Scoring the Score

Sorcerer Mickey uses the broomsticks to help him clean while Sorcerer’s Apprentice by Dukas plays. Figure 1

This brings us to today and our final blog post for the semester. In 1940, Disney’s Fantasia attempted something never done before. Instead of silly cartoons, fables, princess stories, or movie musicals, Disney took the most famous and emotive pieces of classical music and paired them with sometimes whimsical, sometimes beautiful, and sometimes frightening imagery. This included colorful fairies and mushrooms quietly moving through the night during Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite (Video Link 1: Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy), Sorcerer Mickey desperately trying to control disobedient broomsticks during Dukas’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice (Video Link 2: Sorcerer’s Apprentice), and unicorns and satyrs dancing during Beethoven’s 6th Symphony: “Pastoral” (Video Link 3: Pastoral (partial)). These cartoons tell stories conceived from the emotions that cartoonists felt and from the images their brains formed while listening to the music. The music could conceive unique narratives in each cartoonist’s mind.

The film’s first piece, Toccata and Fugue in D Minor by Bach (Video Link 4: Toccata and Fugue), shows how listening to music can react in our brains through abstract imagery. Different colors, shapes, lines, and scenes appear in different contrasts and designs throughout the song. In addition, the seamless transition between the toccata and the fugue at 3:38 changes from showing the band in different lights and colors to more abstract shapes. Mesmerized and relaxed, the viewer becomes enthralled in the song and experiences an intense and cohesive auditory-visual experience. Without any dialogue or concrete imagery, Fantasia is able to capture the audience and engage their minds.

One of my favorite sections from Fantasia is the Rite of Spring by Stravinsky (Video Link 5: Rite of Spring). In Disney’s interpretation of the song, the viewer follows the creation of the universe and the evolution of life up through the time of the dinosaurs. The section ends with the meteor causing their extinction. There are calm and eerie parts in the ocean, loud booms of volcanoes, and even a terrifying T-Rex scene that horrified me as a child. The music suits the visuals very well, but interestingly enough, the evolution of life was not the original concept for this song. Stravinsky wrote this song to tell the story of Native American tribal rituals. The booms were supposed to represent the rattling tribal drums and the terrifying rising action was the human sacrifice of a young girl. These two very different but fitting interpretations of the same set of sound waves shows how interpretative and emotional music can be.

Soundtracks can contextualize and define their films. Whenever I listen to classical music, I imagine a story forming, I feel a tightness in my chest and need to take deep sighs, and I get shivers down my spine. Music can interact with our minds in ways that words cannot. For example, when I listen to Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven, I imagine the movements cohesively and methodically developing a story. Though we are simply listening to different combinations of sound waves, I imagine the first movement panning through the dark and mysterious night with bugs, raccoons, and owls under the moonlight. In the second movement, we go through a window into a lively Regency-period ball. The gentlemen and ladies dance and drink in merriment. During the ball, a young man and woman meet and it’s love at first sight. However, after an enchanting evening, another man tries to earn the woman’s attention and she changes her mind, choosing this new man instead. In the third and final movement, the original young man is devastated as his enchanting love has been stolen away. After the ball, he races on horseback to catch his love and her new beau in their carriage, while suppressing his instinctual desire to kill the other man. He becomes disturbed and enraged trying to hide the madness he feels in his heart, and by the end, in total insanity, he shoots the man and collapses, only to be found by his now-horrified love. This may be an odd or strange interpretation to a listener; they may see this song in a completely different way, but nonetheless, this is how I feel the song. The cartoonists of Fantasia also felt the songs of the film and interpreted stories, characters, and designs.

 The Pegasus family flies through the sky to the beautiful 6th Symphony: “Pastoral” by Beethoven. Figure 4

Throughout the semester, we have subjectively interpreted the sound waves that we heard during each film. In the Baby Driver posts, we talked about the Romeo and Juliet star-crossed lovers archetypal relationship between Debora and Baby. The song Brighton Rock by Queen helped to bring out the complexity of their relationship and show its turmoil. It was difficult to define their relationship and their emotions in words, so I posted Brighton Rock instead so that you too could feel their turmoil. In the John Williams post, we discussed the pure joy and childhood wonder found in the score of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. When I hear the bike chase scene music, I shed a few tears because of the way I feel when listening to the music. We have been subjectively interpreting music all semester.

Thank you so much for reading the blog this semester! It’s been a joy to write about my favorite films and composers. Music really means so much to me and I hope that I have expanded your understanding of soundtracks and perhaps opened your minds to new possibilities and perceptions.

Image Credits:

Figure 1: Image 1

Figure 2: Image 2

Figure 3: Image 3

Figure 4: Image 4

Who is John Williams?…

He’s a composer who has overwhelmed his audiences with joy and nostalgia, has left them tense and trembling in fear, and has even brought tears to their eyes. I knew that he would inevitably make his way into the blog somehow, for it would be a disservice not to discuss him or his influence. I am surprised that I was able to make it this far without mentioning one of the greatest film composers of all time!

Setting that aside, who really is John Williams? Born on February 8, 1932 in Queens, New York City, John Williams was raised in a musical family, as his father Johnny Williams was a jazz percussionist in the Raymond Scott Quintet. During his teenage years, Williams and his family moved to California, where he would gain much of his early schooling in music. After being drafted into the U.S. Air Force in 1952, Williams conducted the U.S. Air Force Band as part of his duty. Completing his service in 1955, Williams attended Juilliard to become a jazz musician. He then started his music career as a session musician for composer Henry Mancini and eventually began composing scores for television shows and films.

Since then, Williams has become one of the most influential and well-known composers of our time. In Academy Awards alone, he has been nominated for 50, more than any other living individual, and he has won five. Williams has composed dozens of famous film scores, many of which are found in the films of director Steven Spielberg, his friend and common collaborator. Some of the most recognizable include Jaws (1975), Star Wars (1977), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Schindler’s List (1993), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Harry Potter (2001), and Catch Me If You Can (2002). These scores among dozens of others have captivated and moved audiences for decades, and even at the age of 85, Williams continues to create beautiful, awe-inspiring music for all to experience and to admire.

Williams has a profound grasp of human emotion. Using rhythms and chord progressions like syntax and diction, Williams can poetically describe and capture scenes and emotions through his music. One could say that music is Williams’s second language. Through all of his scores, Williams evokes scene-appropriate emotions from the audience to fit the movie’s mood but also to create an everlasting emotional experience for each listener.

Williams is a master of emotion. He can inspire joy and love or he can dig up feelings of worry, fear, and loneliness. In one of my all-time favorite movies, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Williams wrote pieces coming from this whole range of emotions. My favorite piece from the film plays during the final bike chase scene on the way to E.T.’s spaceship (Video Link 1: E.T. Bike Chase Scene). Through Williams’s score, the scene moves from mysterious to curious to hopeful to mischievous to fleeting to dangerous to finally overcoming the danger and feeling like you can fly as the children soar away on their bikes. There are dozens of additional micro-changes with certain audio and visual cues, but these are the major shifts. I encourage you to watch the scene with this mood sequence in mind and consider how you feel it fits. Whenever I watch this scene, I become consumed by the chase and shed a tear during their final triumph in the clouds. I feel that the song perfectly captures how it feels when you are bursting with joy and think that you can walk on air. The violins especially capture that fleeting and ethereal emotion on the upper octave of the melody.

When considering the works of Williams, we also must listen to the works which seek to capture more angry and intense emotions. In Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), Williams composed the fierce and authoritative March of the Resistance (Song Link 1: Star Wars March of the Resistance) to show the strong comeback of the Resistance movement. Pounding full chords with strong offbeats give this song the unique qualities of a fiery march, and the battling and destruction on screen add to the Resistance’s growing authority and power as they take down their foes.

One last thing I would like to mention about John Williams is his versatility. He can do more than orchestral masterpieces; he can create art in multiple music genres. In Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can (2002), Williams returned to his jazz roots in the opening credits sequence (Song Link 2: Catch Me If You Can Intro). Dark, mysterious, dynamic, and fleeting, this song is reminiscent of main character Frank Abagnale Jr. and his scheming life as one of the most successful con artists of all time. The song goes through a number of moods that grow increasingly tense, representing Frank’s increasingly desperate escapes from the FBI’s grasp before he is finally caught. This amazing 1960s-style jazz piece shows how talented and emotionally aware Williams can be through his music.

John Williams is one of the best composers of all time and I hope that you have learned to appreciate him and his work just even a little bit more now. Thank you for reading this post and I hope to see you next time on Scoring the Score!

Image Credits:

Figure 1: Image 1

Figure 2: Image 2

Figure 3: Image 3

Atonement (2007), directed by Joe Wright, brings actress Keira Knightly and composer Dario Marianelli back for another compelling period piece after the success of Pride and Prejudice (2005). The film tells the life story of Briony Tallis from the fateful day that her false accusation of a crime irreversibly changed many lives, including her own. As a young girl, Briony misinterprets the love affair between her older sister Cecilia (played by Keira Knightly) and Robbie Turner (played by James McAvoy) after accidentally reading a dirty letter that Robbie wrote to Cecilia, convincing the naive Briony that Robbie must be a deranged sexual deviant. When Briony’s cousin Lola (played by Juno Temple) is later raped at a dinner party, Briony concludes that it must have been Robbie because of his inappropriate letter and sexual thoughts. Taking this into consideration, she then falsely accuses Robbie of the crime, forever ripping Cecilia and Robbie apart once the police take him away. Compelling, tragic, and heart-wrenching, Atonement was nominated for 7 Oscars, including Best Picture, and it won the Oscar for Best Original Score. The composer, Dario Marianelli, had received several nominations prior to this, but his work on Atonement made for his first Oscar win. A true talent, he writes beautiful melodic pieces typically featuring the piano. What made his Atonement score so unique though was his interesting variations of repeated ominous, sad, and even haunting melodies and the use of the typewriter as a motif.

The film opens on Briony finishing a play she has been writing on her typewriter. The viewer then follows her as she runs throughout her house searching for her mom in order to show her this new achievement. During this scene, a much more serious and ominous song plays, beginning with the sounds of Briony’s typewriter in Briony (song link 1: Briony). An eerily calm melody then joins the ensemble as the typewriter becomes the song’s beat. As the song progresses, the typewriter enters as a driving force with frantic strings and other wind instruments. This song sets up the seriousness of the story while simultaneously introducing the importance of the typewriter and the reoccurring melody, which will come back to haunt Briony as more and more devious and damaging events occur down the road, all triggered by her one fateful decision. The melody and its precise typewriter beat describe Briony’s cold and unloving personality.

Marianelli masterfully uses familiar melodies to conjure memories and feelings from earlier spots in the movie. For example, every time the Briony melody comes back in another variation, the audience gets the feeling that something bad or devious is about to happen, that the plot is moving forward. Marianelli also created a second melody to evoke a different feeling, tragedy and deep sadness. This melody was featured most prominently when Robbie was wrongfully arrested and taken from Cecilia on the night of the dinner party. The song, Farewell (song link 2: Farewell), marks the beginning of the film’s heart-wrenching tragedy. This dramatic melody first appears in Robbie’s Letter (song link 3: Robbie’s Letter), but the fully developed version appears in Farewell and later in The Cottage by the Beach (song link 4: Cottage by the Beach). Its connection to Robbie’s love letter and dream to be with Cecilia connects this song to Robbie and Cecilia’s complicated relationship and develops the tragic sadness of their separation through song.

One scene and song in particular helped to grab this score the Oscar. This famous song is the Elegy For Dunkirk (song link 5: Elegy For Dunkirk). Without spoiling how, Robbie eventually becomes an English soldier in World War II and ends up on the beaches at Dunkirk. In an amazing five minute tracking shot of the beach where the evacuation from Dunkirk took place, the beautiful and emotional Elegy For Dunkirk softly plays. With the soldier’s beautiful hopeful singing and the progressing string voices, the song provides closure for the battle and a touching emotional experience as the next part of the tragedy unravels.

Besides the familiar motifs from beautiful melodic music, Marianelli also used the typewriter as a motif in the score. Marianelli made the crucial decision to feature the typewriter in his compositions because of its role in the film. The typewriter helped Briony write her stories and eventually her biography, and Robbie wrote his fateful love letter on a typewriter. The key item which drove the plot also drives the score, an excellent parallel which connects the music to the film’s themes and atmosphere. Throughout several of the songs, the typewriter is featured heavily as background sound or the beat and percussion. This helped Marianelli create drive in his melodically dramatic and flowy music. The weight of the heavy typewriter clicks pushes the music forward and makes the listener’s heart beat just a bit faster.

Thanks for reading this post! I realize that I mostly focused on the music this time instead its role in the plot, but I purposefully made this decision since not knowing the plot before was so crucial to enjoying this film as intended. There’s a dramatic tragedy, some philosophical questions, and a huge unexpected twist within the story and I did not want to spoil anyone’s enjoyment. Take some time to watch this one and maybe Pride and Prejudice too. See you next time on Scoring the Score!

Image Credits:

Figure 1: Image 1

Figure 2: Image 2

Figure 3: Image 3

When Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner first released in 1982, it was unsuccessful in the box office. To put this into numbers, Blade Runner only made about $27M in the United States box office though the budget was $28M. Even for all of the innovative philosophy, music, and character design that the movie offered, the film wasn’t quite what audiences wanted at the time. It was too futuristic and too artistic for a decade when audiences wanted simpler comedies and dramas like The Breakfast Club (1985). Fortunately, Blade Runner has since received the recognition it deserves through its status as a popular cult classic.

The film centers around Rick Deckard, a retired blade runner in Los Angeles, 2019. The city has become a dark and dangerous place full of displays of poverty and threatening replicants, human-like robots used for various tasks including slavery in the Off World Colony. Notably, this version of Los Angeles was one of the first examples of cyber punk in American culture. This new, unique setting helped set the scene for the pessimistic and gloomy Blade Runner and define it as an innovative piece of cinema.

After four replicants commit a mutiny in the Off World Colony at the start of the film, Deckard comes out of retirement in order to put a stop to their rebellion. As a blade runner, it had been Deckard’s job to hunt down and to destroy rebelling replicants such as these. Along the journey, he meets Rachael, the assistant of Dr. Tyrell, the replicants’ creator (played by Joe Turkel). She shows strong emotional responses despite being a replicant. As the film progresses, Deckard struggles with this truth and with the way he feels about Rachael. The film asks us to ponder over what it really means to be human. Are these replicants like Rachael human because they feel emotions and have “memories”? Is it right for Deckard to be killing the rebelling replicants because they aren’t actually alive?

The setting, philosophical questions, and character of the film were all very innovative and interesting, but we will focus on the score’s innovative elements. The score of Blade Runner is one of the most impressive parts of this film. Composed by the Greek visionary Vangelis, this score has a futuristic, atmospheric, and otherworldly sound. Though the sounds, instruments, and atmospheric tone may sound easy to replicate today and possibly even common, at the time, they were truly revolutionary. It is crucial to remember landmark soundtracks such as Blade Runner‘s when considering those created today. This soundtrack notably popularized the use of an atmospheric sound, influencing many like Hans Zimmer’s Interstellar soundtrack, which we have discussed in an earlier post.

The first element to crafting Blade Runner’s unique sound was the use of electronic sounds. Arguably, the first use of electronic sounds in film came from Bernard Herrmann’s use of the theremin in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), but by the time Vangelis scored Blade Runner, he was able to incorporate it more heavily in the film with overlapping melodies and sound channels due to technological advances and his own innovations in music. He aimed to make the music more atmospheric as if it were connected to that cyber punk landscape. We can see this in songs like The Prodigal Song Brings Death (song link 1: The Prodigal Son Brings Death (1:24:04)) where the music comes from the same “notes” and sounds in the scene’s background, including the rain, the high heels, and even the harmony to the grunt. When layered with instruments such as the wind chimes and many faint sustained electronic notes, the score becomes just as much a part of the film as the dialogue.

 .                              The Greek composer Vangelis poses for the photo in his studio around the time that Blade Runner was scored. Figure 3

The second most important element of the score was its use of reverberation. The first reverberation machine, the EMT250, had only been invented 6 years before this film was released, but Vangelis discovered this new technique of reverberation and wanted to use it in Blade Runner to give the film a surreal dreamlike feel. In Blade Runner, Vangelis chose the more advanced Lexicon 224-X, which could extend sounds for 70 seconds. Vangelis then used reverberation in most sounds, dialogue, and songs to tie them into one massive atmosphere of immersive sound. This led to ethereal songs such as Deckard Meets Rachael (song link 2: Deckard Meets Rachael (0:20:05)) and Rachael’s Song (song link 3: Rachael’s Song (0:21:41)). Both of these songs excellently capture the dreamlike and otherworldly sound that Vangelis and Ridley Scott aimed to capture in Blade Runner.

Vangelis’s approach to scoring represents the final important element. Vangelis simply sat down at his Yamaha CS-80 synthesizer and watched the newly edited scenes, composing songs that represented his feelings in each particular scene. He didn’t compose to dialogue like in Grand Budapest Hotel or to action like in Baby Driver, he composed to emotion. Vangelis then used these spontaneous, unrefined compositions in the score to create a score of raw emotion. This was the key to Blade Runner‘s sound and it can be experienced in any of the score’s songs. Personally, I like the bluesy, moody, and mixed emotions from Blade Runner Blues (song link 4: Blade Runner Blues (0:39:54)). I believe it captures the muddled city and Deckard’s changing thoughts and feelings about his role as a blade runner.

Before I sign off, I must mention that I had never seen Blade Runner until this week while researching for this post. I almost feel ashamed to mention this since it was an amazing movie! I highly encourage any of you who have not seen it to watch it sometime soon, maybe even this weekend! I haven’t watched such a thought-provoking or artistically beautiful film for a while.

Thanks for reading this post! I really appreciate your support. Let me know what you think in the comments. See you next time on Scoring the Score!

Image Credits:

Figure 1: Image 1

Figure 2: Image 2

Figure 3: Image 3

Welcome back to Scoring the Score! This week we will focus on music as a plot device through Director Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash (2014). An excellent film, Whiplash follows the story of Andrew Neiman, a young Jazz drummer, as he tries to make it to the top at his competitive music school. Unfortunately, when he finally places into the competitive upper Jazz class, he must face the demands for absolute perfection coming from his music instructor, Fletcher. The audience feels Andrew’s fear and stress as he desperately becomes focused solely on gaining Fletcher’s approval. This becomes unhealthy and life-threatening for Andrew as he goes down a path of self-destruction seeking perfection.

Being a film about the struggles of a Jazz musician, the music of the film is featured prominently and drives the film forward. Entire scenes are dedicated to filming music and the film’s sound mixing and editing captures the life of several classic Jazz tunes. When Andrew first enters studio band, we are introduced through the song Whiplash (Song link 1: Whiplash). When Chazelle films music scenes, he moves the camera around constantly to focus on the prominent instruments and rotates it around the band to give the music the liveliness that it would lose from not being live. This song specifically shows how competitive and serious this band is through the ensemble’s outstanding performance of a difficult song. The song Whiplash has a kind of urgency to it that captures the film perfectly.

As the film moves along, the audience endures a number of scenes where Fletcher physically and psychologically tortures his drummers and other players in order to achieve the level of absolute perfection that he desires. For minutes of screentime on end, we watch Fletcher torture his drummers and yell slurs and insults their way. At one point in the film, Fletcher actually throws a chair at Andrew while he is playing. This paired with the frantic and failing drumming exemplifies how desperate and almost defeated the players feel when in Fletcher’s way. Another scene features Fletcher testing Andrew and the two drum alternates on a new drum part until they reach their breaking points (Video link 1: “You earned the part”). Fletcher’s words and the flailing drummers pull at our fear. We want Andrew to succeed so badly that the way he is playing affects our emotions. When his drumming is off-tempo in this scene and others, we stress and worry, and when his drumming is perfect we feel accomplished and proud of him. We then become connected to his success and constantly route him on throughout his journey. Music that creates emotions but uses them to effectively engage the audience in the plot, that’s how to do a movie soundtrack.

One last scene I would like to mention is the movie’s final scene. After turmoil between Fletcher and Andrew has reached a peak and many shocking events have taken place (don’t worry I won’t spoil them), Fletcher invites Andrew to play with one of his concert bands in Carnegie Hall. Andrew happily accepts, but little does he know that Fletcher gave him the wrong song. Andrew, unlike the rest of the band, has the part for Duke Ellington and Juan Tizol’s Caravan. After Andrew catches on to Fletcher’s rouse to humiliate him at Carnegie Hall, Andrew starts playing before Fletcher has finished making his introduction and cues in the rest of the band (Video link 2: Caravan). This song, especially the progressing piano part and fast tempo, create the feel of a final showdown between Fletcher and Andrew. To the audience, this is the final scene, the final destination, and the music fits this idea very well. Andrew achieves his greatness and takes control of himself and the band away from the psychotic Fletcher once and for all, winning that final showdown. After this song ends, Andrew goes into an impressive and perfect drum solo that forever cements him as a famous drummer. He has finally overcome Fletcher’s manipulation and become his goal.

Thanks for reading this post! I encourage you to watch Whiplash especially if you are a musician because it can be very relatable. I personally loved this movie and believe it deserves a lot of credit. I hope to see you next time on Scoring the Score!

Media Credits:
Figure 1: Image 1

Figure 2: Image 2

Figure 3: Image 3

Welcome back! Are you excited for Baby Driver Part Two because I sure am! In the first post, we focused on the soundtrack’s background as well as a general overview of the soundtrack. Today, we will talk more in-depth about how the movie’s soundtrack builds Baby’s relationship with his love Debora, who we hardly mentioned in the first post, and with his teammate Buddy (played by Jon Hamm). So, if you haven’t read the first post yet, then I recommend doing so, but remember to come back here afterwards if you want to hear even more!

Let’s begin with the scene where Baby and Debora first meet. Baby goes to a simple diner, an additional 60s element in the movie. We overhear a waitress saying that his mother used to waitress here and that he has still frequented the diner long after she died. This extra detail further develops that Baby has been scarred from his childhood car accident and that he still clings to the memory of his mother. After this, we see Debora enter the diner for her first day of work. She sings B-A-B-Y by Carla Thomas (Song Link: B-A-B-Y) as she enters. This is fitting since it sounds like Debora is singing to Baby when she addresses the intended listener as “Baby”. The song also has a romantic and somewhat sexual tone and message which tells the viewer that Debora will be a major character and love interest before she has even talked to Baby. Baby then takes out his tape recorder and records her singing for his mixtape collection as she walks around the diner. This shows his initial interest in and obsession over her and her singing.

Debora and Baby (played by Ansel Elgort) talk together in the diner as Debora takes Baby’s order. Figure 2

If we look closely at the beginnings of Baby and Debora’s relationship though, we find something awfully Freudian. Debora sings and waitresses at the same diner that Baby’s mother sang and waitressed at soon before her death. You could interpret this as Baby using Debora as a way to replace his mother and to give him the love and care he lost because of his mother’s death. This is about as far as Wright develops this aspect of their relationship, but the connection between Debora and Baby’s mother is still worth mentioning.

As Debora takes Baby’s order, he tries ordering from the kid’s menu, showing his immaturity and inability to overcome his childhood trauma. Debora then asks for his name, and upon hearing that his name is Baby, Debora explains that Baby is the best name because so many songs talk to him. She says that she doesn’t like her name since there are no songs about Debora. Debora mentions that there is one song with her name in it, but she reveals that it is actually about the singer getting with a girl whose sister is named Debra. The song, Debra by Midnite Vultures (Song Link 2: Debra), fits in the groovy funk rock genre. It plays later in the movie when Baby dances around his room thinking about Debora. Baby reassures Debora by bringing up one song about a Debora, Deborah by T. Rex (Song Link 3: Deborah). This song fits in the psychedelic folk rock genre, comparing a Deborah to a Zebra. Baby and Debora then go to the laundromat to talk more after her shift and they end up listening to Deborah and planning a date. Both of these songs fit the movie’s atmosphere of funk, soul, and Motown songs even though Debra was written in the late 1990s. They play during subsequent scenes to show the reader that Baby is thinking about Debora again, achieved without any dialogue or exposition. The music tells the story and shows his growing feelings for Debora.

As the movie progresses, Debora and Baby go on dates and they dream of running away together. Baby wants to escape his life of crime and Debora just wants to break free from her waitressing job and see what’s outside of Atlanta. However, on their first dinner date, Baby sees his boss at the restaurant, his boss pulls him aside, and his boss tells him that he can’t leave the business if he wants Debora to live. This begins the transition in their relationship from simply romantic to star-crossed lovers. They both want to be together but Baby’s job keeps getting in the way.

While working one day, Baby also begins developing a relationship with Buddy, one of his teammates. Buddy always defended Baby and treated him nicely, but one day, he even asked Baby about his music. Baby replied that he was listening to Brighton Rock by Queen (Song Link 4: Brighton Rock). The song is a rock song about a girl and boy meeting and wanting to be together though the girl’s mother and the boy’s committed lover keep them apart. Baby listening to this shows that even on the job, he still thinks of being with Debora. This could also be part of the Freudian undertones as the thought and image of Baby’s mother, represented by the girl’s mother, is keeping Baby from loving Debora solely for who she is, not for her resemblance to Baby’s mother. Along with this, the job Baby is committed to, represented by the boy’s committed lover, is keeping him from being with his new girl. Buddy listens with him and replies that his brother used to listen to this song all the time. They bond over the music together.

Now, I don’t want to summarize the movie too much here, but the context in the third act really matters. Baby and Debora plan to escape together one night but Baby must complete one last big job. During the job, he deliberately sabotages everything. Darling (played by Eiza Gonzalez), Buddy’s lover, is killed by policemen as they all escape. Buddy is left distraught.

Baby then escapes the scene and drives to the diner to pick up Debora. When he gets there, he starts playing Never, Never Gonna Give Ya Up by Barry White (Scene Link 1: Final Diner Scene) to fit the mood and walks into the diner. Unfortunately, Debora isn’t alone. Buddy is sitting at the diner counter, sipping his coffee and threatening to kill Debora since Baby killed Darling by sabotaging the job. With this sexual and groovy song playing in the background, the scene becomes eerie. This wasn’t what Baby was expecting to happen when he picked the song. Then, Buddy takes Baby’s headphones and listens to the romantic song. Realizing that Baby thought he could get away with Debora, Buddy keeps them and tells Baby that it’s all over. This represents Buddy shattering Baby’s expectations and taking his dream of being with Debora away. In a turn of events that plays out in the scene linked to above, Baby and Debora escape until Buddy finds them again in the gang’s parking garage.

In this shocking scene, Buddy chases Baby and Debora around in a car while blaring Brighton Rock out of the speakers. He claims that they are like Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and they will never be together. I will link a video to this final face-off between Buddy and Baby, but please be aware that there is violence and strong language in this scene as it is a R-Rated Movie (Scene Link 2: Final Face-Off Scene). This literary allusion to Romeo and Juliet and the song about a boy and a girl being kept apart tie in strongly to Baby and Debora’s relationship. In addition, not necessarily a note about the music specifically but the use of blue light on Debora and Baby’s faces and the red light on Buddy’s face shows the good and evil in the scene. They represent the innocent star-crossed lovers and the deranged evil job and life from which Baby is trying to escape.

Thank you for reading this post! I hope you enjoyed revisiting Baby Driver! There is so much more to the soundtrack and the movie itself if you dive deeper, but today I just wanted to focus on Baby’s relationships with Debora and Buddy and how music played a role in this development.

See you next time on Scoring the Score!

 

Image Credits:

Figure 1: Screenshot from this video

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Figure 3: Image 3

Figure 4: Image 4

Figure 5: Image 5

Get your popcorn and 3D glasses ready this week because we— wait where’s the movie?!

This week we are switching from the theater to the silver screen with the Netflix Original Stranger Things (2016) created by Matt and Ross Duffer! The show is an American science fiction show with supernatural and suspenseful elements. With the second season soon to arrive on October 27, 2017, I thought I would discuss the show’s outstanding soundtrack now to give you a few weeks to binge the show in preparation for the next season.

Released on July 15, 2016, Stranger Things quickly became the show of the summer. Though released exclusively for Netflix, the show gained massive popularity and a huge fanbase. Stranger Things features 12-year olds Mike (played by Finn Wolfhard), Dustin (played by Gaten Matarazzo), Lucas (played by Caleb McLaughlin), and Will (played by Noah Schnapp) as they grow up in a small town in Indiana, 1983. The show starts with the four boys playing Dungeons and Dragons at night in Mike’s basement. When Will loses the game, he sets off on his bike to head home, but on the way back he begins to feel as if he is being followed. After being chased to his empty house, Will is caught by the unknown creature that was pursuing him and Will disappears without leaving a trace. After his other three friends hear of his disappearance, they team up with a mysterious girl they find named Eleven (played by Millie Bobby Brown) in order to find their missing friend.

Since the show takes place in the 1980s, it is heavily influenced by the decade. The show constantly references and pays homage to famous 1980s movies, and everything from the games the boys play to the clothes they wear to the themes of the show all capture the essence of the 1980s. Notably, the soundtrack excellently pays homage to the 1980s through its use of 1980s songs as well as through a score composed with analog synths to recreate that iconic 80s synth sound. When combined, these two elements of the soundtrack create an eerie and suspenseful atmosphere.

The first element of the soundtrack is the selection of 1980s songs with a few exceptions. The center figure behind the soundtrack is Jonathan, the older brother of the missing Will. A bit of a shy outcast, Jonathan likes photography and listening primarily to the punk and post-punk genre of the time. This led to the inclusion of many mostly experimental, eerie, and rebellious songs. One of the more powerful moments of the show is the reoccurring use of the song “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” By The Clash. We first hear it in a flashback when Jonathan plays it for Will (Scene Link 1: Brothers, Together). Will uses it to remember Jonathan and to try to reconnect with him through it from the alternate dimension in which Will has become trapped, the Upside Down. Hearing this song suddenly blast out of a radio, breaking the silence, gives the song a much more menacing and creepy tone.

Another impactful song that plays in the series is “Elegia” by New Order. This song was named after the Greek word for elegy and was composed by the band for Ian Curtis, the lead singer of their former band Joy Division. Fittingly, this song plays during Will’s funeral after his disappearance. The town has given up hope of finding him as this solemn and otherworldly instrumental from the dark wave music subgenre plays (Scene Link 2: Funeral for Will). The characters, including Will’s mother Joyce (played by Winona Ryder), are grief-struck and distraught. This song captures their disconnect from the world and the hole that Will has left in them.

Aside from “Should I Stay or Should I Go” and “Elegia”, many of the other songs appear in the credits immediately after the show. These songs feature bands and singers such as Echo & the Bunnymen, The Bangles, Corey Hart, Foreigner, and Jefferson Airplane. “Nocturnal Me” by Echo & the Bunnymen is an especially good representation of the show through its dark and experimental rock sounds (Song Link 3: Episode 5 Credits Song).

The second element of the soundtrack is the amazing synth score by Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein of the experimental band S U R V I V E. The 36 songs all have unique electronic sounds that create moods of tranquility, fear, sadness, and more. The show’s opening credits best exemplify the genius behind Stranger Things‘s synth score. The inclusion and overlap of so many otherworldly electronic sounds, the glowing red letters of the logo, and the ethereal but eerie arpeggios all combine for one striking sequence (Scene Link 4: Opening Credits).

When listening to the soundtrack on Wednesday night by myself in the dark in preparation for this, a few songs especially stuck out of the 1:09:04 of music. The first one was “One Blink For Yes”, which was very calming (Song Link 5: One Blink For Yes). The song plays when Will’s mother Joyce begins receiving flashing Christmas light responses when she talks to them. She believes she is going crazy but she thinks that Will is behind it and tells him to answer with one blink for yes.

The second one I will mention is “Hallucinations”, which legitimately scares me now (Song Link 6: Hallucinations). After sitting alone in the dark and hearing this, it made me feel like I had been transported to the Upside Down, which is the name for the decaying dimension of the Demogorgon, the creature that took Will. I actually had to go turn on the lights because the sounds were so demented and scary!

If you couldn’t tell, I really like the Stranger Things soundtrack. Not only does it bring in emotional synth pieces, it also pulls songs from many of my favorite bands. I was very appreciative of the Duffer Brothers paying homage to some of the bands and genres of music I listen to, and I hope you can be too! Furthermore, I hope that I have convinced you to watch the show if you haven’t already. You still have a few weeks before season 2 comes out just in time for Halloween.

Thank you for reading this post! I know it wasn’t about movies this week, but be prepared for Baby Driver Part 2 next week. I hope to see you then on Scoring the Score!

Photo Credits:

Image 1: Figure 1

Image 2: Figure 2

Image 3: Figure 3

Image 4: Figure 4

Image 5: Figure 5

Award-winning German film score composer Hans Zimmer (1957-), one of the greats of our time, has composed film scores for decades, with each one surpassing the last. Some of his most famous scores include Lion King (1994), Gladiator (2000), Batman: The Dark Knight (2008), Inception (2010), and Interstellar (2014). He most recently composed scores for Dunkirk (2017) and Blade Runner 2049 (2017). Zimmer has received many awards for his work, including a Best Original Score Oscar for his Lion King score. He was also nominated for 8 other Best Original Score Oscars.

Today, we will be talking about Zimmer’s style when he composes scores. Like all great composers, Zimmer doesn’t fall victim to having one easily recognizable style. He possesses an amazing ability to vary his style and the mood of his music depending on the time period and context of the movie he is scoring.

One of Zimmer’s first highly recognized and successful scores was his score for Ridley Scott’s Gladiator (2000). The film follows the story of the betrayed Roman general Maximus (played by Russell Crowe) as he seeks revenge for the murder of his family. He goes about this by battling as a gladiator in Rome. The score won a Golden Globe and was nominated for an Oscar. In this score, Zimmer embraced the ancient Roman sound of the film’s setting and time period through ethnic singing, the multiple uses of various ancient European and Armenian instruments, and slow orchestral songs full of the malaise of the heat and hardships that Maximus fought through to seek his revenge. The song 4. Earth (song link 1: song 1) is a peaceful recurring theme that follows Maximus for the duration of his enormous burden of an undertaking. Listen to the airy sounds in the background as well as the cello and trumpet solos. Zimmer then matches this malaise with fast action-packed battle songs as well. These songs have pounding percussion parts and occasionally lively singing.

The next Zimmer score we will look at is the score for Christopher Nolan’s Inception (2010). One of my favorite movies and my favorite Zimmer score, this philosophical and mind-blowing movie has an equally amazing score to match. In the movie, Cobb (played by Leonardo DiCaprio), a criminal who uses dreams to steal corporate secrets, must complete one last big job in order to go home to his kids. However, Cobb’s dark past entangled with his deceased wife Mal (played by Marion Cotillard) keeps catching up with him until there is no escape from facing the reality of the film, that nobody knows which reality is reality. Neither Mal nor Cobb nor the viewer can ever be sure.

Zimmer is well-known for his mixing of synth sounds with live orchestral music. He does this extensively in Inception to create an ethereal, dream-like score with dark twisted moments and drama. Even though many of the songs sound like a dream, there’s always something off that puts the audience on edge. The songs that best exemplify this idea are The Dream is Collapsing (song link 2: song 2) and Dark Mal (song link 3: song 3). The Dream is Collapsing brings in the strong brassy chords and high drama while Dark Mal sounds peaceful but somewhat eerie and unreal. As a potential reference point for some of you, songs such as Dark Mal remind me of Ramin Djawadi’s soundtrack to the first season of the hit HBO TV series Westworld. Both Inception and Westworld have a dream-like world with twisted characters and themes. I highly encourage anyone who hasn’t seen the film Inception to watch it. I won’t say anything more for fear of spoiling the movie.

The last Zimmer score I would like to mention is the score for Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar (2014). Zimmer and Nolan paired up again to create another ethereal and otherworldly sound and experience after working together on the Batman films and Inception. Though the score lost against Alexandre Desplat’s The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) score for the 2014 Best Original Score Oscar, Zimmer’s Interstellar score still excellently captures the quiet and somewhat empty atmosphere of outer space through songs such as 3. Dust (song link 4: song 4). Take note that in Dust, synth noises are added in around 2:15 to drive the piece forward. Zimmer’s innovative trademark of combining synth sounds with orchestral music continues here from many of Zimmer’s other earlier films.

Despite the ingenuity of this score, I would like to mention that though Zimmer’s soundtrack is simplistic and beautiful, it relies heavily on the slow progression of a few key recurring themes. The loudness of the score also caused many viewers to take issue. Viewers complained that the score drowned out the dialogue in many important moments. Since most of the soundtrack followed the theme of being tranquil and otherworldly, hearing important moments be blasted away really detracted from the simplicity and effectiveness of the score, in my opinion.

Hans Zimmer continues to compose scores today, and I am excited to watch Dunkirk and listen to Zimmer’s latest score when the movie comes out on DVD. I hope you have learned a bit more about Hans Zimmer and have enjoyed listening to a few of his compositions. Though not discussed in this post, I would also recommend checking out Nolan and Zimmer’s collaboration in Batman: The Dark Knight in addition to checking out the other films mentioned here.

I hope to catch you next time on Scoring the Score!

Image and Information Credits:

Image 1: Figure 1

Image 2: Figure 2 (screenshot from video)

Image 3: Figure 3 (screenshot from video)

Image 4: Figure 4

Image 5: Figure 5

Information Source 1: Info Source 1

I don’t own any of the music or images. The music is property of Hans Zimmer, his collaborators, and the studios he has worked with to create these scores.

(Author’s Note: Last week we analyzed The Grand Budapest Hotel’s score. To explain some terminology, a soundtrack compiles existing songs, whereas a score contains original music written for the movie, so this week we are switching gears by analyzing an example of a fantastic soundtrack.)

Edgar Wright, the director of cleverly crafted films such as Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010), created another instant classic this summer with his hit film Baby Driver (2017). Set in Atlanta, Georgia, Baby Driver follows the life of the young getaway driver Baby as he tries to get out of the business so that he can run away with his lady love, Debora. Though this short synopsis seems to follow the same tired trope found in many other heist films of the main character trying to escape their life of crime, I assure you that this movie is anything but stale. To give this well-established trope some new life, Wright expands beyond the trope through the film’s artfully crafted soundtrack.

As a bit of background, Wright knew exactly which songs to choose for the film’s soundtrack before he even finished writing the movie. He had been playing around with the idea for this film and its unique soundtrack ever since he first heard the song Bellbottoms by The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion (song link: song 1) in 1994 when it was released. The two distinct parts of the song inspired what has now become the movie’s opening scene. It starts with Baby rocking out to the song by himself in the car as his team commits the bank heist. Then, the song transitions into the get-away car chase scene around the 1:40 mark in the song. After deciding on this song, Wright created a soundtrack that primarily contains distinctly Rock ‘n’ Roll, Groove, and Motown songs from the mid-1960s and late 1970s to fit the mood set by Bellbottoms.

Wright connects this old music to the modern setting mainly through Baby, and he uses this to develop Baby’s character. In the story, Baby discovered his love of the soundtrack’s old music through his mother, a waitress who used to sing on the side. However, ever since a traumatic childhood car accident that took away his mother and left him with a constant ringing in his ears, Baby has listened to his mother’s old music through his headphones to drown out the ringing and to remind him of his past.

This has made music a very influential part of Baby’s life as he reacts to music and dances around to it everyday. Notably, the movie’s second scene features Baby walking through Atlanta on his way to get coffee for the team after the success of the first heist. The song Harlem Shuffle by Bob and Earl plays as he nonchalantly moves through the city to his own beat (song link: song 2). Baby has become obsessed with playing different songs on a number of different iPods in order to express his moods as well as to create a soundtrack for his life both in and out of the driver’s seat. At one point in the movie, Baby and a different team from the one in the beginning are about to commit a bank heist, so Baby naturally wants to play a song to go with the heist. However, the team gets out of the car before Baby has said “go”, so the music isn’t timed up right. Baby freaks out and makes them restart just so that the music times up to the scene.

This brings us to one of the most impressive and amazing aspects of the film, every movement and action in the film is lined up with the rhythm of the song currently playing. Everything from footsteps to doors slamming to even chewing gum was carefully timed up by the actors as they filmed the movie. Even more surprising, none of this was done during editing, and since the music couldn’t be played during the filming of scenes, this led to countless retakes in order to get everything just right. One of the most impressive scenes includes a weapons deal gone wrong. Bats (played by Jamie Foxx) starts a fight that ends in dozens of gun shots being fired. The actors had to time each gun shot to fit with the music, Tequila by The Champs (song link: song 3). Wright’s use of this technique immerses us in Baby’s world, letting us see things through his perspective as he uses music to make his life very much like an action movie.

After an illegal weapons deal gone wrong, the heist team sits in the diner where Debora works. Figure 4

Wright’s use of soundtrack develops Baby’s character through showing his maniacal obsession over his mother and her music as he turns his exciting life of crime into an action movie inside of an action movie. Additionally, Wright uses the soundtrack to describe and to contextualize the plot, allusions, characters, and their relationships with Baby. In order to give Wright’s genius and Baby Driver the credit and dedication that they deserve, we will take on this next part of the topic in a future post. Be ready to dive deeper into Baby Driver soon and I’ll see you next time on Scoring the Score!

Wes Anderson’s 2014 hit The Grand Budapest Hotel stunned audiences with its deeply touching story while still maintaining Anderson’s colorful fairytale aesthetic and mood. The story follows the grandiose concierge M. Gustave (played by Ralph Fiennes) and his timid lobby boy Zero Moustafa (played by Tony Revolori and F. Murray Abraham) as they try to operate The Grand Budapest Hotel in Lutz, Zubrowka and try to escape from murderers in the Boy With Apple Painting scandal. With romance, a prison break, the discovery of true friendship, and murder, the characters constantly jump from scene to scene with the everlasting light drumbeat and triangle in the background.

The academy award-winning score for this film, composed by the award-winning Alexandre Desplat, can teach the listener about a few of the key elements to composing a great score. Namely, it shows how to create a fitting atmosphere and how to pull reactions from the audience.

The movie opens with peaceful male choir music (1. S’Rothe-Zäuerli by Öse Schuppel, Link: Song Link 1) that brings you to the mountains where the movie takes place through its “yodeling” influences. The elegance and peacefulness of the piece create a serene and calm opening. By 3:36, the main theme (3. Mr. Moustafa by Alexandre Desplat, Link: Song Link 2) comes in with the opening shots of the hotel’s interior. A number of shots roll by, each with an interesting guest at the hotel. As the song picks up in volume and intensity, the viewer begins to see the hotel as a quirky and eclectic gathering place, quietly set in the mountains of this imaginary Eastern European country. However, Anderson and Desplat indicate that not all is well by 9:39 as the composition becomes more ominous and stressful as M. Gustave’s elderly lover Madame D foresees her own death (5. A Prayer for Madame D, Link: Song Link 3). The murder of Madame D starts a wild series of events that dictate the course of the rest of the film. For the film’s duration, Mr. Moustafa and A Prayer For Madame D return in different variations depending on who is on screen. For example, when the meddling, murdureous son of Madame D, Dmitri (played by Adrien Brody), enters a scene, a dramatic organ is added to the tracks.

These songs all prominently feature the balalaika, a guitar-like instrument of Russian and Slavic origin. Including this Eastern European instrument plays a large role in creating the movie’s setting and atmosphere. It brings all scenes to life whether they appear in the town, in the monastery, in the wintery estate, or in the ski hill chase scene.

Desplat also teaches the listener about silence in a film. Whenever a punchline or suspenseful moment comes, all sounds suddenly stop for a moment. For example, at 15:29, the music breaks off as a character asks why all the women that M. Gustave dates are blonde. The same technique is used at 52:55, when a character is being stalked by one of the murderers, organ chords build up and overlap until it cuts off and the murderer kills him. These interactive and playful uses of music grab the audience and make the score  a key element and a character of its own as it changes with certain characters or actions.

Alexandre Desplat uses the film’s score to create a playful atmosphere and develop the film’s comedy while also driving its more passionate moments. I encourage you to listen to the soundtrack, watch the movie with these things in mind, and listen to the soundtrack a day or two later. I find that you will grow to really appreciate the genius of it as I have!

I will leave you with (27. Canto at Gabelmeister’s Peak by Alexandre Desplat) which goes from a scene in a monastery to a murder in the monastery and finally to a huge chase scene down the ski hill which ends on a cliff edge. Listen for the monastery choir, the organ with the murderer, the balalaika and horn solos in the chase, and finally the drum heartbeat at the end. Link: Song Link 4

Thanks for reading and I will see you later on Scoring the Score!

Here are my notes from watching the film. It marks interesting moments when the music changes with their timestamps.

Photo Credits:

Figure 1: The Rushmore Academy

Figure 2: Mountain Cinema

Figure 3: Slate Magazine

I do not own any of the music. All music owned by Alexandre Desplat and Fox Searchlight Pictures.