While predicting the future is something we can only dream of, I have always found that digging into the past reveals recurring patterns that tend to point in a particular direction. Even so, with this year’s Oscar race for the Best Original Score, I have to admit, predicting a winner has proven particularly difficult because, as we shall see, there seem to be two strong contenders for the prize: Hans Zimmer’s Interstellar and Jóhann Jóhannsson’s The Theory of Everything. But by considering several relevant factors I discuss below, I predict that the score that will take home the Oscar on Sunday night will be The Theory of Everything.

Double Nominations

It sometimes happens that more than one score by the same composer is nominated in the same year, as this year with Alexandre Desplat for both The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Imitation Game. Some may feel that such double nominations dash the hopes of such composers due to a splitting of votes in their favor. Whatever the reason, Oscar history shows a distinct pattern. If we omit the early years of the Oscars and begin with 1946, when the list of nominees for Best Original Score (or its equivalent) was shortened from twenty (yes, twenty!) to only five, then there have been twelve years when double nominations occurred. The composer to receive the double nomination lost in eleven of those twelve years, the only exception being 1977, when John Williams won for Star Wars and was also nominated for Close Encounters of the Third Kind. (Ironically, Williams has been on the losing end of a double nomination in seven other years.) This statistic does not bode well for Desplat, especially since it took a film of monumental impact to overcome the disadvantage of the double nomination, and while the films Desplat scored are both highly acclaimed, neither is the phenomenon that Star Wars was. Thus, one could almost eliminate both of Desplat’s scores on this point alone.

Past Oscar Wins

As I noted above, one of the best ways to make an Oscar prediction is to consider recent winners. Over the past ten years, the film that won the Best Score Oscar was also nominated for Best Picture in all ten years. This year, there are three films nominated for both Best Score and Best Picture: The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Imitation Game, and The Theory of Everything. But also consider that in 2009, the number of nominees for Best Picture was expanded from five to ten, then in 2011, changed to between five and ten. With so many nominees, it becomes more likely for a film to receive nominations for both Best Picture and Best Score. So when a Best Score nominee does not also fetch a Best Picture nomination, it appears to be more of a strike against the score in question. This year, there are eight films nominated for Best Picture, meaning that, although there was still room for two more films, no others were esteemed highly enough to make the grade. This includes the two Best Score nominees that did not make the Best Picture list: Mr. Turner and Interstellar. I believe this will be an especially important factor come Oscar night.

It is also significant that of the last ten winners for Best Score, seven of the films have also been nominated for Best Director. This year, only The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Imitation Game are in this category, but they are already at such a disadvantage, this probably means very little.

Other Awards

While not as significant an indicator as Oscar history, the BAFTAs and especially the Golden Globes are also useful to consider. This year, the BAFTA for Original Music went to Desplat’s Grand Budapest, though it is important to note that he was not a double nominee for that award (nor was anyone else). This year’s Golden Globe went to Jóhannsson’s Theory of Everything, and again, there were no double nominees. Over the past ten years, the Golden Globes have been a more reliable predictor of Oscar success than the BAFTAs, the former agreeing with the Oscar winner seven times and the latter only five. From these trends, The Theory of Everything would seem to have the advantage.

Box Office

Of the past ten Best Score winners, all have been from the year’s 100 highest grossing films (domestically). This year, only Mr. Turner does not fit this bill. But we can go somewhat further and note that seven of the last ten winners have been in the highest 50 grossing films, which in this year’s race would leave only The Imitation Game (44th) and Interstellar (16th). By this measure, Interstellar has the clear advantage. (Recall that last year’s winner, Gravity, another space-themed film, was even stronger in this respect, being the 6th-highest grossing film.)

Comparison of the Nominees

What about the scores themselves? How might they help predict a winner? The more distinctive a score is in some way, the more likely it is to be remembered by the voters, and when it comes to music, memorability is certainly a benefit since it is easy not to consciously notice music in a film (well, except for enthusiasts like us). Last year’s Gravity made its mark on most viewers with its use of what I called a “clipped crescendo”, where the climax of a crescendo would be suddenly cut off in synch with an important event onscreen. This made the music hard to miss.

This year’s Grand Budapest Hotel is a very memorable score with its unusual instrumentations and perky rhythms. The Imitation Game is more traditional in its construction and somewhat less prominent, though finely tuned to the film. But in my view, the double nomination will be nearly impossible to overcome for both of these scores. The score for Mr. Turner is distinctive in its chamber-music instrumentation and its dissonant but tonal harmonies, but is probably the least conspicuous score because of its sparing use, at only a half hour in total, and its placement largely in scene transitions, where strong emotions are infrequent. Though it is a highly effective score for the character study that is the film, it will likely be overshadowed by the greater prominence of the music in the other films.

The one score that stands out from the others in terms of its prominence is Interstellar. Although it is often rather soft music, its prevalent use of the pipe organ, an instrument not usually given such a large role in a modern film score, almost demands that the viewer takes notice of the music. The score also made conspicuous use of a clock-like percussion sound in scenes when time was of the essence, drawing attention to the music in an appropriately narrative-driven way.

Despite the prominence of Interstellar’s music, I would argue that the score that made the greatest emotional impact in relation to the film’s narrative was The Theory of Everything. Admittedly, this score does not have the prominence in the film that Interstellar does, but the emotions of its narrative run deeper since it vividly conveys Stephen Hawking’s physical deterioration and the ensuing difficulties it causes between he and his wife Jane. But the film also explores Stephen’s remarkable impulse to continue on in the face of adversity. In these respects, there are many scenes that stand out for their musical contribution. When Stephen tries to climb the stairs for the last time before becoming wheelchair-bound, the music expresses not Stephen’s struggle, but our sympathy for him in witnessing his still young body giving out. Or consider the scene where, while watching the fireplace through a sweater that is stuck over his face, Stephen becomes inspired with his next great idea, which, as I noted in the analysis of this score, is made clear with striking visual imagery. In both of these scenes, the music is soft and understated, yet profoundly effective in communicating the emotional content of the scene. For these reasons, I would place The Theory of Everything at a slightly higher level than Interstellar concerning more subjective aspects.

Conclusion

In deciding between Interstellar and The Theory of Everything to win the Oscar for Best Original Score, I have chosen the latter. To be sure, Interstellar has blockbuster status, being near the top of the year’s highest-grossing films, and its use of the pipe organ encourages viewers to listen consciously the score. But The Theory of Everything has the all-important Best Picture nomination, some momentum from its Golden Globe win, and a highly emotional narrative that allows Jóhannsson’s subtleties to shine at key moments in the film.

Then again, as I have said in previous years, this is the Oscars we’re talking about, and there is nothing preventing any of the other scores from winning. But if we’re going to go with the most probable winner, then The Theory of Everything it is.

When director Christopher Nolan first approached his regular composer, Hans Zimmer, to write the score for Interstellar, he wanted to avoid the clichés associated with the science-fiction genre and “engage Hans in a very pure creative process.” To do this, Nolan sent Zimmer a single typewritten page with snippets of dialogue Nolan had written for the film along with some general ideas that, he said, described the relationship between a father and his son. (Only later was Zimmer told the son was actually a daughter, probably to avoid film-music stereotypes of femininity.) The genre and scale of the film were deliberately withheld from Zimmer and he was given one day to write his initial ideas and present them to Nolan. These ideas, which can be sampled below, certainly suggest a more intimate and emotional film than comes to mind when one thinks of the sci-fi genre.

But the score for Interstellar is also notable for its prominent use of the pipe organ, an instrument that, in film, is normally reserved for scenes involving religion in some way. As Nolan explains,

“I also made the case very strongly for some feeling of religiosity to [Interstellar], even though the film isn’t religious, but that the organ, the architectural cathedrals and all those, they represent mankind’s attempt to portray the mystical or the metaphysical, what’s beyond us, beyond the realm of the everyday.”

Thus, while the score’s use of the organ is not associated with religion, it does conjure up similar feelings of striving for levels of existence that lie outside of everyday experience (a narrative theme that Interstellar shares with one of its obvious influences, 2001: A Space Odyssey, a film in which the organ can also be clearly heard, for example, at the end of the main title cue with Richard Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra.)

In its structure, however, Zimmer’s Interstellar is like many of his other scores, relying on a few thematic ideas that are applied in a non-traditional way. That is, rather than simply being associated with a certain character or group of characters, Zimmer’s themes tend to emphasize the emotions a particular character or group is feeling at various points in the film. The following film music analysis explores these broad associations in the film’s four most prominent themes.

Murph and Cooper

This theme is generally heard when the focus is on the relationship between Murph and her father Cooper. Its first appearance is in fact with the studio logos before the start of the film proper, suggesting the importance of the theme’s association to the narrative. (Indeed, Murph and Cooper are the first two characters to interact in the film.)

Perhaps the most obvious signal of the theme’s association occurs in the emotional scene when Cooper, a former NASA pilot, says his goodbyes to the child Murph before leaving his family to join the interstellar mission to save humanity. Murph begs Cooper to stay, telling him that even the mysterious “ghost” that inhabits her room seems to be saying the very same thing. The theme is also heard when, after waking from his cryogenic sleep on the Endurance spacecraft, Cooper hears that Murph refused to make a video message to send him, and occurs once more when Cooper is told that Murph is on her way to see him again after learning of his return.

Musically, the theme’s melody begins with a long note that lies a seventh above the bass, creating an interval that has a feeling of vastness to it and thus suggests the great distance that will long separate Cooper from Murph. (Recall that this same interval was also used in last year’s blockbuster space-themed film, Gravity, as a suggestion of the vastness of space.)

More subtly, the theme is supported by a sustained bass note, or pedal point, that sounds the fifth, or dominant, note of the scale. Since dominant bass notes create an expectation that they will, at some point, resolve to the first note of the scale, or tonic, to sustain a dominant pedal at length as this theme does gives an impression of a prolonged avoidance of resolution. Indeed, given the enormous length of time that elapses during Cooper’s absence, this is an entirely appropriate sentiment.

The theme also implies both the loving and hurtful aspects that comprise Murph and Cooper’s relationship through its juxtaposition of major and minor. While the theme begins in the major mode, suggesting the loving aspects on which the relationship is built, it is immediately followed by a statement in the minor mode, implying the grudge Murph holds against Cooper for feeling abandoned by her father. Hear the theme below from 0:41 to 1:45:

One other place the theme recurs is the scene where Cooper detaches his shuttle from Endurance to give it the “push” it needs to escape the black hole’s gravitational pull. Though Murphy is neither onscreen nor even mentioned here, Cooper’s decision to detach is a crucial one that leads to him making cross-dimensional connections with Murph that are pivotal to the film’s narrative. The Murph and Cooper theme is thus played in grandiose style to mark the importance of this decision, as heard below (from 3:48 to 4:53):

Love / Action

This might be considered the score’s main theme as it embodies the kinds of emotional ideas that are suggested by the description of Nolan’s one-page letter to Zimmer. As a main theme, it is not confined to a single association but rather has two disparate uses, each of which is reinforced by its orchestration. It also is divided into two components: a melody based on a repeating two-note motive (played on the organ), and a repeating harmonic progression with a bass that rises by two steps then falls by one.

It first enters when Cooper and his two children (Murph and his son Tom) chase down an automated plane-like drone flying over the farm in order to capture its solar cells. This is one of the only times in the film that we see the family united in a common action, and reasonably happy to be so. The love comes more into focus when Cooper, who is viewing messages from the last twenty-three years on Earth, is moved by the major events to have occurred in his family and sobs uncontrollably. We hear the theme with this association of love again when Cooper makes the cross-dimensional connections with Murph, which are guided by the love between the two characters. One final appearance of the theme occurs when Murph is happy to see Cooper again nearly a century after he left Earth. Common to all these forms of the theme is the melody composed of two-note figures, heard below from 0:09:

In the above situations, the theme occurs in a lightly orchestrated form, with the delicate melody played on the organ. At other times, the theme acquires a “bigger” effect by omitting the melody and adding a more massive orchestration, a sound that is associated with scenes of heavy action. The two instances this occurs are on the first planet the interstellar crew visits, where they meet gigantic tidal waves, and when Cooper and Brand are re-docking with Endurance after it is set spinning out of control. Below is this version of the theme from 2:35:

Though the theme’s two uses are opposing in meaning, its musical structure helps to understand why it works in both cases. The theme is set in a minor mode and is supported by a bass line that progresses from scale degree 6, up to 7, and up once more to 1. In minor keys, scale degree 6 typically falls down to 5 since the latter exerts a kind of gravitational pull that attracts 6 towards it. The pull is especially strong in minor since the distance between 6 and 5 is a mere half step, or semitone. Listen, for example, to a version of the minor-mode Frank/Harmonica theme from Ennio Morricone’s score for Once Upon a Time in the West, paying particular attention to the way that scale degree 6 in the bass seems to be “pulled” down to 5 at 5:04 (start from 4:50):

As with gravity in the physical world, breaking free of a gravitational pull requires a good deal of energy, and with the bass motion from 6 to 7 (which is two half steps, or one whole step), there is a sense that a substantial amount of energy is being exerted, an energy that we could even say continues in the rise from 7 up to 1 (another whole step).

This sense of struggling to escape some great obstacle is present in both the “love” and “action” forms of the theme. In the former, this occurs emotionally by demonstrating that love, although challenged, transcends vast expanses of space and time. In the latter, the obstacle is clearly physical, be it a tidal wave or a spiralling spacecraft.

Wonder

Interstellar is a film that tackles such ambitious ideas as space travel, wormholes, black holes, and Einsteinian time dilation. Given this focus on scientific wonders, it is no surprise that one of the film’s musical themes—which I simply call the Wonder theme—expresses a sense of fascination with one’s surroundings. The theme enters at several points in the film: when Cooper’s farm machines “go haywire” and start heading north instead of maintaining the crops, when Cooper observes what appears to be a message in dust written by an unknown being, when Cooper and the crew first enter Endurance, when they reach the distant galaxy through the wormhole, and when Cooper and Mann explore one of the potentially-habitable planets. Hear the theme in the cue below:

The most prominent features of this theme are its sustained, shimmering accompaniment and the continual recurrences of a single melodic pitch. The accompaniment sustains a major chord along with a dissonance created by the raised 4 of the scale. As I have noted before, this scale degree (whether in major or minor) has long been associated with the mysterious or inscrutable, other examples being Morricone’s Frank/Harmonica theme, Hedwig’s theme from Harry Potter, and in the classical world, “Aquarium” from Saint-Säens’ Carnival of the Animals. Not only is this raised 4 in the accompaniment of the Wonder theme, but it is also the single melodic pitch that enters repeatedly. The scenes in which this theme occurs in Interstellar certainly qualify as invoking a sense of mystery. It is also worth noting that the theme’s major-mode setting is well matched with the positive outlooks of the characters in the scenes described.

Striving / In Control

Like the love/action theme, another of Interstellar’s musical themes has a dual meaning. Hear it below in one of its many forms below:

It is first heard when Cooper manages to direct the flying drone by remote, clearly demonstrating its association with the “good guys” in control. This application of the theme is also heard when Cooper is shown around the NASA base and it seems that things are under control despite the desperate situation, and the first portion of Murph’s discussion with Prof. Brand on his death-bed, as she feels confident that she will continue where his work left off.

But more often, the theme is heard in scenes where the protagonists are striving towards some immediate goal. This goal can be the understanding of a scientific concept, as when Murph is discussing possible problems of Prof. Brand’s physics equation, when Murph is striving to understand the nature of the “ghost” in her room that she says felt “like a person”, or when Cooper is trying to figure out how to communicate with Murph across the dimensions. But striving may also take a more physical form, as when Murph is trying to convince Tom to leave the farm for his own safety, when Cooper is struggling to overcome the noxious gas flooding his helmet on one of the prospective planets, when Cooper and Brand are trying to convince Mann not to open the airlock on Endurance before he has secured an airtight contact, or when Cooper and Brand are attempting to dock with the out-of-control Endurance. Despite the differences in the individual scenarios above, they all share the feeling of striving to achieve a clear and immediate goal.

Notice how the theme is structured so as to suggest a slow ascent, as though struggling to climb a musical mountain: it begins on the first note of the scale as a kind of home base, and the next note moves to the second note of the scale before it stops in its tracks. The next phrase reaches a note higher to scale degree 3 before it seems to lose confidence and fall back down to 2. The third phrase actually launches the melody up to scale degree 5, but suffers the same fate as the previous phrase as it sinks from 3 to 2 at its end. Only with the fourth phrase does the music reach up to 4 and finally 5 as a concluding summit to the theme. This sort of progressive back-and-forth between rising and falling motions is typical of themes used to depict a sense of struggle, another prominent example being the Force theme from the Star Wars saga. And like the Force theme, Interstellar’s Striving/In Control theme is in a minor key, which intensifies the sense of struggle in the theme through its veil of negativity.

Conclusion

Unlike most science-fiction films, Interstellar has at its core an emotional story of love between a father and his daughter. Appropriately, Hans Zimmer places the Murph and Cooper theme front and center in the score, and further emphasizes the relationship with another theme that can signify familial love. Of course, since the film also includes some riveting action sequences, the score does make use of an action theme, but in typical Zimmer style, this theme serves two different functions as it is also the familial love theme. Similarly, the Striving/In Control theme can signal two different but related states in the actions of the protagonists. And Zimmer also captures Interstellar’s focus on the wonder of the natural world in a separate theme. Thus, the score provides an effective glue for the film by drawing emotional links between various events, character motivations, and visual spectacles that might otherwise seem rather disconnected. In short, Zimmer’s score helps to communicate more clearly the emotional crux of the film.

Coming soon… My 2015 Oscar Prediction for Best Score.

English composer Gary Yershon has largely staked out his career in various realms of dramatic music, scoring mainly for theater but also for television, radio, and film. His experience in writing original music for feature films has been for the recent films of director Mike Leigh, including Happy-Go-Lucky (2008), Another Year (2010), and now Mr. Turner (2014), which marks his first Oscar nomination for Best Original Score.

Mike Leigh’s films are by no means of standard fare. His filmmaking process relies on actors’ improvisations on a basic premise and intensive, method-like acting, which involves such techniques as thorough study of characters’ psychological motivations, personal identification with their emotions, and rehearsal of hypothetical scenes for character development. Filming begins only once the content of the scenes have solidified and been polished up.

As a result, Mr. Turner, a film based on the late life of the English pre-Impressionist painter J.W.H. Turner, is remarkably lifelike, focusing on dialogue, facial expressions, and character interactions that simply ring true. With this emphasis on realistic portrayal, non-diegetic music—which is unrealistic by its nature, standing outside the world of the characters—is necessarily pushed to the sidelines both in placement and overall length at roughly thirty minutes for the whole score. Thus, while most films use non-diegetic music to accompany particularly emotional scenes, music in Mr. Turner is absent even when emotions seem to run high, as when Turner witnesses his ailing father’s death, falls in love with Mrs. Booth, or feels compassion for the struggling fellow painter Benjamin Haydon.

Instead, Yershon’s score primarily performs three other functions that non-diegetic music can have. First, it serves as connective fabric across the film’s transitions from one scene to another. Second, although it rarely offers insight into the thoughts of the characters at particular moments, it does suggest several of Turner’s traits more generally, in a way not unlike character themes in other films. And third, it loosely suggests an emotional arc that corresponds with Turner’s character. I explore each of these functions in the following film music analysis of Yershon’s score.

Transitions

Most of the non-diegetic music in Mr. Turner appears in transitions or miniature montages, when dialogue is minimal or absent and brief segments are strung together before settling into the next scene. Along with the emphasis on highly refined acting and meticulous attention to gesture and dialogue, this marginal use of music gives the film the feel of a luxuriously-produced filmed play, which speaks to Leigh’s extensive experience in theater. In Mr. Turner, the transitions usually involve relatively large shifts in time or place and so, without music, could be quite disorienting. As Claudia Gorbman remarks of the “classical Hollywood” score (ca. 1930-1950) in her book on film music, Unheard Melodies:

As an auditory continuity [music] seems to mitigate visual, spatial, or temporal discontinuity. Montage sequences—calendar pages flipping, newspaper headlines spanning a period of time, citizen Kane and his wife growing apart at the breakfast table over the years—are almost invariably accompanied by music.

Music also bridges gaps between scenes or segments; … Typically, music might begin shortly before the end of scene A and continue over into scene B.

It is unusual, however, for this transitional function to be a score’s primary usage in a film. In Mr. Turner, the transitions most often depict Turner sketching in the natural landscape, and a few are more like short montages, as when his father quickly declines in health and when Turner is seen shortly after his father’s death, fishing then walking to a brothel.

Many of the transitions in Mr. Turner are also unusual in that the music begins after the beginning of the next scene rather than before it. This reduced reliance on non-diegetic music not only gives the scenes a greater feeling of reality, but also endows them with a starkness that allows the events onscreen to speak for themselves in a powerful, and sometimes uncomfortably gritty, way. After the scene where Turner “has his way” with his housemaid, for instance, there is a sudden cut to the artist walking through the landscape. Only after a few seconds does the music enter, allowing the shock of the previous scene to be retained a moment later, enhancing its effect on the viewer.

General Characterization

Since the score is essentially relegated to the transitions, it does not function in the usual manner, in which the emotions of the characters are clarified within various scenes. Nevertheless, the score does contain three themes that suggest aspects of Turner’s personality as portrayed in the film. Here is the first theme to appear:

In the first entrance of this theme in the main title, the unaccompanied instrument—a sopranino saxophone—instantly implies an element of solitude, which corresponds with Turner’s romantic situation for much of the film. The saxophone, however, is played with a piercing tone and moves between many of its pitches with a sliding technique known as glissando, all the while winding downward in a strange, chromatic line. Not even a regular pulse is present to give the theme some grounding in a rhythmic meter. These attributes produce an odd, unappealing sound that one could easily liken to Turner’s often uninviting social manner, which frequently consists of various forms of grunts in place of a verbal response.

A second theme appears within the same main title cue, one that seems to function as an alternate or perhaps an extension of the more pervasive first theme:

This second theme is set in a regular meter, has a discernible tonal center, and is usually scored for string quartet, all of which can be heard to evoke the more dignified side of Turner that we see mainly in connection with his peers at the prestigious Royal Academy of Arts. At the same time, the music is mildly dissonant, suggesting that residues of Turner’s abrasive manner remain even in these more respectful settings. Take, for instance, his “improvement” of one of John Constable’s paintings by unilaterally deciding to paint a bright red buoy in the foreground of a seascape, which naturally raises Constable’s ire.

The main title contains a third theme that sounds as follows:

This theme is scored for the clarinet in the instrument’s warm, low register, or what is known as its chalumeau register. Along with its clear major-key setting, the theme suggests something of Turner’s softer, tender side that we see, for instance, in his relationship with his father and especially with Mrs. Booth. Notably, we hear the theme when William is shopping in the market for Turner, and as the widow Mrs. Booth and Turner walk happily through a meadow, arm-in-arm. Together, the three themes sounded in the main title cue help to establish some of the contradictions of Turner’s character, which figure prominently in the film.

Turner’s Emotional Arc

Late in Mr. Turner, a handful of scenes state a fourth theme that, together with the first three described above, traces the general emotional arc of Turner’s character.

We first hear this new theme as Turner has himself tied to a ship’s mast in order to witness a sea storm first hand. It also appears when Turner and a few friends row along the Thames, viewing the “Fighting Temeraire,” an old military ship that became the subject of one of Turner’s most famous paintings (seen below).

The theme then returns when the view of a landscape with a passing train that is emitting steam inspires a new painting from Turner. It occurs one last time as we see the artist sitting on a pier, sketching the seaside.

The above scenes not only depict Turner observing the objects of his fascination, but also in happier times, as he is in a relationship with Mrs. Booth and has taken to spending more time with her. As a result, we see a side of Turner that was not apparent before—a nurturing, loving side that further adds to the apparent contradictions of the character. (His attitude towards his ex-mistress and two daughters, for instance, is one of complete apathy.)

Up until the entrance of this fourth theme, the music has been dominated by the three Turner themes discussed above, most of which express either negative traits or his more business-like side. In focusing instead on his more positive aspects, the fourth theme corresponds to the shift we witness in Turner to a more contented state of mind. The theme suggests these positive aspects in several ways, perhaps most obviously in its clear projection of a tonal center. The melody begins on the note A and descends through E to the A an octave lower. Together, these notes A-E-A strongly establish A as a center. It is also in a slower tempo than the other themes and employs tones in various instruments throughout the score (here, a soprano and sopranino saxophone) that are mellower than the high, piercing saxophone of the first theme. These qualities all endow the theme with a more placid atmosphere that corresponds with Turner’s more positive attitude in the latter part of the film. Although there remains some dissonance in the theme’s harmony, it is a very mild dissonance that is subsumed within a more stable and pleasant environment, as though suggesting that Turner’s more abrasive side has been tamed by his romance with Mrs. Booth.

Conclusion

Unlike traditional film scores, Gary Yershon’s Mr. Turner functions mainly at the film’s peripheries in transitions and montages. Yet it still manages to capture general aspects of both Turner’s character and his emotional trajectory through the film. All of these functions reflect the fact that the film is less a biopic on J.W.H. Turner as it is a character study of him done in a very realistic way. As such, non-diegetic music has a small part to play, expressing broad aspects of the character and his progression only “from a distance”, and allowing the naturalistic scenes to speak largely for themselves.

Coming soon… Interstellar.

No stranger to film scoring, Jóhann Jóhannsson has been writing music for films for the last fifteen years (mainly for films from his native Iceland and from Europe), and has had plenty of experience in scoring other narrative works such as documentaries, plays, and other stage works. Over the last two years, however, he has begun to make a name for himself in Hollywood with the critically-acclaimed 2013 film, Prisoners, and now has garnered his first Oscar nomination for The Theory of Everything.

The Theory of Everything follows the remarkable life of the world-famous theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, who, despite being diagnosed with the increasingly debilitating motor neuron disease in his early twenties, has all the while made some of the most profound contributions to our understanding of the nature of time, black holes, and the universe itself. But more fundamentally, The Theory of Everything is a film about the ever transforming relationship between Hawking and his wife, Jane, whom he met during his doctoral studies at Cambridge University.

Accordingly, Jóhannsson’s score is less bound up with tying musical features to qualities of an associated character, place, or idea and much more concerned with expressing just the right emotion wherever his music appears. Nevertheless, there are several recurring themes that serve to bind the score and film together, but their associations are not always consistent, and in some of the film’s pivotal scenes, there is an absence of themes altogether. The following film music analysis will explore some of the more prominent themes and cues in the score in an attempt to show how sensitive Jóhannsson’s score is in its treatment of such extraordinary subject matter.

Stephen

This theme is presented in a traditional way, with the first appearance of Stephen in the film. Like the initial out-of-focus view we first get of Stephen, the first four notes of the theme are heard only in outline, two notes at a time, each one stated in long note values, obscuring their identity as part of a theme. It is only with the film’s sudden leap backward in time to 1963 at Cambridge, just before Stephen’s diagnosis, that a fully-formed version of the theme appears. And since this statement is coordinated with a cut to the young Stephen riding a bike, the implication is clear that this is Stephen’s theme. In terms of its melodic and harmonic material, the theme is of a fairly generic stock, so does not seem intended to capture the essence of Stephen’s situation or personality. Instead, it is a theme whose expressive meaning is determined far more by setting the same melody and harmony with different modes (major or minor), rhythms, instruments, and phrase structures.

In this particular instance, with the cut to young Stephen, the scoring suddenly swells to include the whole orchestra, the key is a positive major mode, and the rhythm is constant and sprightly, all of which suggest the glee he feels in racing his friend to the university on their bikes—a heart-breaking contrast with the relative immobility we just witnessed with the older Stephen. Hear this version of the theme below, the outline beginning at 0:14, and the “big” statement at 0:52:

We next hear Stephen’s theme when he is unable to crawl up the stairs for the first time, a sign of the increasing toll the disease is taking on him. Rather than score Stephen’s theme here with a sense of struggle, perhaps with tremolo strings, dissonant chords, and a gradually rising melodic line, Jóhannsson states the theme in a way that is detached from Stephen. Unlike the initial sprightly version of the theme, it is now clearly set in a minor key, the rhythm is extremely slow, the rhythms drawn out, and most prominently, the melody is played by a celeste (like a glockenspiel with keys), an instrument strongly associated with children, largely through Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker. Notably, Stephen’s son stands atop the staircase watching his father attempt to climb it. The music thus expresses the poignancy we feel in seeing someone capable of so much become unable to perform an act that is, for those around him, literally “child’s play.” This, then, is not the music of personal struggle, it is the music of sympathy, and its placement here greatly enhances the emotional impact of the scene. Listen to this cue below:

Stephen’s theme also accompanies other events of widely differing emotional expressions. We hear it, for instance, when Jane implies that she and Stephen should divorce, upon which the theme enters softly, again in a minor key, scored for piano and strings to suggest the emotional tenderness of the scene. And it appears when Stephen tells a public audience his philosophy of life, a speech that endorses hope and a positive attitude. This is one of the rare instances in the score where we hear the brass prominently, and appropriately saved for a statement of Stephen’s theme that accompanies the film’s most optimistic scene. Hear both of the above cues below:

From 2:07:

Stephen Progressing

This theme, given in the clip below, usually appears in connection with positive moves in Stephen’s life and career. We first hear it when Stephen is beginning to work out the mathematics of his PhD thesis and we see him rush off as though inspired by the ideas. Like Stephen’s theme, the expressive qualities of Stephen Progressing derive less from their melody and harmony (as with more traditional film music themes) than from their rhythmic, instrumental, and structural setting. In this case, the theme starts off with the harp plucking out a constant, moderately-paced rhythm, and a violin and viola adding alternating “comments”, all of which seems to suggest the steady inner workings of Stephen’s mind. At 0:27, the theme begins another repetition, but its texture changes to include a faster constant rhythm and the addition of lower string instruments, giving the impression of Stephen’s increasing sense of confidence in his ideas. At 0:45, the pace of the constant rhythm quickens once more to reach a feverish pace and the full string orchestra enters to produce an even bigger sound, expressing the feeling of inspiration and excitement with which Stephen rushes off after working his mathematics out on a chalkboard. Notice that what I am calling a theme here actually lacks a characteristic melodic idea. All that identifies this theme is its underlying chord progression. In this way, we are allowed to focus on the theme’s “peripheral” material in order to enhance its emotional impact.

There are several other places in the film where we hear the Stephen Progressing theme, and most maintain the association of its title, as when Stephen realizes the communicative potential of his newly-obtained “voice box”, and at the end of the film, when Stephen and Jane regain more of the positive feelings they formerly had for one another. Most obviously, it appears over a montage during which Jane gives Stephen an electric wheelchair to increase his mobility, Stephen is featured on the cover of a scientific journal, and he is seen playing actively with his children by driving his new wheelchair. The theme here is set as a waltz scored for strings, piano, and harp, and though it is in a minor key, its buoyant rhythm lends it an appropriately mobile and optimistic tone. Hear this version below:

Even so, as I have said, the themes in this score are not always consistent in their associations. We also hear this theme, for example, when Jane is seen with Jonathan (a friend of Jane’s from church who volunteers to help her out at home) and the children, enjoying herself again after a long span of growing anger and dissatisfaction over her increasingly difficult relationship with Stephen. As far as the traditional idea of a theme is concerned, this statement seems to contradict its previous association. Then again, because it is set in a dance-like rhythm and adorned with a melody that is rhythmically active, it expresses an appropriate sense of Jane’s reinvigoration through her connection with Jonathan. This, then, would be an example of an emotionally-motivated statement of a theme rather than one based solely on its association.

Jane’s Struggles

This theme’s association is probably the most consistent of the entire score. Though it only appears three times, on all occasions, it reinforces the difficulties Jane faces in being with Stephen. It is first sounded when Jane tries to phone Stephen after becoming concerned about his absence from school. Stephen, however, has only just been told that he has only two years to live given his disease and decides to shut his friends out physically and emotionally, so he hangs the phone up on Jane. Jane then goes to look for Stephen in his dorm, but Stephen hides from view.

In the theme’s second appearance, Jane and Stephen have come to visit his parents and during lunch, Stephen seriously chokes on some food. As Stephen refuses once again to have help of any kind and thus maintain the pretense of living a “normal” life, Jane becomes overwhelmed and retreats into the forest as a momentary escape from the situation.

When the theme sounds a third time, it accompanies Jane’s tearful goodbye to Jonathan, who has decided to “step back” from the family after being (wrongfully) suspected of being the father of Jane’s third child.

The first time we hear the theme (in the clip below), it is scored for strings with a piano accompaniment that offers a sense of lightness to the texture with its moderately-paced rhythm. (I show the theme below without the piano accompaniment to show its essential features.)

From 0:35:

In its last two scenes, however, the piano accompaniment is removed and the slower rhythm of the strings now feel like an anchor has been tied to the theme, weighing it down with greater seriousness. And indeed, Jane’s situation has become more serious in both cases, as each time she does not know how she will overcome her difficulties. Hear this version below:

Incidentally, I should mention that, although the melodic and harmonic material of all the themes discussed so far are fairly generic, they are all cut from the same musical cloth. Notice that the three chords that define Jane’s Struggles are the last three chords of Stephen’s theme and are heard (somewhat less audibly) in Stephen Progressing beginning on its second, third, and fifth chords (an additional chord is inserted in between). Compare the three themes below:

Stephen:

Stephen Progressing (from 0:14):

Jane’s Struggles:

Non-Thematic Cues

In addition to the above themes, which are the most prominent in the score, there are a number of cues that, unexpectedly, avoid the use of a theme at crucial points in the film. Far from being inappropriately set, these cues are some of the score’s emotional highlights. One of these cues accompanies Stephen learning of his disease after tripping and knocking himself unconscious at the university. During a brief montage, we see Stephen beginning to discover the debilitating effects of the disease as he starts to lose some control in his fingers and legs. The music here has no theme to speak of. What we hear is essentially an oscillation between tonic and dominant harmonies, tonal music’s two most basic chords. But here they are most often made more complex by the addition of biting dissonances. Together with the cue’s minor key and prominent scoring for strings in a slow, sustained rhythm, these features suggest feelings of pain and suffering that augment the already pathos-laden scene. The lack of a theme here allows the music to speak directly to the emotions of the scene without being distracted by any recognizable melodic content. Hear this cue below:

Another non-thematic cue occurs with what is perhaps the film’s most memorable use of music. When Stephen attempts to take his sweater off but only manages to pull it over his eyes, his partial view of the roaring fireplace in front of him inspires an idea—that black holes emit energy in the form of heat, and so lose mass and eventually disappear, a profound idea that suggests that time itself had a beginning. A scene like this may seem a golden opportunity to reprise one of Stephen’s themes but intruigingly, Jóhannsson resists this temptation. I provide the cue below as a reference to the analysis that follows.

Instead, we hear a major chord that has gradually has several dissonant notes added to it, creating a hazy perception of the harmony—is this really a major chord, or something else? Likewise, in place of a melody, we hear long sustained notes in the violins that fade in and out of the texture and seem to be somewhat aimless. At 0:12, wind instruments join in, adding a rapidly trilling figure to the texture. The impression we obtain in this opening of the cue is of a picture (in this case a mental picture) gradually coming into focus and a kind of excitement, like a fluttering of the heart, at its formulation. Finally, 0:18 into the cue, a confident bass note enters and the melody and harmony align into a crystal clear major chord. In other words, all of these techniques seem perfectly calibrated to express, in an entirely musical way, the exhilaration and spontaneity of inspiration. In the film, this moment corresponds with one of its most powerful images—Stephen’s eye, shown in extreme close-up, subtly becomes a black hole radiating with fire. Thus, the meaning of the scene is communicated intuitively and emotionally, producing one of the most effective and musically memorable moments in the entire film.

Conclusion

Although subdued in character, Jóhann Jóhannsson’s score for The Theory of Everything is a highly effective one that has already received much attention. It may seem odd that it does not make more extensive use of its recurring themes, but then, in their absence, Jóhannsson is able to focus our ear more directly on the emotions of a scene without the “middleman” of having an association that comes with stating a theme. This focus on emotional rather than associative content is a fitting approach for a film that is all about grappling with one’s emotions in extremely difficult circumstances. Subtle though it may be, the score does not fail to leave us feeling the highs and lows of Stephen and Jane Hawking’s lives as though they are somehow our own.

Coming soon… Mr. Turner.

In addition to earning two Oscar nominations in 2014, Alexandre Desplat managed to score some of the year’s biggest box-office successes as all five of the films he scored ranked within the top fifty-five. These include The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Monuments Men, Unbroken, Godzilla, and The Imitation Game.

The Imitation Game revolves around the life of Alan Turing, the British mathematician, cryptographer, and computer scientist who played an instrumental role in breaking the code of the Nazi’s “Enigma machine” during the Second World War, and who pioneered the subjects of computer science and artificial intelligence.

While Desplat’s score for The Imitation Game is orchestrated much more traditionally than that for The Grand Budapest Hotel, it shares with the latter the technique of drawing on a small number of themes as a unifying device. It is these themes that I focus on below in a film music analysis of the score.

Alan Successful

This theme, which is consistently associated with Alan (Benedict Cumberbatch), could well be considered the score’s main theme as it is heard with the film’s titles and is its most prominent musical idea. It serves as an appropriate accompaniment for Alan as its musical features subtly express aspects of his personality and circumstances. Hear this theme in the clip below:

The theme begins innocuously with a motif in the piano that is repeated to form an ostinato. The broken-chord harmony of this ostinato clearly establishes the minor key of the theme. Shortly after the theme’s true melody enters at 0:40, however, the ostinato continues to move through the same minor chord, even as the harmony around it is changing. This clash of chords could well be heard to represent Alan’s staunch reluctance to “harmonize” with those around him and the “dissonance” that comes as a result.

Upon the entrance of the theme’s melody, the harmony surrounding the ostinato starts on a minor chord then shifts upward to a major chord. While this motion suggests a struggle from a negative (minor) state to a more positive (major) one, only two chords later, the harmony has, with seeming inevitability, sunk back down to the minor chord where the tune began. These motions closely reflect several of Alan’s interactions with others, in which he unwittingly places himself at a disadvantage then tries to dig himself out of a hole, so to speak. During his job interview to work at Bletchley Park, for example, where cryptographers are attempting to break Enigma, his untoward social manner earns him the dislike of Commander Denniston (Charles Dance), who is in charge of the operation. He spends the remainder of his time at Bletchley trying to avoid giving Denniston an excuse to fire him. Much the same could be said of his relationship with the other male cryptographers and the detective who is investigating him a few years after the war.

But as the name suggests, the theme is also used to highlight Alan’s major successes in the film. These include:

• Alan travelling to his prestigious job interview at Bletchley at the start of the film
• A montage showing Alan inventing the Christopher machine that is used by the cryptographic team to break the code
• Alan’s fellow cryptographers standing up for him and preventing Denniston from firing him
• The breaking of the Enigma code itself
• The description of Alan’s legacy through his breaking of the code and the many lives saved as a result, and the invention of his machine, which became the basis of the modern computer

Alan Defeated

One of the most ironic aspects of The Imitation Game is that, not only does Alan experience great success in ways that most others can only dream of, but he also suffers equally great defeats in other areas of his life, namely in the death of his boyhood love, Christopher, and his ultimate conviction for his homosexuality. The theme’s connections to these ideas are clarified by its placement in the film. It appears, for instance, when Alan is being interrogated at the police station at the very opening of the film, when the boy Alan waits in vain for Christopher to return to school after a two-week holiday (a scene that leads us back to Alan at the police station), and when we see the aftermath of the Nazi attack the cryptographers could have prevented after breaking Enigma. Listen to this theme in a solo piano version in the cue below:

The sense of defeat is made palpable through several musical aspects of the theme. Most obviously, like the other prominent themes in the film, it is set in a minor key. Furthermore, the melody’s first two phrases both linger around and end on the fifth degree of the scale. This lack of emphasis on the first scale degree (tonic) suggests something that is incomplete and in need of resolution (to the tonic), much as Alan’s feelings for Christopher are in the film. Notice, too, that the last two notes of each phrase outline a half-step from the sixth to the fifth note of the minor scale. This particular combination of minor scale degrees (6-5) has a long history of associations with expressions of the tragic, a fitting emotion for the theme’s connection with Alan’s defeats.

Christopher

After considering the score with the film, one might believe this theme to simply represent the character of Christopher in the way that leitmotifs generally do, by drawing on musical techniques that suggest aspects of the associated character (a la John Williams or Howard Shore, for example). But in this case, the theme’s melancholic sound does not reflect Christopher’s good will and strong devotion to Alan. More importantly, the theme is only ever heard during the scenes from Alan’s childhood, which are always flashbacks in his own mind. Hence they are seen (and heard) through Alan’s emotions. The theme’s sadness, then, is a reflection of Alan’s thoughts of Christopher rather than of Christopher himself, and for this reason, it would be more accurate to consider the theme along the lines of “Alan thinking of Christopher.”

Desplat does a fine job of clarifying this interpretation as the Christopher theme possesses the very same notes and rhythms as the bass line to the Alan Successful theme. I show both melodies below transposed to a mid-range for ease of comparison:

Listen to the bass notes of Alan Successful in the main title below from 0:00-0:26:

and now compare that to the Christopher theme in the cue below from 0:13-0:33:

The only real differences are that the Christopher theme is always in a higher register, giving it more the character of a true theme, and its melody is always scored for the piano, an instrument that in film is typically used for moments of introspection, as here. But the fact that the theme is derived from the Alan bass line suggests that Christopher is literally the support for and basis of Alan’s emotions, an idea that is very consistent with Alan’s relationship with the character in the film. Desplat’s musical expression of this relationship is ingenious for both its simplicity and effectiveness.

Secrets

Whether they take the form of the coded messages of the Nazi Enigma machine, Alan’s hidden homosexuality, or Alan’s work with the British government to keep the public and Germans from realizing that the Enigma code has finally been broken, secrets are one of the film’s most pervasive narrative themes. Specifically, the film explores some of the sinister aspects that can surround secrets. The coded Enigma messages are perhaps most emblematic of this idea as they often carry directions for military offensives on the Allied forces. But there are also morally grey areas raised in connection with some of the other secrets in the film. For instance, keeping one’s homosexuality secret for several years prevents entanglements with British law (which at the time viewed homosexuality as a crime) but at the same time prevents one from having an open relationship with a member of the same sex. And keeping the breaking of Enigma secret allows more military intelligence to be gained, but at the cost of allowing many known attacks on the British to occur so as not to arouse the Nazis’ suspicion.

Desplat’s Secrets theme aptly expresses this mixture of negative and positive emotions by resolving a minor chord unusually into a major chord and creating an odd mixture of both cold-bloodedness and something approaching hopefulness:

In technical terms, the distance of the minor chord from the major (as measured by the chordal roots) is a minor sixth down (or major third up). Had the second chord also been minor, the chord progression would have upheld a long tradition of being associated with evil, most famously in Darth Vader’s theme from the Star Wars saga. As it is, Desplat’s progression certainly references such associations but, through the use of a major tonic chord, creates a tension between positive and negative emotions.

Conclusion

While much more traditional in its overall sound than his other Oscar-nominated score, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Alexandre Desplat’s score for The Imitation Game manages to capture much of the expressive content of the film in its four most prominent themes. Combined with the composer’s penchant for distinctive ostinatos and colorful orchestrations, the result is a score whose subtly appropriate use of musical devices allows us to more acutely feel the incredible highs and lows that define the remarkable life of Alan Turing.

Coming soon… The Theory of Everything.

2014 was another busy year for Alexandre Desplat, who scored a total of five films released that year, of which both The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Imitation Game have been nominated for the Oscar for Best Original Score. The former film is a quirky comedy and Desplat’s score is an ideal match for the eclectic visual style that has become its director Wes Anderson’s signature. For as Jon Broxton notes in his review of the score,

Desplat describes his score for The Grand Budapest Hotel as “the sound of Mittel-Europa”, a sort of cultural mish-mash of instrumental ideas and compositional styles that is intended to mimic a mythical place that sounds just sort of ‘vaguely European’ to untrained American ears – much like the fictional country of Zubrowka itself is an amalgam of different architectures, landscapes and accents.

Thus, in Grand Budapest, not only is the music infused with the kinds of memorable themes, catchy ostinatos, and distinctive instrumental palettes that are typical of a Desplat score, but it also frequently blends styles that possess radically different associations. These include sounds as disparate as a jazzy brushed snare drum, Russian balalaika-playing, and Gregorian chant. Unifying Desplat’s score, however, are four prominent themes (or leitmotifs) that are heard at various points throughout. In the film music analysis below, I will explore the interaction between music and narrative in four of these themes.

Zero’s Theme

Though this theme is not heard many times in the film, when it does occur, it marks pivotal points in the story. Zero’s theme is rather lengthy, being set in two parts, the first employing a repeated long-short rhythm over several phrases, and the second announcing a melody with a more even rhythm.

The theme first appears shortly before the introduction of Zero Moustafa as an elderly man (F. Murray Abraham) near the start of the film in the narrative told by “the Author” as a young man (Jude Law). Of the four main themes in the film, this is the only one to be centered on a major chord. While major chords used as tonal centers typically evoke positive sentiments of some sort, the situation here is more complex.

The first eight notes of the melody clearly outline a C major chord before twice reaching up to a high A sitting just above the chord. This A then moves through the chromatic note A-flat back down to the G atop the major chord. In C major, the A-flat is the flattened sixth scale degree, which is borrowed from C minor and in film music (and concert music) has long been a symbol of romantic longing when imported into a major key.

Familiar themes such as those for Princess Leia from Star Wars or Marion from Raiders of the Lost Ark employ this same device. In Grand Budapest, Zero tells the Author that his reason for retaining possession of the hotel and returning to it regularly is to preserve the fond memories of his time there with his long-deceased wife, Agatha. The combination of a sunny major key and its clouding over with the flat-6 degree provide a perfectly bittersweet accompaniment for any desires that remain unfulfilled for the vast majority of a film (such as a romantic relationship), or even for the film’s entirety, as here, where Zero resolutely clings to a past that can never be retrieved.

This idea of minor darkening the effect of a major key becomes even more overt in the theme’s third, fourth, fifth, and sixth phrases, where the music passes through two keys that, in a major-key context, would normally be major as well. As though to reiterate the conflict between major and minor, however, the first two phrases of the theme then return, reinstating the more positive sound of the central C major chord. Listen to the first 30 seconds of the cue below to hear these first six phrases:

Zero’s Theme also appears at a few other critical moments in the film: when Zero tells his tragic family history to Gustave, and when Zero and Agatha are married. Curiously, the theme is also heard with the lead-up to and introduction of the secret (and very silly) “Society of the Crossed Keys,” a network of hotel concierges across Europe who help each other out in times of need. At this point, we may ask how Zero is the focus of attention in this scene. The answer is that, clearly, he is not. As I mentioned, this is the only prominent theme to be set in a major key. And significantly, the theme’s distinctive flat-6 degree is removed for most of this version, so it acquires a much more positive expression that is wholly appropriate for the secret society saving the day. Thus, one might understand this statement of the theme as being emotionally motivated, that is, for its emotional quality rather than for its established association. Hear this version of the theme below:

Gustave’s Theme

This theme is introduced with the first appearance of Gustave H (Ralph Fiennes), the hotel’s meticulous concierge who sees to it that everyone and everything in the hotel is in its proper place. Unlike Zero’s theme, that for Gustave is set entirely in a minor key, which establishes an air of seriousness that aptly describes the character’s attitude towards his duties at the hotel. At the same time, the theme usually begins with just one instrument: the solo cimbalom, which plays Gustave’s accompaniment figure and expressing some of the loneliness we know Gustave to feel—that is, at least until he befriends Zero. Only after some time does a true melody appear overtop the accompaniment of the theme. But whether we hear the accompaniment, the melody, or both, the association is always with Gustave. The cue below starts with the accompaniment and brings in the melody overtop at 0:34 after a brief pause.

This theme is concentrated near the start of the film, when Gustave is largely in control of his situation. As the film progresses, however, he quickly loses that control, being (wrongly) arrested by the Zubrowkan police for the murder of Madame D, a super-wealthy 84-year-old patron of the hotel who was enamored with Gustave. Indeed, he spends the remainder of the film attempting to regain his freedom and clear himself of the charge. Accordingly, Gustave’s theme essentially disappears from the film as the focus of the narrative shifts to those acting against Gustave.

Zubrowkan Militia Theme

Once Gustave and Zero are on the train to Lutz to attend the wake of the now-deceased Madame D, we hear this new theme:

While the association of this theme is not at first clear, its use of the low brass and a minor chord as a center suggests the music of an antagonistic force. And indeed, as the train comes to a halt, outside the train’s window appears the Zubrowkan militia headed by Inspector Henckels (Edward Norton), upon which we hear the brassy theme once again. At this point, it becomes clear that the antagonistic force, at least in this scene, is the militia, an idea reinforced by the contrast between the cheerful colors of Gustave’s and Zero’s uniforms and the dull grey of those of the militia. (In a near-repeat of this scene at the end of the film, Gustave even comments wryly of the now-black militia color that “I find these black uniforms very drab.” This latter scene is even shot in black-and-white, as opposed to the color in the rest of the film.)

This theme is not only heard with the militia. When Gustave and Zero come upon the reading of Madame D’s will, the theme sounds again. What meaning is it to have here? Like the militia, Madame D’s relatives, who have all come in the hopes of obtaining a piece of the woman’s fortune, are dressed in greys and blacks in contrast to Gustave and Zero. Even more overtly, Gustave is treated as a usurper when it is announced that Madame D left a very valuable painting with Gustave. And it is this event that precipitates Gustave’s entanglement with the law. Thus, the theme here is expanded to include an antagonistic group that, while distinct from the militia, acts on Gustave in a similar way. While we tend to think of themes and leitmotifs in film as remaining fairly fixed in their associations, this technique of broadening the association of a theme to similar people, things, or ideas is actually fairly common. To draw on a familiar example, although the main theme of Star Wars is to a large extent Luke’s theme in the original three films, it is often broadened to become a generalized “good-guy” theme that can apply to anyone in the Rebel Alliance. Both there and in Grand Budapest, we could refer to such a broadened version as a thematic statement of expanded association.

The militia theme is expanded in other ways in the film. We hear it with the title card, “Part III: Check-Point 19 Criminal Internment Camp,” which is followed by an establishing shot of the prison Gustave is sent to. In short, his freedoms are revoked in much the same way as in his other encounters with the militia.

The theme’s association is also expanded when Gustave and Zero are on their way to meeting Serge X (Mathieu Amalric) in an attempt to clear Gustave’s name. While Gustave is not in any immediate trouble onscreen, the film has made clear that the hit-man, J. G. Jopling (Willem Dafoe), has been sent to silence Serge once and for all. Hence, we know trouble is brewing and that Gustave and Zero are headed into some danger. As though confirming this interpretation, the theme appears again once Gustave and Zero begin a (comically) perilous chase down the mountain after Jopling.

The last scene to incorporate the theme returns it to its original association of the militia when we see that the Grand Budapest has been turned into a barracks for the war. This five-minute cue is the most orchestrally colorful and compositionally complex in the score. Notably, the statements of the theme contain several chords that are altered and sound like distorted forms of the originals, suggesting the heightened tension of the situation, especially as it relates to Gustave. Hear some of this version below from 0:08 onward:

Finally, I would point out that the militia theme is the most prominent theme heard in the large central portion of the film, suggesting that it is Gustave’s antagonists who have the upper hand for most of the film.

Jopling’s Theme

This theme makes its entrance when Jopling sets out to find and kill Serge X, the lone witness to Madame D’s murder. It is yet another theme to center on a minor chord, but this time, the minor chord is set in an unusual scale that sounds like a minor scale but has both a raised fourth degree and a lowered second degree:

The impact of this scale is one of horror (in this case, melodramatic horror), especially as it is scored “fearfully” in the organ (0:00-0:07 below):

This theme is closely associated with Jopling throughout the film as it appears, for instance, when Inspector Henckels pulls a severed head out of a basket, leaving no doubt that it was the handiwork of Jopling, even though we did not see him commit this murder.

Conclusion

As is typical of Desplat’s scores, that for The Grand Budapest Hotel stitches the cues together with a small handful of prominent themes: those for Zero, Gustave, the militia, and Jopling. While the score is quite traditional in its use of harmony, melody, and rhythm, it nevertheless remains highly distinctive through its combination of broad melodies, memorable ostinatos, and unusual orchestrations, as well as a somewhat freer approach to themes through statements that are emotionally motivated or of expanded association. Indeed, these are the musical fingerprints that we have come to know and expect of Desplat’s reliably solid film scores.

Coming soon… The Imitation Game.