This is the last in a series of six posts on the 2013 Oscar nominees for Best Original Score. I have already parsed each of the five nominated scores in some detail in my previous posts. So what is my prediction for the winner? Mychael Danna’s score for Life of Pi. Although this probably comes as no surprise, it is worth considering many of the things that this score has going for it.

Past Oscar Wins

Data from the last ten years of the Oscars reveals some interesting patterns in the winners for Best Original Score. First and foremost, 90% of scores that won were for films that were also nominated for Best Picture. This year, Life of Pi, Lincoln, and Argo have nominations for both Best Score and Best Picture. The last score to win whose film was not nominated for Best Picture was Eliot Goldenthal’s score to Frida all the way back in 2002. This is not to say that scores for films without a Best Picture nomination won’t win, but certainly the odds are against them.

Of the past ten years of Best Score winners, 60% of them were for films that also had nominations for both Best Picture and Best Director. This year, only Life of Pi and Lincoln have these other nominations. It’s not as if Argo is out of the running, but the vast majority of recent winning scores are linked to these other nominations.

Other Awards

Besides the Oscars, we might also consider the histories of two other prestigious prizes, the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs. In the past ten years, 70% of Best Score winners also took home the Golden Globe earlier in the year. And in fact, Golden Globe score winners have also won the Oscar for the last five years in a row. This year, Life of Pi won the Golden Globe.

Some might say that because Thomas Newman’s score for Skyfall won the BAFTA this year, that it will have an advantage on Oscar night. But in the past ten years, only 40% of BAFTA winners went on to win the Oscar as well. From this perspective, things look better for Life of Pi than for Skyfall.

Subjective Aspects of the Score

Life of Pi is the only film to earn its composer two Oscar nominations, one for the score and one for the song, “Pi’s Lullaby”. Even if the song loses to Adele’s and Paul Epworth’s heavily favoured “Skyfall”, the nomination speaks well of Life of Pi’s score since the song is actually a part of Mychael Danna’s original score. In addition, “Pi’s Lullaby” occurs over the main titles, which introduces the sense innocence and wonder of Pi’s childhood with a delightful montage of various zoo animals that the music suits perfectly. The sequence is therefore a “money scene” for Danna’s music, in other words a scene in which the music is both highly emotional and unforgettable.

Life of Pi is also the kind of film that calls for prominent, foregrounded scoring in many scenes. So it is unlikely to come away from the film not having noticed the music at all. But more than that, the emphasis on consonant chords and lush, sustained harmonies in the score suits the highly spiritual and emotional nature of the film. Consider, for example, the music we hear as Pi helplessly watches the ship with all his family members sink into the ocean’s depths. Its solemnity and beauty creates a heart-wrenching effect that is hard to forget, especially with the use of a choir, which enters at 0:25 in this clip:

Comparison with the Other Nominees

The score for Life of Pi also looks very strong when compared to the other nominees. Neither Skyfall nor Anna Karenina are nominated for either Best Picture or Best Director, a fact that, as we saw, significantly decreases their chances of winning Best Score. Moreover, both films have an extra strike against them. Anna Karenina was the only film of the Best Score nominees not to break into the 100 top-grossing films of 2012, a fact that certainly harms its chances in a business that is intensely profit-driven. Skyfall earns the extra strike because, incredible as it may seem, a James Bond score has never taken home the Oscar.

While John Williams’ score for Lincoln is a sensitive treatment of the subject matter, it is not what you would call prominent film music. Since most of the film is given to elegantly polished dialogue that must be heard above any other sounds, space for the music is far more limited than in most other Williams scores. In addition, most of our attention during the film is focused on understanding the complexity of the dialogue, the political motivations of each of the characters, and even trying to keep the names of many characters straight. Again, this leaves little room in our memory for music, no matter how well crafted it may be.

In Argo, Alexandre Desplat gives us a fully competent score that fits the emotional ups and downs of the narrative. But, like Lincoln, there is so little music in the film that it becomes difficult to remember afterwards. Most of the score is devoted to atmospheric music rather than themes and leitmotifs that stick out in one’s mind. The most memorable music in the score occurs when the American hideaways have safely made it out of Iran by plane. But even so, this scene is at the end of the film. The music we have heard up to this point is hard to recall, especially as much of it is placed under the all-important dialogue.

Factors Against Life of Pi Winning

Now of course I’m not saying that Life of Pi is sure to win, only that it is the most likely of the five. So we ought to consider some of the factors working against a win for Life of Pi.

Although a Bond score has never won, Skyfall has the advantage of being the 50th-anniversary film of the Bond franchise. Newman is also a veteran of the business that many believe is long overdue for an Oscar win. Many Academy members may feel the same way. Finally, as I mentioned, its title song is favoured to win and that could carry over into a win for the score, even though the song is not Newman’s.

Despite the subdued quality of Lincoln’s score, the film seems tailor-made to please the Academy. According to an L.A. Times study, 94% of the Academy is Caucasian, 77% are male, and the median age is 62. A film that glorifies the actions of a prominent white male of about the same age might well appeal to most members. It might well be the case that most members vote for this score not only because it is a well done score by one of the all-time greats of film composers, but also because they appreciate Lincoln as a whole and wish to recognize its merits with awards in several categories.

And while Desplat’s score for Argo may not be all that memorable or lengthy, the film has claimed the Best Picture award from the Golden Globes, the Producers Guild Awards, and the Directors Guild Awards. This momentum that Argo has built up could translate into a win for Desplat.

But in the end, all of this evidence in favour of Life of Pi could be entirely moot. After all, this is the Oscars, and as we know, anything can happen.

Dario Marianelli has been scoring films for nearly two decades and although he has written for such diverse films as The Brothers Grimm, V for Vendetta, and Eat, Pray, Love, he has in recent years gained something of a reputation for scoring period dramas. In 2005, his score for Pride & Prejudice was nominated for an Oscar, and only two years later, his score for Atonement won the coveted prize. He also scored Jane Eyre in 2011 and won his second Oscar nomination with 2012’s Anna Karenina.

Marianelli’s score for Anna Karenina is set almost entirely in a nineteenth-century style in terms of the orchestration’s focus on the strings, the familiar tonal chord progressions, and the operatic and lyrical melodic lines. As Cary Fukunaga (director of Jane Eyre) says of Marianelli, “Dario has a really amazing talent for melody and creating melody that, through the course of the film, becomes synonymous with the emotional experience of the characters.” It is no surprise, then, that it is the melodic lines that dominate Marianelli’s score for Anna Karenina.

In most film scores, themes (or more properly, leitmotifs) usually identify a character, place, object, and so on, through a short snippet of melody. This snippet may be part of a longer theme, but all we need to make the association is the theme’s opening. In Anna Karenina, it is still true that the opening of a theme makes the association, but the themes are generally stated as a full eight-bar, sixteen-bar, or larger structure whenever they are heard. Consequently, many statements of themes begin or continue to play even when its associated character, place, object, etc. is not literally present onscreen. While this tactic makes the association significantly looser and more difficult to interpret than in most other films, it is well suited to the nineteenth-century setting of the narrative. Below, I take a close look at the main themes that pervade this score.

“Anna’s Love”

This is the most prominent theme in the score as it is heard more often than any other. It would be easy to simply consider this “Anna’s Theme”, but a close inspection reveals that it is generally associated with Anna’s love, not only for her lover Count Vronsky, but also for her son Serozha. A couple of key scenes demonstrate this.

At the dance where Anna first meets Vronsky, this theme begins as we see a young adolescent boy take Princess Kitty to dance. Although this may seem an incongruous association with the music, the theme starts here because it is partly “diegetic” or “source” music that takes place in the narrative world and that the characters actually hear. In other words, this is the music they are dancing to, and since it is the dance during which Anna and Vronsky will fall in love, we hear “Anna’s Love”. The melody of this theme quickly moves on to different material (from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake waltz) while Kitty and the boy dance. But when Anna accepts Vronsky’s invitation to dance, the melody makes a striking return, now clarifying the association between the music and Anna’s love. And when the background lighting darkens and a spotlight shines on Anna and Vronsky to emphasize their new-found love, the scoring of the theme thins out and we hear a solo violin play the melody—a traditional symbol of romantic yearning in film scores. Because of the pivotal role this dance plays in Anna’s life, her love theme generally retains its waltz-like three-beat measures throughout the film. It is also always heard in a minor key to denote the tragic part Anna’s love plays in her life. Hear the theme below (a complete phrase enters at 0:15):

To Anna, Serozha is the most precious thing in the world. Her intense love for him proves to be a great complication when she separates from her husband because, under Russian law, she is no longer permitted to see her son. This is one of the major factors that eventually drives Anna to suicide. Musically, this point is clarified by using “Anna’s Love” to score the scene in which Anna has returned home from Moscow (where she met Vronsky) and lies next to Serozha while he goes to sleep. The association between the theme and Anna’s love has already been made in the dance, but the character of the theme is much different here. Its slower tempo and new scoring of the melody in the music-box-like glockenspiel are now suggestive of a slumbering child. Anna’s love, in both the film and the theme, therefore takes more than one form. Hear this version below:

“Levin / Stiva”

This melody is not original to the film, but taken from the Russian folk song, “The Birch Tree”. In the film, it is generally associated with Konstantin Levin, the wealthy land-owner who is in love with Princess Kitty and desires to live less like an aristocrat and more like the peasant folk of Russia. But the theme also appears in several instances with Stiva (Anna’s brother), whom Levin consults for advice a couple of times. The theme therefore has two functions. On the one hand, it represents the comical relationship between Levin and Stiva, and when we hear it during their meets, it is in a staccato rhythmic dance-like style that gives it a sense of levity. On the other hand, it also represents Levin’s desire for the humbler peasant lifestyle, and so in scenes that depict this, we hear more serious versions of the theme. When Levin is harvesting the grass for haymaking with his workers, for instance, the theme is sung with its Russian text.

Compare two examples below:

“Lament 1” and “Lament 2”

Lament 1

Lament 2

The lament-like quality of these themes is evident in their minor key and bass line. Notice especially in both of the examples above that the bass steps down in semitones from the tonic to the dominant over the two lines shown. (They actually have exactly the same chordal structure). In classical music, this is known as the “lament” bass line because it is associated with the expression of deep grief, the best-known example being “Dido’s Lament” from Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas:

Neither of these themes is associated with a single character. Instead, they signify more generally the negative emotions of the character onscreen or that the character is entering into a dangerous situation. When Kitty, for example, arrives at the dance near the start of the film, we hear “Lament 1” because she is actively seeking the affections of Vronsky, whose relationship with Anna eventually leads to Anna’s death. But we also hear the theme just after Anna has been virtually ignored at a coffeehouse due to her infidelity and is quickly realizing the limitations her affair and separation cause her in society. Here’s the theme as we hear it with Kitty at the dance (from 0:07):

“Lament 2” is usually bound together with “Lament 1”, which demonstrates one of Marianelli’s unique talents—the combination of different melodies together in harmonious counterpoint. In Kitty’s arrival at the dance, for instance, after hearing “Lament 1” alone, it occurs together with “Lament 2” as she enters the dance floor and hence comes nearer to Vronsky. Hear this in the clip above at 0:27.

“Lament 1” is also frequently heard together with “Anna’s Love”, a combination that aptly reflects the danger that Anna causes herself through her love of Vronsky. When Anna, for example, arrives late at a soiree and realizes she has missed Vronsky, we hear “Lament 1”. But when Vronsky turns his carriage around to return to the party and meet Anna again, we hear “Lament 1” in the cello combined with “Anna’s Love” in the violin to suggest the ill consequences Anna’s love of Vronsky will have on her. Hear this below at 0:17:

The Film’s “Overture”

Director Joe Wright’s artistic take on Anna Karenina presents most of the story inside a theatre that is not visible to the characters. Thus, much of the film has a stagey feel, something like an opera. In fact, Vronsky himself says to Anna at the first ball that “if I’m not to dance with you, I’m getting out of this operetta and going home.” This operatic style is enhanced by the music of the opening montage, which essentially acts as an operatic overture. While the narrative is unfolding during this overture (which is not common practice in opera), the music presents most of the themes described above several times. In this way, the audience not only becomes familiar with the film’s major musical themes, but also obtains a loose sense of what those themes might represent. The score therefore achieves somewhat more than the typical opera overture (or main title music, for that matter) and does so in a highly creative way.

Given below are an audio clip of the overture and the themes heard in the overture along with a description of what is shown onscreen. Because the overture alternates the Levin/Stiva theme with other material (either Anna’s Love or Lament 1), it obtains a musical structure that does not necessarily agree with the images shown.

• Levin/Stiva – Opening titles on curtain
• Anna’s Love – Stiva’s face becomes clear
• Levin/Stiva + Countermelody – Stiva’s wife
• Anna’s Love – Anna reads letter from Stiva
• Levin/Stiva – Stiva saying goodbye to daughter for the day with governess in room
• Lament 1 – Stiva emerges from closet after making love to governess, then we see his wife in tears with his love letters
• Levin/Stiva– Stage changes scenery to the Karenin household

Coming soon—who will likely win the Best Original Score Oscar and why. Stay tuned…