), but of all of these scores the sparing strings of Poor Things stands apart and gets points for that. I didn't love this-I don't think it accomplishes the mood enough for me, and I think that it repeats too often, but it fits the quirky formatting of the picture, and Fendrix is an original.
American Fiction is the sort of movie that feels like a very odd juxtaposition for me. If you know me in real life, you will know that I'm not a big music person (I'm much more into cinema, then literature...music is a casual thing), but of the music I do listen to, jazz is the most pronounced. This has elements of jazz in Laura Karpman's score speak to my genre bias...but it doesn't work if you compare it to other, better jazz. It feels too generic, and honestly borders into elevator music in portions of the film. I think it's fine if you're waiting in a lobby, and I will totally own that I would clean my house or cook to this because I like jazz, but I cannot distinguish this from anything you'd randomly hear at 9 AM on MPR.
Which brings us to Oppenheimer. I will note right now that Christopher Nolan scores do not necessarily get a death sentence with me. Both Interstellar and Inception have My Ballot nominations, and Inception comes with a shiny silver medal for Hans Zimmer. But the score here is too much. Goransson's compositions are impressive-I get that, maybe even more than Poor Things, this will become synonymous with a specific kind of movie memory when it's played. But it overwhelms the picture, and makes it far too loud and overbearing. This isn't just about the best piece of music in the film, it's also about how the music fits the film, and here I think they're jamming together two puzzle pieces rather than making them feel like a natural click.
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. We do not have yet what the nominees for the 2025 Grammys will be, and so it's possible (if not probable) that some of these films (I'm looking in particular at Killers of the Flower Moon) could show up there, but of the year we do have, Oppenheimer won, and got in over two other 2023 releases: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and Barbie. The Globes and BAFTA's match Oscar's eligibility, so we have an easier comparison there. The Globes went with Oppenheimer over Poor Things, The Boy and the Heron, The Zone of Interest, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, & Killers of the Flower Moon, while BAFTA picked Oppenheimer to beat Killers, Poor Things, Saltburn, & Spider-Man. In sixth place, I'll be honest-I think it was none of these movies (even Spider-Man). My money at the time was on Thomas Newman getting one of his randomly-discarded nominations for Elemental, and I think that was still probably sixth even if there are others with more precursors. As Williams proves, sometimes Oscar just likes what he likes and says "see ya" to the recommendations from the rest of the season.
Films I Would Have Nominated: Past Lives is the 10th place finisher in the Best Picture category, and barely got nominated otherwise, but the place it should've made it was here, with Christopher Bear & Daniel Rossen's lush, romantic score.
Oscar’s Choice: There was no universe anything other than Oppenheimer was winning this, and we don't need to even pretend there was a second place.
My Choice: Let's get three out of the way. I'm giving 3rd/4th/5th to Poor Things, Oppenheimer, and American Fiction, in that order. For the win, this is a good reminder that we do these things in a vacuum-we don't take into account, for example, that this was our only chance to give Robertson (who had a profound impact on the films of Martin Scorsese) a statue nor do we consider this might be the last chance we have to give John Williams' his long-awaited sixth statue. We go just with what's in front of us, and while it's by no means his best score (or, honestly, even in the Top 20), Dial of Destiny is by my vote the best of these five nominees, and gets my Oscar.
Those are my thoughts-how about yours? I am feeling confident I'm standing by myself here, but anyone want to join Indy & I while the rest of the world parties with Cillian & company? How much should originality factor here compared to just really good music? And do you agree with me that Elemental was sixth here, or was there another movie that was closer? Share your thoughts below!
Past Best Score Contests: 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022
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