Hans’ Oscar Bites

As per usual, every year I want to highlight my good friend Jonathan Dinerstein’s excellent film score podcast Settling the Score and their annual recap of the Oscar-nominated film scores. Check them out at at https://www.settlingthescorepodcast.com or wherever you subscribe to your podcasts! I myself have not had a chance to listen to this year’s edition so I’m going in a little musically blind, but hoping to maybe add some additional insights after a listen! Because, overall, I actually think this is a very strong crop of nominees this year.

The nominees are:

• Bugonia
• Frankenstein
• Hamnet
• One Battle After Another
• Sinners

5) HAMNET (Max Richter)
I’m ranking this last for two reasons in particular. One, because of the very loooooong and doooollleffuullll pieces that populate the score, which, depending on how your mileage varies, may or may not affect your mood or vibe with any particular scene. Within the context of the movie I think it works great; as a solo listen not so much. Ultimately, though, I think it also merits a last rank based on the heavily debated choice to to use Max Richter’s pre-existing piece On the Nature of Daylight in the crucial emotional climax of the film. At least one anonymous Oscar ballot cited this piece as the reason they voted for Hamnet in Score, before being told it was already a well-known pre-existing piece, which tells you all you need to know about how far the merits of the score itself actually properly carry.

4) FRANKENSTEIN (Alexandre Desplat)
I’ve always been big and solid on Desplat’s work and clearly so has the Academy as he’s been a perennial nominee for the last two decades now. HIs flowery sentimental style works well in this context as we build up to Victor Frankenstein’s great creation, and the Creature’s subsequent exile. I fear that there’s some of Desplat’s flair missing fom this, but nonetheless it serves the film its been presented with.

3) BUGONIA (Jerskin Fendrix)
This was such a pleasant surprise come Oscar noms morning! Over the course of this film’s progression, this score, like a lot of Yorgos’ music choices, kind of serves in highlighting the absurdity of the plot unfolding on screen. I did tell a couple friends, though, that this score sounded very much like the kind of piece that would be premiering at Walt Disney Concert Hall the night you come to hear a Mahler, which I mean in a totally complimentary way.

2) ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER (Jonny Greenwood)
I was really conflicted on these last two choices. On the one hand, I could not help but notice the pulsing and urgent music permeating throughout the course of One Battle After Another as the stakes continually escalated. On the other hand, I remember I kept telling myself “Oh hey there’s that insane score again”. It’s so, so very good, and in any other year a worthy winner. “River of Hills” accompanying the final chase scene carries the lion’s share of making that scene one of the best of the year, if not all time.

1) SINNERS (Ludwig Göransson)
Ultimately, though, I think it’s the music of Sinners that serves the movie the most efficiently, the most effectively, and the most naturally. There’s a consistent blues and jazz sensibility that meets the mood of every scene, whether its a bustling town square, the first few hours of a brand new juke joint, or the rising threat of the vampires circling the barn, as the score begins to turn into an apocalyptic inferno. Coogler’s partnership with Goransson is obviously incredibly, as it is so heartening to see a symbiosis between director and composer when it feels like they both know exactly what the other is needing.

• WILL WIN: Sinners
• COULD WIN: One Battle After Another
• SHOULD HAVE BEEN HERE: hmm, I don’t have anything in particular in mind. Come See Me in the Good Light had some lovely scoring accompanied by songs from Brandi Carlile and Sara Bareilles, Idk if that actually counties but *¯_(ツ)_/¯ . The Testament of Ann Lee’s use of traditional shaker tunes interpolated with original score was also a wonderful listen. Happy to hear any thoughts