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…

Thomas Newman comes from a family with several film composers that began with Alfred Newman, who was the long-time head of the music department at 20th Century Fox and wrote for many films from Hollywood’s golden age in the 1930s and 40s. Thomas himself is a veteran of the industry, having scored dozens of films including Scent of a Woman, The Shawshank Redemption, American Beauty, Finding Nemo, and WALL-E. Although Newman has yet to win an Academy Award, he has been nominated ten times, most recently for his score to the 50th-anniversary James Bond film, Skyfall.

With such a long-standing franchise, the creation of a Bond film poses unique challenges to all involved. On the one hand, it must uphold enough of the traditions for audiences to recognize the connection with previous installments. Yet on the other hand, it ought to introduce new elements as well in order to keep the series feeling fresh with each outing. The music is no exception, and Newman’s score for Skyfall is a combination of both the old and the new, as I demonstrate below in a film music analysis

Cross-Pollination of the “Skyfall” Song and the Score

Much praise has been lavished on the film’s title song both for Adele’s highly expressive performance and for the song itself—indeed, it has earned Adele and Paul Epworth an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song. But even though the song is not part of the film’s original score, it deserves mention because there is much cross-pollination between the music of the song and that of the film.

For instance, the song both begins and ends with a sustained version of the minor add-9 chord that begins the famous gun-barrel sequence in Bond films:

This chord creates an instant connection with the music of the whole franchise and informs us that what we are about to hear is not just any song, but specifically a James Bond song.

The Bond sound, however, is worked into the “Skyfall” song in a more fundamental way. After the add-9 chord, we hear a repeated three-chord progression in C minor: i-VI-iv⁽⁷⁾.

At first, there is nothing strange about the progression as it is a fairly standard one in pop songs. But when the rest of the band enters with electric guitar, bass guitar, and percussion, the progression changes ever so slightly to i-VI-IV-iv. That is, the last chord is transformed into a major chord before returning to its original minor form:

This subtle change allows the guitar to sound the notes G-Ab-A-Ab in harmony with the progression, as shown in the top line of the example above. The resulting four-note motive is one of the most recognizable in Bond films. It’s the accompaniment figure we hear at the start of the gun-barrel sequence that slyly glides up and down chromatically, and which some have appropriately called the “suspense theme”. When this motive appears in Bond films, it is usually over an unchanging harmony (again, recall the gun-barrel sequence):

Hear it in the clip below:

In the “Skyfall” song, this theme is harmonized with a new set of chords, giving it a sound that is now associated with this specific song. In other words, it is as if the old suspense theme is given a new coat of musical paint, one that we can easily trace back to the title song.

Hear this new version of the theme in this clip from 0:59:

There are several scenes later in the film where Newman incorporates this version of the suspense theme:

• When Bond washes shrapnel from his shoulder and delivers it to MI6
• When M orders Bond to go to Shanghai
• When Bond receives new gadgets from Q (last note of theme omitted)

Also, when Bond enters the casino in Macau on a gondola, we hear an instrumental version of the song with its melody (from 0:14):

These techniques of blending old Bond themes with the title song and using that song in the original score are not unique to Skyfall—the same occurs in several other Bond films, notably Goldfinger. But because the song itself is new and because the song features the Bond suspense theme, it ensures that Newman’s Skyfall score will maintain continuity with previous films while at the same time adding something new.

The James Bond Theme

The James Bond theme is the familiar main theme for the Bond films that made its debut with the very first of the series, Dr. No. Composers for the Bond films often develop ideas from either its first section (with the famous guitar riff) or its more bebop middle section, shown below.

Hear it in this clip from 0:40:

The large leaps, chromatic “added” notes, and angular shape of this melody give it an energetic, suave, and jazzy sound. It is no surprise, then, that we usually hear it accompanying Bond doing something heroic in tense action scenes. In Skyfall, for example, the theme appears when:

• Bond is in the excavator on the train at beginning, deflecting bullets shot at him
• The helicopter convoy rescues him as a result of his using the mini-transmitter
• He enters the courthouse and saves M
• He’s setting the gas tanks to explode in the Skyfall house at the end

Newman therefore maintains this tradition of Bond films and retains a sense of the old within his score to Skyfall.

At the same time, Newman is not averse to developing the old Bond themes into slightly new shapes. Take the suspense theme, for example. In the spectacular motorcycle chase at the film’s opening, we hear this theme continue rising up instead of falling back down as it usually does. You can hear this in the clip below from 3:26:

Bond Themes with Old Bond-Film Scoring

In addition to using the musical themes of the previous Bond films, Newman also occasionally scores them with the same jazz-band instrumentation as in earlier films. This is particularly noticeable since the majority of Newman’s score is a mixture of synthesized and acoustic instruments typical of contemporary Hollywood scores. Listen to the first few seconds of the following clips and you’ll know what I mean:

Juxtaposed with this style, the jazz scoring really stands out. The very start of the film, for instance, gives the audience the two brass blasts that usually open the gun-barrel sequence at the beginning of Bond films. But even though that sequence is postponed to the tail end of Skyfall, the association remains strong enough that anyone familiar with other Bond films will recognize that these brass chords signal the beginning of a James Bond film.

When we finally do get the iconic gun-barrel sequence at the end of the film, it is heard in the jazz-band scoring of previous Bond films:

Incidentally, it should be noted that this sequence is not always scored in precisely the same way since the guitar’s low-pitched melody has been played by various instruments. As Jeff Smith points out in The Sounds of Commerce:

Often these small variations in the orchestration are done to accommodate more global patterns of instrumentation within the individual Bond score. The shrill and brassy sound of Goldfinger’s “Bond Is Back,” for example, is consistent with the brighter instrumental textures of the score as a whole. In contrast, A View to a Kill begins with a darker toned, more somber rendering of the Bond theme, one that conforms to the score’s overall emphasis on traditional orchestral forces, particularly the low brass and strings.

Within the film proper, the most prominent use of the old-style scoring occurs when Bond takes M to his Aston Martin and drives her to Scotland to flee from the villain Silva. The music begins as soon as M resigns herself to getting in the car. And what should we hear at this point? The James Bond theme, of course! The very same music as in the gun-barrel sequence. Its appearance here, in the ‘60s-style scoring, is the perfect accompaniment to the ‘60s Aston Martin that Bond was first given in the Goldfinger. Bond verbally emphasizes this connection with the past in this scene when M asks him where they are going, to which he replies, “Back in time. Somewhere where we’ll have the advantage.”

References to Hans Zimmer

Newman’s score is not limited to his own musical style, nor that of previous Bond films. In one scene, the score references Hans Zimmer’s Batman themes from the Dark Knight films (likely due to their use in the “temp track” – the temporary score heard with the film before the final score is written, composed of bits and pieces of pre-existing music). The scene in Skyfall shows Bond in Shanghai following Patrice, the man who made off with the all-important list containing the identities of undercover British agents. Patrice, on his way to carrying out an assassination, takes an elevator up a high-rise. Just as the elevator begins to ascend, Bond dashes over to it, leaps up, and hangs from its bottom, unnoticed by Patrice (in a glass elevator!). This heroic act is accompanied musically by two themes in D minor, Batman’s key in Zimmer’s Dark Knight scores. The first theme takes after a theme we hear near the start of The Dark Knight, and the second is a very close emulation of Batman’s “heroic” theme (see Part 1 of my Dark Knight posts), which sounds the progression i-VI, with the second chord being blasted out from the brass instruments. Newman even uses a very similar accompaniment to Zimmer’s repeating F-F-D-D pattern as a background for the themes. Compare the two below:

First theme of Zimmer’s quoted (from 0:10-0:19):

Second theme of Zimmer’s quoted:

Newman’s themes in Skyfall (from 0:00):

Why does the score (or why did the temp track) reference Zimmer in this particular scene? It likely has to do with the fact that Bond is ascending—or rising—while doing something heroic. The act of rising is a major component of The Dark Knight Rises, especially in a scene where Bruce Wayne climbs heroically out of a prison built inside a pit. In that scene, we hear the same “heroic” Batman theme (see Part 5 of those posts for a full discussion of the climbing scene). The Zimmer reference therefore occurs at a place in Skyfall that, at least in an abstract way, parallels the Dark Knight films through its images.

Coming soon—Dario Marianelli’s score for Anna Karenina.

John Williams received his forty-third Oscar nomination for Best Original Score with Lincoln. The film marks the twenty-sixth time Williams has scored a film directed by Steven Spielberg, a collaboration that has produced such admired scores as Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., and Jurassic Park. While Williams is best known for these scores, Star Wars, and scores to other action and fantasy films, he is a remarkably flexible composer, having written for films in a range of genres that include historical (JFK), children’s (Home Alone), war (Saving Private Ryan), and romantic comedy (Sabrina).

Williams’ score for Lincoln is somewhat uncharacteristic in that it is rather subdued throughout the film. When present, it is usually quite soft and unobtrusive, a sensible strategy given that the majority of the film is devoted to elegant and highly polished lines of dialogue. This is not to say that Williams’ music does not add much to the film, but that it does so in a more subliminal way than in most of his other film scores.

The music of Lincoln is bound together by its strong Americana influence and contains several different types of cues, six of which I discuss below in a film music analysis.

The “Voice of the People” Theme (The American Process)

This theme, which has also been called “The American Process”, is first heard in the opening scene, in which a black Union soldier complains to Lincoln of the unequal status of black soldiers within the army. At the end of the scene, the soldier recites the famous portion of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address which states that “government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the Earth.” This emphasis on the people is reflected musically through the use of a simple folk-like tune that is based largely on broken tonic chords. In this scene, the theme is scored in a thin two-part texture for solo piano, both of which give it an intimacy that suggests the isolation Lincoln feels in pursuing equality “for the people.” Because this music is associated with thoughts of bringing the people’s struggle for equality to Washington, I call this “the voice of the people” theme.

During the historic vote on the Thirteenth Amendment, we hear the “voice of the people” theme just after Democrat Edwin LeClerk changes his mind from yes to no before finally abstaining. At this point, the theme is still scored in only two parts, now in the more plaintive clarinet and bassoon. But once we see another tally mark drawn for the “yea” side of the vote, more winds are added, then the harmony begins to thicken and strings are added as well. The theme therefore builds in optimism in the same way that votes for the Amendment begin to accumulate and build towards its victory, marking a significant step forward in the struggle for equality.

The “Integrity” Theme (Freedom’s Call)

This theme, which has also been named “Freedom’s Call”, might well be called the main theme of the film as it is the most prominent of Williams’ original themes:

Hear the theme below from 0:55:

This theme is heard at several points in the film, particularly at times when a character defies others in the pursuit of Constitutional equality. For this reason, I call it the “integrity” theme. Williams expresses this idea musically in a number of ways. In terms of harmony, he employs only the three major chords in a major key: I, IV, and V. This lends the theme a pure and emotionally positive quality. Similarly, the melody always sounds notes in each chord and therefore lacks the “impurity” of dissonance. The interval between the melody and bass is almost always a third—indeed that is the very first interval we hear. This gives the theme a warm and uplifting feeling, especially since the thirds are always part of a major chord. Rhythmically, the theme’s chords are sounded in a slow, stately manner that conveys a proud and confident tone. On top of all this, the bass consistently sounds a short-long (“Lombard”) rhythm that suggests folk music, and therefore a connection to the people.

Several scenes point up the association of the theme with the pursuit of equality through political defiance. When Lincoln makes the emendation in his telegram to Grant, he says that the Confederate commissioners who are coming to make a peace offering should not proceed to Washington. Should they do so, the Thirteenth Amendment would have no hope of being passed since the war would be brought to an end without the unpopular idea of abolishing slavery. By delaying the commissioners, Lincoln renders the Amendment the fastest way of ending the war, though he does so by flouting the political courtesy of meeting with the commissioners.

Also consider the scene in which Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones), leader of the Radical Republicans, is asked in the House of Representatives whether he believes that the Constitution’s precept that all men are created equal is meant literally. Stevens has been an ardent supporter of racial equality for years, and the Democrats believe they can entice Stevens to admit to this supposed ulterior motive of the Amendment, and thus provide a basis for striking it down. Stevens, however, defies their provocations by tempering his response, saying only that “I don’t hold with equality in all things only with equality before the law and nothing more.” Appropriately, it is just before Stevens utters these words that we hear the “integrity” theme with some slight dissonance to suggest our uncertainty in his response. Once Stevens explains that even someone as “unworthy” as Wood (his questioner) is entitled to equality before the law, the theme becomes consonant, though still subdued in the winds. Finally, when Stevens’ response is met with cheers and applause, the theme breaks out into a lush and full scoring for the strings to match his remarkable display of integrity.

The “Cost of War” Theme (The Remembrance Theme)

This theme, which has also been called “The Remembrance Theme”, is associated with the Lincoln’s sadness over the cost in human life the war has had on both himself and the American people. It occurs in a couple of poignant scenes: when Lincoln and his wife Mary discuss the death of their son Willie, and when Lincoln surveys the body-strewn battlefield outside Petersburg near the end of the film. Young Willie had died a few years back, on an day when Lincoln and Mary were consumed with a social function they had hosted because the war was going rather badly and they needed to “put on a face” to reassure those around them. Later in the film, outside Petersburg, Lincoln and a procession ride on horseback through the field to a wordless scene that emphasizes the sadness of the massive number of deaths. (Appropriately, the scene is shot in a lifeless blue tint.)

The music Williams sets to these scenes is appropriately melancholic, a mood that he creates through the slow tempo, minor tonality, and slow dotted rhythms, which evoke the feeling of a funeral march. As with the “voice of the people” theme in the opening scene, the scoring here is for solo piano, reflecting the intimacy of the emotional expression. And yet, there is more to this deceptively simple theme. The accompaniment is in regularly-spaced block chords, a characteristic setting of hymns that gives the theme a seriousness and solemnity. The music also avoids the usual raised seventh degree of a minor scale in favour of the “natural minor”, with the seventh left unraised, which is typical of folk music. And notice the short-long rhythm in the second half of bars 5 and 7, which are elongated versions of this same folk-like Lombard rhythm found in the “integrity” theme.  Both of these folk features suggest not only that the suffering is that of the American people, but also that Lincoln himself is no different from the people in this respect since he too has lost a son due to the war.

See and hear this theme below:

Ominous Orchestral Music

A few scenes in Lincoln are scored with ominous orchestral music that is in a more modern style. This type of music occurs in scenes where an action is threatening the allure of the Thirteenth Amendment as a means of ending the Civil War. Musically this is represented by a traditional device for creating an ominous quality—a low sustained note (or “pedal”) in the strings, over which slow-moving melodies in minor keys are sounded. A good example occurs when William Seward, Lincoln’s Secretary of State, learns that Lincoln has dispatched men to summon Confederate commissioners in order to discuss terms of peace. As mentioned above, ending the war in this way would have drawn support away from the Amendment and quickly defeated it. Similarly, when news of the bombardment of Wilmington reaches Lincoln, we again hear this style of music since it could cause a Confederate surrender and undermine the Amendment. In this sense, these actions, rather than the Confederates per se, are the real antagonists of Lincoln and are therefore scored with a strongly threatening tone.

Hear an example below:

Music in a Purely Folk Style

At several points in Lincoln, we hear music in an American folk style, complete with rapid fiddle and banjo tunes, and even the addition of the spoons. These cues always accompany William Bilbo (James Spader), a friend of the Republicans who has connections to a number of Democrats in the House of Representatives. The Republicans hire Bilbo to try to persuade his Democrat connections to vote in favour of the Amendment. Although Bilbo is eventually somewhat successful, he generally fails in his first attempts. Spielberg takes these opportunities to make Bilbo the comic relief of the story (which is no doubt why Spader was cast in the role). Williams’ use of music in a purely folk style points up the humour of these scenes in a way that is in keeping with the folk elements in the rest of the score.

Hear an example below:

Diegetic Folk Music

There are a few scenes in Lincoln in which we hear diegetic music (music that has its source in the fictional world of the narrative). These include the opening scene, where a fife and drum corps plays offscreen, Lincoln’s flag-raising speech, where the crowd sings the Stephen Foster tune, “We are Coming, Father Abra’am”, and after the Amendment wins the vote, when those in favour sing “Battle Cry of Freedom”. Naturally, the authenticity of these pieces helps to immerse us into the setting of the film. At the same time, because Williams’ non-diegetic music includes elements of Civil-War-era music, especially folk music, the cues in the score blend together and form a coherent whole.

Hear the fife and drums piece and “Battle Cry of Freedom” here:

Coming soon… Thomas Newman’s score for Skyfall.

Mychael Danna is a Canadian composer who studied music at the University of Toronto, during which time he was composer-in-residence for the city’s planetarium. He began his career in film music by scoring Atom Egoyan’s Family Viewing in 1987, and has since scored many more of Egoyan’s films and an increasing number of Hollywood feature films including Being Julia, Little Miss Sunshine, and Moneyball.

Life of Pi is in part about an Indian family that decides to emigrate to Canada, an ideal story for Danna’s musical style, which is known for combining Western and non-Western sounds, as well as incorporating aspects of popular music. All of these elements come together in a unique synthesis in Life of Pi, as a brief film music analysis of four scenes will show.

“Pi’s Lullaby”

In addition to the nomination for his entire score, Danna has also earned a nomination for Best Original Song for “Pi’s Lullaby”. We hear this song over the main titles, which are shown with images of animals in naturalistic settings in the zoo owned by Pi’s parents. The music sets an idyllic tone for the first portion of the film, when Pi is filled with innocence and wonder while growing up in India.

One of the most striking features of this song is its instrumentation. Its blend of East and West begins right away as high strings in tremolo (rapid repetition of a note) are combined with an Indian-style vocal sung in Tamil by the Indian singer Bombay Jayashri. After the song’s thirty-second introduction, strings in the mid-range add a more prominent Western sound. Not long after, one can also hear the higher strings and a wordless choir brought in for a grand, sweeping effect. But several Eastern instruments are heard throughout as well: bansuri flute, santoor hammered dulcimer, mridangam drums, and various other drum and percussion sounds. Near the end of the song, the accordion and mandolin make an appearance to indicate the connection Pi’s father, and Pi himself, have to Paris (discussed below).

A pop music influence is evident in the harmony of the song. Once the bass enters after the song’s introduction, the chord progression is I-iii-vi-IV, a slight variation of I-V-vi-IV, what I call the “ballad progression” because it occurs in so many ballad-type pop songs. But unlike the pop use of this progression, Danna abandons it early on and keeps the harmony changing throughout most of the song. The fairly regular chord changes and use of mainly root-position chords are both reminiscent of pop as well, but even here Danna includes differences such as syncopation in the chord changes and inversions of some of the chords.

This cue is tightly constructed from start to finish and certainly deserves the Oscar nomination it has received. Hear it below:

“Piscine Molitor Patel”

This cue is heard as Pi is describing the origin of his name, which is from a swimming pool his father once swam in called the “Piscine Molitor” in Paris. As Pi tells this story, we hear music that is distinctly French: accordion music in the style of a waltz. When the scene transitions to Pi’s childhood in India, we hear the Indian instruments I mentioned with “Pi’s Lullaby”. The sitar then enters with a clear statement of what becomes Pi’s theme:

We often hear this theme performed on the breathy bansuri flute later in the film. Hear the French music from the start of this clip, and the Indian music from 1:35:

“The Whale”

In the second half of the film, Pi struggles to survive after being stranded on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger. Pi’s first tactic is to construct a small raft that he ties to the lifeboat in order to avoid contact with the tiger. “The Whale” occurs in a nocturnal scene in which Pi is delighted by some luminescent algae that the lifeboat happens upon. Within moments, however, a giant whale rises out of the water, tipping Pi’s raft and spilling all the food and water he had taken from the lifeboat for safekeeping.

The music here is both mysterious and ominous. We hear an ostinato (repeating figure) on the semitone Ab-G played on a Balinese gamelan gong, which gives the ostinato an otherworldly character. The figure is set in C minor, a key traditionally associated with tragedy (Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, for instance). The ostinato could be called the “Perils of Night” theme because it is always heard in night scenes when Pi is in some sort of danger or when his situation seems particularly hopeless, as in this cue and two others:

• “Tiger Vision” – Pi fails to catch the attention of a passing ship with several flares
• “Back to the World” – Pi realizes that the island he has reached is carnivorous and that he would die if he stayed there

Hear “The Whale” below:

“First Night, First Day”

This scene depicts Pi’s first night on the lifeboat and the transition into the next day. The style of the music here is typical of many cues in the score. The harmony is composed of lush, slow-moving, consonant chords. The instrumentation begins with strings, then the bansuri flute and vocals are mixed in along with other electronically enhanced and highly reverberant sounds. It is not difficult to hear in this cue the influence of Danna’s early work for the planetarium (mentioned in a previous post), an appropriate connection given that the scene depicts a wordless transition from night to day, as one might experience in a planetarium show. As morning breaks, one can almost feel the sun’s rays in the music with the addition of higher electronic sounds, then a boy soprano singing a bright vocal line backed up by a low wordless choir and, again, reverberant electronic sounds.

Hear it below:

Alexandre Desplat has been scoring Hollywood films for the last decade, ever since Girl with a Pearl Earring back in 2003. In that time, he has scored nearly forty films, seven in each of the past two years alone. Besides being one of the most prolific composers in the business, he is also one of the most versatile as he has written for such diverse films as Julie and Julia, The King’s Speech, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Given that he also scored Syriana, it is no surprise that he was asked to provide the soundtrack for Argo since both are political thrillers about the Middle East.

Desplat’s score for Argo is an interesting fusion of music from the West and the Middle East, something he achieves through combinations of four main components: a Middle Eastern sound, atmospheric music, a pop music influence, and a traditional orchestral sound. These components blend in various ways depending on the content of the scene. After briefly describing each component, my film music analysis will demonstrate how Desplat employs them in three scenes.

Style of the Score

The Middle Eastern Sound

Desplat attempts to create an authentic Iranian atmosphere in the music, especially through instrumentation. Several cues make use of such Middle Eastern instruments as the ney flute, the kemenche (a small bowed instrument played upright in one’s lap), the oud (a lute-like instrument), and various Middle Eastern drums. The many vocals in the score enhance the Iranian flavour of the music, especially the female style of wordless melodies of several long notes. But there are other vocal techniques such as tongue clicks and wordless vocal sounds (by males), as well as short, quick breaths between notes (by females). In addition, many of the score’s melodic snippets are based on the very Middle Eastern sounding “Fraygish” scale (or Phrygian dominant scale), which, starting on A, goes A-Bb-C#-D-E-F-G-A.

Here are some examples of these instrumentations:

Ney flute

Female wordless melody

Male wordless vocalizations

Atmospheric Music

Much of Desplat’s score consists of long bass notes called pedal points or pedals. Because pedals are a part of both Western and Middle Eastern music, it is a clever device for blending aspects of the two together—this is one of the fascinating things about Argo’s score. Over these pedals, there is very little melodic activity. Accordingly, there are very few motifs that could be called themes in the traditional sense as the music over the pedals is usually a sustained note or snippet of melody that adds to the colour of the score through its instrumentation and use of the Fraygish scale. This atmospheric style of music is the most pervasive type of scoring throughout Argo.

Hear an example of this type of music from Argo below. (Though note that in the soundtrack album, Desplat always adds a melody that could be called Argo‘s main theme. For soundtrack albums, cues are usually abbreviated and arranged in a new order rather than being complete and chronological. The idea is that listeners enjoy the album more when it is treated as an entity unto itself.)

Pop Influence

There are a few ways that the soundtrack is influenced by pop music. First, there are many cues in which a percussive rhythm is repeated in a series of loops, a common technique in pop. There are also some instruments that are electronically generated, especially the low bass notes mentioned above. And finally, the score is electronically manipulated to a high degree with much reverberation and at times a complex overlapping of separate musical layers. This pop influence certainly adds more to the Western sound of the score.

Here’s an example (combined with Middle Eastern sounds):

Traditional Orchestral Sound

Despite his heavy reliance on Middle Eastern sounds in his score, Desplat does not completely eschew the traditional symphony orchestra. When he employs the orchestra in its pure form, he writes a lyrical melody in the strings supported by warm brass chords underneath. Since this technique is very typical of Hollywood film scores, it strongly emphasizes a Western, and more specifically American, sound when it appears in Argo.

Here’s an example:

Scenes from the Film

Main Title and Introduction

The opening of the film immediately establishes the Middle Eastern setting of the film as we hear a ney flute play a fragment of melody. But more importantly, the bass enters right away on a low E that is sustained as a pedal point for all of the main title and introduction. Because the music sounds mainly this pedal point with indigenous Middle Eastern instruments, the sound of the score is very much toward the Middle Eastern side of the spectrum at the film’s opening, which is appropriate given we are shown a brief history of the events in Iran leading up to the hostage crisis at the American Embassy.

Mendez Visits the Secretary of State

This brief scene provides acts as a transition as Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) travels from Hollywood to Washington, D.C. The basis of the music here is a loop in the bass guitar, brushed snare drum, and a Middle Eastern drum. An electric guitar overtop of this repeats the motive A-A-G-Bb-A, which derives from the Fraygish scale on A (see above). As the film transitions into the next scene, two slow orchestral string chords are heard. Thus Desplat combines aspects of both Western and Middle Eastern music, a fitting tactic given that the American Mendez is hatching a plan to travel to Iran and rescue the six American hideaways.

The Climax

At the climax of Argo, Desplat takes advantage of the difference between the Western and Middle Eastern musical elements to indicate which side—American or Iranian—is in control of the situation. After Mendez and the six hideaways, posing as a Canadian film crew, have been given clearance to board a plane to Toronto, they are shuttled to the plane by a small bus. At this point, the Iranian airport authorities are informed of the film crew’s true identity and a tense chase begins. At the start of the chase, when we see the Americans on the shuttle bus, the music sounds long notes in the strings supported by a faster repeated-note string accompaniment and an electronic bass and percussion loop. The music therefore suggests that although the Americans are in the process of getting away, they are nevertheless filled with fear and uncertainty.

As the Iranian authorities finally break through the door to the runway, Middle Eastern drums and percussion are introduced into the mix—perhaps the Iranians will apprehend the Americans after all. The scene alternates between the two groups, American and Iranian, and the music reflects this by alternating between the Western strings and the Middle Eastern percussion. As the Iranians frantically drive down the runway after the moving plane, the Middle Eastern drums come to the fore, then the oud is added as well. Although the Americans are in the plane and about to take off, the music increases the feeling that the Iranians could very well capture the hideaways and thwart the entire rescue mission.

The plane finally achieves liftoff and the music falls silent. Why? Because the plane is still within Iranian airspace and so is still within their jurisdiction. Will it be ordered to return to the airport, or will the plane be able to continue to Canada? The lack of music appropriately declares no winner. It is only when the flight attendant announces that the plane has cleared Iranian airspace that music returns. And the music we hear is the traditional Hollywood scoring of a lyrical string melody with string and brass accompaniment. Hence, the music reinforces the feeling of a joyful American victory by banishing any hint of Middle Eastern music and leaving only a lush American sound.