Categories One-by-One: Original Score

[Okri]

That's really interesting, dws. I had heard that but never put in any effort to explore

Conversely, that perhaps helps to explain John Williams gargantuan Oscar record. 52 nominations (47 in scoring, 5 in song) is beyond staggering.

[dws1982]

I wonder if the fact that it's an open secret that Zimmer doesn't write most of the music he's credited for will hurt him. Vanity Fair did an article about it a few weeks back. It's not something I think would make a huge difference, but in a close race I could see it shifting a few votes, maybe even enough to make a difference if it's really close.

It is true that names aren't on the ballots, but a lot of people know that Zimmer is credited for the Dune music, and he's kind of become the most prominent example of the (apparently common) practice of film scoring being a "by department" job that one person gets the credit for and the other composers go uncredited (or getting an "additional composer" credit) and get very little pay. The guy who created the famous music cue from Inception does not have the film anywhere in his IMDb credits.

John Williams is apparently one of the few still-working composers who still does all of his own compositions, although he's scaled back in a major way in recent years--he did just turn 90 after all.

[rolotomasi99]

For anyone interested, this is a great analysis of the DUNE score from Hans himself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93A1ryc-WW0

I enjoyed the score along with the rest of the movie, but hearing from him and his team made me really appreciate how integrated the soundtrack and sound design were. Much like Cinematography, I am happy if either DUNE or THE POWER OF THE DOG win this category.

[Sabin]

rolotomasi99 wrote
What rule did they change, Sabin?

I knew there was controversy about the BABEL score because it contained pieces of music written for other films, but every single one of the Star Wars sequels was nominated for their scores despite containing music not original to the respective films.

Is the rule change you are referring to why the score for THERE WILL BE BLOOD was ruled ineligible the next year?

My understanding is they changed the % of screen-time the score had to encompass during the film as well as well as the % of original music vs. pre-existing music. But that's only my recollection. I could be wrong. And yes, that is why There Will Be Blood was ruled ineligible, because there wasn't enough original music in the film.

And to be fair to John Williams, all of his Star Wars compositions were new compositions.

[rolotomasi99]

I certainly wasn't positive that Gustavo Santaolalla would take it but the theme to Brokeback Mountain was so damn memorable that I just didn't think it could be counted out (this was certainly an instinct that proved me wrong the next year when I predicted Pan's Labyrinth, but at least the category didn't think I was entirely wrong because they changed the rules of the category following Babel's win, anyway...).

What rule did they change, Sabin?

I knew there was controversy about the BABEL score because it contained pieces of music written for other films, but every single one of the Star Wars sequels was nominated for their scores despite containing music not original to the respective films.

Is the rule change you are referring to why the score for THERE WILL BE BLOOD was ruled ineligible the next year?

[Okri]

Zimmer 100% won because of hugely popular songs that he had nothing to do with. I defy anyone to name a single memorable music cue from it (or any of the countless Disney musicals of that era) that wasn't tied to a song. I'm not the biggest fan of the Dune score either but I think it''s decent work and Zimmer has had a lot of scores that he could have deservedly won for that either lost or weren't even nominated, so I'm fine with him getting another one. (I'm also not a fan of The Power of the Dog's score though.)

I don't think you're wrong, but I'd also put up "King of Pride Rock" as one of the best things he wrote (not in The Thin Red Line) and the music for the wildebeast stampede got a lot of play from me. I could definitely hum them.

I saw Don’t Look Up after the longlists were announced, so I made an effort to pay attention to the music. I have absolutely no memory of it. I’m happy that AMPAS’s music branch has taken to newer composers more easily these past ten years, but I’m not enthusiastic about Nicholas Britell this year (comparing this to how Barry Jenkins worked with him, it’s night and day). I’m listening to it now and it’s not unpleasant, though. With the exception of the final dinner sequence (which I think might be one of the scenes of the year) I can’t associate it with any images from the movie, but it’s not unpleasant. I'm, actually a little surprised that people would vote for it.

If you were to listen to any track of Parallel Mothers without knowing the title of the movie or the composer, you could easily pinpoint it as an Iglesias score for Almodovar. The thing that floored me while watching the movie was just how poorly it was used. It’s intrusive and oddly placed. In another year its plangent strings might be enough to sneak by underseen movies (I’m thinking a year like 2004), but not this one. I genuinely believe this might be a three-way race.

I remember thinking that the score, outside of the songs, was quite good in Encanto. In the early days of Disney’s domination, the song score would pull in the composer alongside the songwriters to a victory, but those days seem long past (I do find it amusing that AMPAS split the music categories in the mid 90s to give non-Disney movies a shot, only to stop honouring Disney movies). That said, I also think that the score is very good and would be a solid winner. I do wonder if Franco is enough of a name, the way Hans Zimmer was in 1994

When I started this post, Power of the Dog felt further ahead in the best picture race and I thought that it would take the Oscar, even if it was close. But now, it seems that Zimmer’s cruising to the Oscar. Either would be deserving winners. There’s something about the way Villenueve’s combines sound and score in his films that makes me wonder if the scores actually would be able to stand on their own enough to win - Tee says not enough melody, but that just strikes me about how Villeneuve works. Conversely, Greenwood’s work is spare and AMPAS rarely goes for spare. Maybe Brokeback Mountain?

Like Sabin, Dune without confidence.

[mlrg]

I’m a big Zimmer fan and he should have won for Gladiator, Inception and Interstellar, all of which are truly memorable scores.

I’m not a huge fan of his work for Dune but everyone I know that has seen the film say the score is one of the best things about the film.

[Big Magilla]

I don't know if things have changed in the last few years, but it used to be that Oscar ballots did not list the names of recipients in below-the-line categories so that voters may have thought they were voting for song scores when they voted for orchestral scores of musicals. It's been a problem going all the way back.

[dws1982]

Germain Franco is actually the first woman ever to score a Disney animated feature and the first Latina to ever get nominated for Original Score which could have boosted her chances if more people knew about these facts more widely.

Perhaps the morons who think the score was written by Lin-Manuel Miranda will vote for it, and she will be the happy recipient of the first letter on her way to EGOT status.

You could argue that Elton John & Tim Rice won Hans Zimmer his only previous Oscar much the same way, Though BJ always argued with this, I thought the multiple Disney wins in this category between 1989 and 1994 were victories for the songs, not the underscore. In the earlier cases, at least Menken was responsible for both...but, with Lion King, Zimmer benefited from association with songs he had no part in.

Zimmer 100% won because of hugely popular songs that he had nothing to do with. I defy anyone to name a single memorable music cue from it (or any of the countless Disney musicals of that era) that wasn't tied to a song. I'm not the biggest fan of the Dune score either but I think it''s decent work and Zimmer has had a lot of scores that he could have deservedly won for that either lost or weren't even nominated, so I'm fine with him getting another one. (I'm also not a fan of The Power of the Dog's score though.)

[Sabin]

I absolutely think that there's a desire to make Lin-Manuel Miranda an EGOT. He's such a brand at this point, and he's one that they've completely signed off on. It'll happen within the next 2-3 years probably. It'll come up in some form of campaign. It'll be his time.

SIDE NOTE: I've been thinking a lot about Lin-Manuel Miranda's impact on the new Disney renaissance and I've decided I'm largely okay with it. I've taken a bit of a stroll back through the songs of the "old" Disney renaissance (The Little Mermaid to Tarzan). If you were asked to make a list of the ten best songs of those films, I'm guessing seven or eight of them would be Ashman/Menken songs. That collaboration would probably fill my personal top ten. The other songs are either a little too drippy or missing a joy of wordplay that can't really be ignored. Lin-Manuel Miranda he may not be Howard Ashman but he's moving these songs in a far less drippy direction and that's probably something to be grateful for.

[Mister Tee]

Germain Franco is actually the first woman ever to score a Disney animated feature and the first Latina to ever get nominated for Original Score which could have boosted her chances if more people knew about these facts more widely.

Perhaps the morons who think the score was written by Lin-Manuel Miranda will vote for it, and she will be the happy recipient of the first letter on her way to EGOT status.

You could argue that Elton John & Tim Rice won Hans Zimmer his only previous Oscar much the same way, Though BJ always argued with this, I thought the multiple Disney wins in this category between 1989 and 1994 were victories for the songs, not the underscore. In the earlier cases, at least Menken was responsible for both...but, with Lion King, Zimmer benefited from association with songs he had no part in.

Am I alone in not being much impressed with Zimmer's work here? It's a lot of heavy metal and not much melody; I feel like he's been more deserving on many occasions in the past. Greenwood's score strikes me as far more impressive, and I'm rooting for him. But the hive-mind seems to have decided it's Zimmer's time.

[rolotomasi99]

Germain Franco is actually the first woman ever to score a Disney animated feature and the first Latina to ever get nominated for Original Score which could have boosted her chances if more people knew about these facts more widely.

Perhaps the morons who think the score was written by Lin-Manuel Miranda will vote for it, and she will be the happy recipient of the first letter on her way to EGOT status.

[Big Magilla]

The push for making Miranda an EGOT winner is apparently a Twitter thing. I doubt it's a thing for most Academy members.

[OscarGuy]

Lin-Manuel Miranda is not the listed composer for Original Score. He's only nominated in Original Song. And honestly, I don't think anyone cares about making anyone an EGOT winner.

[Big Magilla]

When something is this close, they usually go with who they think is more due.

Hans Zimmer hasn't won since 1994's The Lion King despite multiple nominations since. On the other hand, relative newcomer Jonny Greenwood hasn't won at all, and he has both Licorice Pizza and Spencer this year as well, two films whose scores are better than their overall films in my humble opinion, so he has that in his favor. On the other hand, the multitude of supporters wanting to make Lin-Manuel Miranda the youngest EGOT winner ever, probably doesn't have enough supporters within the industry to overcome Zimmer and Greenwood. Besides, he can do that in the Best Song category instead.