Oscars

Once again, score fans turn away in disappointment from the Academy Awards, as John Williams comes up empty-handed despite a double nomination, while “outsider” Gustavo Santaolalla predictably gets the nod for Brokeback Mountain. Which is pretty, but sparse, and not orchestral, so naturally it isn’t a popular choice among the soundtrack cognoscenti.

What you can glean about this result is that not even John Williams, arguably the most accomplished and popular film composer ever, can overcome the Academy’s set pattern of the voters giving out score awards to add to the film’s general haul. That’s pretty sobering. The Best Score award is, in the end, just not about the composer. At all.

An Academy Award nomination seems more of an actual honor, and so one could conceivably call them in for criticism this year. NPR’s Andy Trudeau, during his annual series of Oscar score nominee roundups, wondered aloud if the cause of honoring film music might have been better served if Williams had gotten only one nomination and someone else got one instead. (One of his suggestions was James Newton Howard for King Kong, who personally I would have picked as a nominee this year, out of respect for his writing a fine score in an insanely short amount of time.)

All this said, John Williams once again served as film music’s best-loved and most gracious ambassador during all the publicity he received up to the Oscar ceremony. A job well done.

Jekyll + Hyde

Patrick Doyle’s most mysterious recent credit, the (low-budget?) indie Jekyll + Hyde, has finally surfaced, sort of. Despite the director’s recent assurance that the film has secured distribution, I doubt many people are going to get to see it (or would want to, unless gory horror is your cup of tea). The two-minute “Kyrie Eleison” available at the film’s website may very well be the only bit of Doyle music we get to hear from it. (Fortunately it’s being offered as a 192kbs MP3. I thought that was rather sporting of them.)

I would guess that this score is more or less a musical cousin of 1993’s Needful Things, in which Doyle also picked a tranquil devotional female vocal (”Ave Maria”) to play over images of violence. The composer’s daughter, Abigail, makes yet another appearance. Although she is not a powerful singer, her voice has a very nice quality to it (as it did on Gosford Park) and she as much as anything makes the simple melody stick in the mind.

Mother of Mine

This new score by Tuomas Kantelinen has been getting some rave reviews, but it wasn’t until I read a not-so-enthusiastic review (from SoundtrackNet’s Jonathan Jarry) that I felt compelled to seek it out. I don’t know, I get a little wary of rave reviews; I suppose I’ve been like that ever since I eagerly went to see Braveheart only to find it out rather sucked. When someone criticizes a score it suddenly becomes a lot more interesting to me.

Fortunately for me and my pocketbook, there is an awful lot of Kantelinen music to be had for free on his website, including the highlights of Mother of Mine. I agree with Jonathan Broxton’s review, that the main theme (”Mother of Mine”) is really quite heartbreaking; but I also agree with Jarry that the whole thing seems rather deliberate and plodding as a listening experience. I listened to some of the other stuff on Kantelinen’s site, and discovered that he’s, uh, a little “slow” shall we say. But the films he scores sound interesting. (A pelican who is turned into a man?)

In this modern age I can happily download individual tracks, and I would do so with this score if I had the chance. But I’m afraid buying the CD is a no-go for me.

What a film score costs

Ever wonder what percentage of a film’s budget the score really takes up? Take a gander at the very, very complete budget accounting for M. Night Shyalaman’s The Village, courtesy of The Smoking Gun. (It’s detailed on Page 69 of the budget.) James Newton Howard’s fee was $1.3 million; the copying cost $52,500; the orchestrations cost $64,800; the orchestra costs were $491,566 (see page 70 for the complete breakdown); music editing was $192,100; and that doesn’t even include many other costs such as travel expenses, piano tuning, mixing, etc.

The grand total for all music costs for the film turned out to be over $3.2 million. That’s about five percent of the film’s overall budget.