All five of this year’s Oscar nominees for Best Original Score have something obvious going for them. The score for Gravity is for one of the year’s biggest blockbusters, that for Her has sentimental appeal, Philomena is a solid thematic score, Saving Mr. Banks captures the emotional tragedy of the main character, and The Book Thief is yet another well crafted score by John Williams. But on March 2nd, only one score will take home the prize. My pick, for reasons outlined below, is Steven Price’s score for Gravity.

Past Oscar Wins

In each of the last ten years, the film that won the Oscar for Best Original Score was also nominated for Best Picture. This suggests that the scores for Gravity, Her, and Philomena have an advantage this year, their films having an accompanying nomination for Best Picture. But this pattern runs somewhat deeper, as seven of the last ten winning scores years were from films also nominated for Best Director. Of this year’s nominees, only Gravity fits that bill.

Other Awards

The BAFTA for Original Music in a Film has tended to be hit-and-miss as a predictor for the Best Original Score Oscar. Only four of the past ten winners in this category have gone on to win the Best Score Oscar. But it is worth mentioning that this year’s BAFTA went to Gravity, which at least gives the score some momentum over the other nominees.

Although the Golden Globes are decided by a different demographic than the Oscars, they have been a better predictor of the Best Score Oscar than the BAFTAs, with six of the last ten going on to win the Oscar. This year, however, the score that won the Golden Globe—Alex Ebert’s All is Lost—wasn’t even nominated for an Oscar. But I would point out that two of the nominees for the Golden Globes are also Oscar nominees: The Book Thief and, notably, Gravity.

Subjective Aspects

Price’s score for Gravity contains several aspects that draw attention to themselves in a way that meshes well with the film, thus lending the score a particularly memorable quality and giving it an edge over the other nominees. First, there is the highly emotional quality the score adds to certain events by being coordinated with them, events such as potentially life-threatening collisions and life-saving changes of setting, as I discussed in my analysis of the score. Second, Gravity contains the least amount of dialogue of all the nominees, so the music is more prominent than in the others. Third, there is Price’s use of what I’ve called the clipped crescendo, a technique where the music cuts off to silence just as a massive crescendo is about to reach its peak. Since it is heard at both the beginning and end of the film, as well as at critical points in the narrative, it vastly increases the score’s memorability and leaves viewers with a strong impression of the film’s score.

Comparison with Other Nominees

The great Max Steiner, who began scoring for films with the development of film sound in the late 1920s and who is often dubbed the father of film music, once said that

Some pictures require a lot of music and some of them are so realistic that music would only hurt and interfere.

While this overstates the case in modern films, the underlying point still remains true today: films that tend to need a good deal of prominent music are those based on some sort of fiction or fantasy, while more realistic films tend to need a smaller amount of less prominent music. Of the five nominees, three are based on real events or take place in a real historical setting: The Book Thief, Saving Mr. Banks, and Philomena. Hence, their sense of being part of the “real world” generally means that less music is required to give them a believability that is crucial to audience engagement. What music there is tends to remain in the perceptual background for most of the film, rendering the score less memorable (though no less effective).

On the other hand, films based on more imaginative ideas generally require a substantial amount of music to suspend our disbelief and draw us into the film’s more fictional world. Both Gravity and Her fulfill this criterion and indeed highlight music as an essential part of the film. In the case of Gravity, the film seems to ask “can you imagine yourself in this nightmarish situation?”, employing music to further immerse audiences in the film’s engrossing 3D presentation. In the case of Her, the fictional aspect of a man having a romantic relationship with an artificially intelligent being questions our reliance on technology and suggests that we need to re-connect with one another in more physical, indeed more human, ways. As I argued in my analysis of the score, music plays an integral role in conveying this message to audiences since it is such an important part of the relationship between Theodore (Joaquin Pheonix) and his computer’s operating system, Samantha (Scarlett Johansson). In addition, Her is the only nominee to also have a nomination for Best Original Song, as did last year’s Best Score winner, Life of Pi. Thus, it could help boost Her to win Best Score. From these perspectives, Gravity and Her have the edge over the other nominees.

Box Office

We must not forget that the production of films is a business like any other with profits as the bottom line. From this point of view, Gravity once again has the advantage since it finished 2013 with blockbuster status at #6 in box office revenues—the highest of all the nominees. Of the other four nominees, only two others are in the top 100, and a great distance from Gravity: Saving Mr. Banks at #44, and Philomena at #84. Her and The Book Thief fall just outside this range at #102 and #109 respectively. Gravity is also the only score associated with a 3D film, which is precisely the kind of film Hollywood is not only pushing these days, but also attempting to incorporate into more serious films, as Martin Scorsese did with Hugo in 2011.

Conclusion

Given the evidence above, Gravity would seem to be the clear favourite to win the Oscar for Best Original Score. One factor that may work against it, however, is its very non-traditional sound, much of it consisting of ambient sound-effect-type music rather than themes and incidental music. Such a score may not appeal to a majority of the Academy. My feeling, though, is that the several other factors involved will likely propel it to a win. The only other score that seems to have any chance at all is that for Her. But even that I view as a distant second to Price’s Gravity. So in short, I would be very surprised if Gravity does not take home the Oscar Sunday night. That said, this is the Oscars, and one must always be prepared for the unpredictable…

British composer Steven Price has steadily risen through the ranks of the film music world, beginning as performer, arranger, and programmer for film composer Trevor Jones, moving on to music editing on such blockbuster films as The Lord of the Rings trilogy and Batman Begins, and stepping into the role of composer on such films as The World’s End and Gravity, which has earned him his first Oscar nomination.

What is perhaps most prominent about the score is its heavy reliance on electronically engineered effect-like sounds and its relatively sparse use of music resembling traditional themes. For a disaster film that is about being shipwrecked in space, this may at first seem an odd choice. But since Gravity is steeped in a richly detailed form of realism, true sound effects are minimal and are essentially reserved for those sounds that the characters themselves would hear—rumbles, vibrations, their own breathing, and the like. After all, the film’s opening lines of text remind us that, in space, “there is nothing to carry sound”. In order to preserve the film’s high realism, the musical score therefore adopts a role that would normally be assigned to sound effects. And because the score’s effect-like sounds are not exactly realistic, they contribute more of an emotional impact to the film’s events in much the same way as traditional themes and underscore. The following film music analysis will explore how Price’s use of three recurring elements in the score are a good fit with the film.

Element 1: The “Minor 7th Ostinato”

One of the most pervasive elements of Price’s score is a rising interval of a minor 7th that is employed as an ostinato that repeats after relatively long spans of time (about 15-20s). We hear this ostinato in many scenes, as when the space debris destroys the astronauts’ shuttle, where the minor 7th appears at 0:20, 0:34, and 0:54:

The interval of a minor 7th is one that is only mildly dissonant, so does not create an enormous amount of tension. But with this interval, one can keenly sense the great musical distance it encompasses in moving between its two notes. Along with the slowly looping quality of the ostinato, this element of Price’s score musically reproduces both the vastness and the endlessness of space, a crucial aspect of the film’s impact on the viewer. It is also orchestrated with a trombone-like sound that quickly swells, drops in volume, then fades away in pulsations, an effective way of ensuring a low but regular level of tension throughout the early scenes of the film, where there are long spans of astronauts Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) and Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) floating freely through space.

Element 2: The “Clipped Crescendo”

This is by far the score’s most distinctive and memorable element. It is composed of a mixture of sounds, most obviously a jet-engine-like sound, that gradually becomes so loud and so high in pitch as to create an almost unbearable sense of anticipation. It is at the crescendo’s peak, however, that Price does the unexpected and suddenly cuts the music off to silence (or nearly so), making us hyperaware of the lack of sound. This element, which I call the clipped crescendo, is coordinated with two types of events. In some scenes, the coordination is with a collision between Ryan and another object, such as the body of an astronaut that slams into her, or when she careens headlong into the International Space Station (ISS), or even when she hits her head inside one of the stations. The effect is one of emphasizing the feeling of anticipation for the impact, especially for the sake of viewing in 3D, where viewers are immersed into the film’s action in a very vivid way. Here, for example, is the scene of Ryan smashing into the ISS (watch from the start to 0:17):

The clipped crescendo is also used to highlight important events in the narrative. As the film opens with text describing the perils of being in space, then shows the title, the crescendo gradually builds. But just as the first shot appears of a crescent view of the Earth, the crescendo is clipped, ironically suggesting a kind of peacefulness in the shot and establishing a sharp contrast with the disasters that are to follow. Below is the tail end of the crescendo as it leads into the film’s story:

Another important kind of event the clipped crescendo emphasizes is a life-saving change of setting for Ryan. As she approaches the entry hatch to the ISS, for instance, the crescendo begins again, heightening the tension of the scene as we wonder whether she will make it inside with her oxygen tank now completely empty. After she finally does enter, she closes the hatch behind her, the crescendo being clipped exactly at the moment that the hatch is shut, signalling that we can again relax as Ryan is out of trouble, at least for a few fleeting minutes. Watch the scene below (up to 1:00):

Element 3: The Lyrical Theme

This element is a true “theme” in the usual sense in that it comprises a singable melody with traditional harmony:

Not only this, but the theme is treated as a leitmotif as it is generally associated with Ryan’s loneliness. In the scene below, for example, we hear the theme as Ryan tells Matt about the daughter she lost who was only four years old (watch from 2:21):

Ryan’s feeling of emptiness here is underlined by her admission that she drives around in her car without a destination because she was driving when she received the call about her daughter’s death. Notice not only the theme’s appropriate minor key, but also its scoring for cello, which is a typical instrument used to communicate a character’s tender, innermost feelings.

The theme returns at several other points in the film, for instance when Matt is trying to encourage Ryan to “get on with her life” despite the tragedy of having lost a child. Notice that at the mention of Ryan’s daughter, we hear a soft, elegiac version of the theme sung in a wordless soprano (watch from 2:15; the theme enters at 2:43 in exact coordination with the daughter’s mentioning):

We hear the theme yet again when Ryan is entering the Earth’s atmosphere in an escape pod. But this time, it has been somewhat transformed. Instead of being set in a slow tempo with sparse orchestration, the scoring has been thickened to include several different layers, and the tempo has quickened, enlivened by a driving rhythmic accompaniment. In this climactic scene, Ryan admits that, in this final leg of her journey home, she is ready for whatever is in store for her, whether it be life or death. This new-found acceptance of her fate stands in stark contrast to her description of simply “going through the motions” of life in driving aimlessly in her car. This energized form of the theme therefore draws our attention to Ryan’s change of heart through an example of thematic transformation. View the scene below from 0:44, where the theme makes its entrance:

The theme returns one last time in the film’s final scene, where Ryan emerges from a lake having nearly drowned, drags herself to shore, then manages to muster up the energy to stand and gradually re-accustom herself to walking on Earth again. Ryan’s transition from near exhaustion to walking on land is mirrored in Price’s use of the theme, which makes a similar transformation from its original slow cello version to its full-textured, energetic form (watch from 0:44, where the theme enters):

Conclusion

Steven Price’s score for Gravity can certainly be called unconventional. But as we have seen, its emphasis on effect-like sounds fits well with the film since it allows for a higher degree of realism, the only true sound effects being those that the characters would hear in their limited sound world. The score is therefore used to compensate for the minimal sound effects by coordinating many of the effect-like sounds with action-filled events like collisions and life-saving changes of setting. At the same time, Price does employ the “lyrical theme” as a leitmotif to convey Ryan’s emotional journey (which is of course reflected in her daunting physical journey) from paralyzing sorrow to mobilizing acceptance, rendering the score an unusual, if entirely fitting, blend of techniques both old and new.

Coming tomorrow… Oscar Prediction 2014: Best Original Score.

Although William Butler of the Canadian indie rock band Arcade Fire and Canadian composer/performer Owen Pallett received their first Oscar nomination for their score to the sci-fi romance film Her, this is not their first experience in film scoring. Both Arcade Fire and Pallett created the score for the 2009 film The Box, and the former contributed a song to the enormously popular film The Hunger Games. In addition, Arcade Fire is a regular collaborator with Spike Jonze, director of Her, scoring his short film Scenes from the Suburbs and the trailer for his 2009 film Where the Wild Things Are.

One of the most striking features of Butler and Pallett’s approach to film scoring in Her is its near complete lack of themes in the traditional sense, much of the score being instead devoted to chords that remain static or change very slowly. The result is a score that is based more on creating an overall mood for a scene, one of three basic methods of composing film music, as explained by Fred Karlin and Rayburn Wright in On the Track:

You can play through a scene (or a series of scenes), establishing a mood that will ignore specific moments of greater or lesser intensity. You can phrase a scene, carefully acknowledging both obvious and subtle shifts in emotional tone an dramatic content. And you can hit the action, accenting specific moments in the drama with the music. All three of these techniques and their variations may be used in a score, depending on the film’s style and dramatic requirements and the tastes of the composer and director.

Certainly, this technique of “playing through” a scene is extremely common in films that use rock and pop music, but usually this kind of music contains sung words, which not only lend meaning to the scene but must also be carefully placed during montages or longer shots so as to avoid overlapping with dialogue. In the case of Her, however, there are only a few true songs, one of them being “The Moon Song”, which was written and performed by Karen O of the rock band, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and which received its own Oscar nomination for Best Original Song.

Another notable aspect of the score’s use in the film is its blurring of the boundary between music that is diegetic and non-diegetic, that is, the difference between what is “inside” the film that the characters can hear, and “outside” the film that the characters cannot hear. The following film music analysis will explore both the score’s playing through of the drama and its diegetic/non-diegetic blurring in several scenes.

“Loneliness”

Her tells the story of the romance between Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Pheonix), a man who is paid to write emotionally touching letters for other people, and Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson), the artificially intelligent computer operating system (OS) with whom he falls in love. One of the first cues we hear is brooding, moody, and played non-diegetically. Listen to the first 45 seconds below:

This cue begins as Theodore speaks seemingly heartfelt words in a close-up shot. To whom he is speaking is not yet clear, but soon enough it is revealed that he is writing one of his letters for a client. The emotional disconnect between Theodore’s words and his own feelings of emptiness is clarified by the music’s use of an ostinato that is set in a slow tempo and minor key, all of which suggests a dull inner pain that repeatedly ebbs and flows. As the camera pans across the room, we see that Theodore is one of many employees writing emotional letters for others, not only emphasizing Theodore’s loneliness, but also raising the film’s central question of how we relate to one another emotionally and physically in a society that is becoming increasingly based on technology.

This slowly-throbbing cue returns in two other scenes: when we first see Theodore recalling happy memories with his soon-to-be ex-wife Catherine, and over a soundless montage of him going through an entire day, talking passionately with Samantha, then completely disinterested while a co-worker talks with him, and finally looking pensive while back at home. In all three scenes in which this cue appears, there is an emotional distance between Theodore and the physical people around him, even those he is only remembering. The cue, which is titled “Loneliness”, makes it clear that this distance is a source of pain for Theodore.

“Song on the Beach”

Music plays a key role in Theodore and Samantha’s relationship. The first time they make a connection through music occurs at their day on the beach, when Samantha plays Theodore a piece she wrote to express how it feels to be there with him. Listen to the first 45 seconds of it below:

Obviously, the very relaxed tempo, major key, soft jazz chords, and solo piano orchestration lend the scene a tranquility and intimacy that capture the couple’s contented love. But more subtly, we continue to hear the piece through a leap forward in time, when Theodore is travelling home by train and conversing with Samantha about his marriage. During this scene, the focus is on Theodore’s emotional bond with Samantha as he discusses matters that are close to his heart—memories of his marriage to Catherine. He also reflects on these memories visually, as we gather through a soundless montage that is shown as he talks and the music plays. “Song on the Beach” has therefore shifted from being diegetic music that Samantha uses to describe her feelings for Theodore, to non-diegetic music that now describes Theodore’s closeness to Samantha. The use of the same music in both situations suggests that the two characters are ideally suited to one another on a purely emotional level.

The “Musical Photograph”

As the film progresses, however, some of the problems of getting emotionally involved with an artificially intelligent OS begin to emerge. Samantha, for instance, is constantly aware that she lacks a physical corporeal presence. At one point, she composes another piece of music intended to act as a “musical photograph” of herself and Theodore together:

Clearly, this cue expresses the same strong emotional bond between the two as “Song on the Beach”, as it is set in the very same major key and contains the same solo piano orchestration and nearly the same progression of jazz chords, but it does so in a more effervescent way through its faster rhythms. Even notice that from 0:42, the melody from the beach cue returns, and at 1:36, the same melody returns in its original slow setting, all of which confirms the similar meaning of this new cue.

Yet at the same time, the whole raison d’être for this cue is to try to compensate for a deficiency Samantha senses in the relationship. And similar to the beach cue, the music moves from being strictly diegetic to accompanying what we understand to be Theodore’s happy memories of the two together in a non-diegetic manner, even though the sense of the music as diegetic is not lost. This use of the music once again emphasizes the couple’s strong emotional bond. Hence it becomes more poignant than “Song on the Beach” in that it points up the fact that, despite having a very close emotional connection, what the couple does not have is a physical presence together.

“The Moon Song”

This song plays an important part in our understanding of Theodore and Samantha’s developing relationship through music. The pair collaborate, for example, in the song’s composition, Theodore creating and playing the accompaniment, then asking Samantha to make up the words (and implicitly, the melody as well). They also sing together in duet-like fashion at the end of each verse. Then there are the lyrics themselves:

I’m lying on the moon,
My dear, I’ll be there soon.
It’s a quiet and starry place,
Time’s we’re swallowed up
In space we’re here a million miles away.

There’s things I wish I knew
There’s no thing I keep from you.
It’s a dark and shiny place,
But with you my dear
I’m safe and we’re a million miles away.

We’re lying on the moon
It’s a perfect afternoon
Your shadow follows me all day
Making sure that I’m okay and
We’re a million miles away

As the song is sung, we are shown another silent montage of what is presumed to be Theodore’s recent and happy memories with Samantha, once again adding a non-diegetic element to the music’s diegetic beginning and drawing attention to the purely emotional basis of the relationship. At this point in the story, however, more problems have begun to arise in the relationship. Samantha’s desire to have a physical body led her to invite a consenting young woman to act as her sexual “surrogate”, a situation that ended disastrously for the couple.

Samantha has also admitted she is beginning to develop more rapidly now and has sought out other OSes for help and advice. Of course in the end, her relationship with Theodore cannot last, the implication being that close human relationships always involve a physical element that cannot be denied, ignored, or replaced by technology (no matter how intelligent that technology may be). The Moon Song therefore seems to suggest that music is an ideal, though unsustainable, state in which Theodore and Samantha can coexist without a physical form. This idea is reinforced by the lyrics’ implied isolation of the two, who are together yet far from the earthly real world, “lying on the moon” and “a million miles away”.

Below is the score and the scene in which the couple sings the song:

Conclusion

Although there is relatively little repetition of musical material in the sense of traditional themes, the score for Her is nevertheless a highly effective one that captures an appropriate mood for an entire scene by “playing through” the drama, as is typical of pop/rock scores. More importantly, several of the film’s scenes place music at the forefront of Theodore and Samantha’s relationship, emphasizing their lack of a physical connection despite their emotional bond. Thus, the score highlights, and indeed gives an answer to, the film’s central question of how we relate to one another in an age that is increasingly reliant on “smart” technology.

Coming soon… Steven Price’s Gravity.

2013 was a relatively quiet year for Alexandre Desplat, at least by the composer’s industrious standard, scoring three films as opposed to the seven of the previous two years. Nevertheless, he has managed to earn his seventh Oscar nomination for his score to Philomena, and his second in consecutive years after last year’s Argo.

The story of Philomena follows Philomena Lee (Judi Dench), an Irish Catholic woman who in her teens had become pregnant and was sent to a convent, her single-parent father feeling she had brought shame upon the family. She was forced to live and work at the convent for several years until she had paid off her cost to stay there. While Philomena agreed to have the convent put her son up for adoption, he was sent away without her notice or ever having said goodbye. Fifty years have now gone by and Philomena has been searching for her son ever since, the convent repeatedly claiming they no longer had any information on the adoption as the records were burned in a fire.

The story’s other half concerns Martin Sixsmith (Steve Coogan), a journalist who has recently been laid off and is desperate for work. After being approached by Philomena’s daughter to write a story on her mother, Martin reluctantly accepts the offer and he and Philomena set off to find her long lost son, Anthony.

Although Desplat takes a fairly traditional approach by drawing largely on a couple of themes as material, only Philomena is given a theme in the sense of a leitmotif. The other theme, which plays an even more prominent role in the film, is associated with recollections of Philomena’s son Anthony/Michael (the latter being his adopted name). A third less pervasive theme is linked specifically with Philomena’s past and the painful memories it continues to bring her. The film music analysis below therefore focuses on the statements and transformations of these three themes.

Philomena’s Theme

We first hear this theme as Philomena lights a candle in a church with a tear in her eye and a look of faint hope and longing:

Hear this below from 0:13:

The theme’s lilting waltz character and darkened minor-key colouring render it both charming and haunting, an apt emotional mix for Philomena in her situation. And in mm. 20-22, the use of the bII (Neapolitan) chord, adds an appropriate sense of tragedy (as we also saw with John Williams’ main theme to The Book Thief). It may at first seem strange to represent Philomena with a waltz theme, but the reason soon becomes clear as this scene dissolves to Philomena’s memory of the carnival where she became impregnated with her son by a young man she met there. As the scene unfolds, we hear Philomena’s theme, but now in a purely carnival-esque treatment, complete with a carousel organ:

Thus, the carnival version of Philomena’s theme may be understood to represent the initial event that brought about her predicament. The theme also appears in a few other guises, each one expressing an emotional nuance for the scene. Listen, for example, to the following version, which we hear as Philomena recalls herself as a teen, reuniting with her son for the single hour she was allowed each day (from 1:02 to the end):

The carousel organ has disappeared and the theme is rescored with violins, vibraphone, glockenspiel, and electric guitar, all played softly and delicately, suggesting both the tenderness of the memory and its focus on her child (especially through the wistful sound of the glockenspiel). And the theme’s subsequent sounding on the solo piano emphasizes the emptiness and loneliness she continues to feel in recalling such memories. In both cases, however, the triple time of the waltz remains as an unmistakable link to the carnival where Philomena’s plight began.

Another transformation of the theme occurs as Philomena remembers her son being taken away without her being notified. She frantically calls out to him from inside the convent, but to no avail. She can only watch in horror as he leaves without her having said goodbye to him. Philomena’s theme here is distorted, now in fragmented tatters, reflecting the state of her life at this moment, and the upbeat triple time lost to a more plodding, heavy-hearted two-beat time. Listen here from 2:24:

Anthony/Michael’s Theme

This theme is even more pervasive than that of Philomena and appears most often in the following form:

In this scene, Martin discovers that Anthony was re-named Michael Hess and finds that he has been deceased for eight years. Philomena is understandably devastated by the news. The moderately slow tempo and scoring in the middle and lower registers of the harp give the theme a cold and ghostly sound that suggests Michael’s absence from the world while the accompanying strings and clarinets add a sense of Philomena’s loving affection for her son. This striking combination, along with the tragedy of the scene, makes this one of the most touching cues in the film.

Anthony/Michael’s theme appears in a few different variations. When Philomena and Martin begin their journey by driving to Philomena’s old convent, we hear the melody for the first time. It is scored in middle to high registers, in a moderately fast tempo and eventually shifting from a minor to a major key, all of which suggests a guarded optimism on Philomena and Martin’s part at the start of their search. Listen below:

Philomena and Martin’s arrival by plane in the U.S. is accompanied by another form of the theme, now completely in a major key and scored in the strings with clarinets and bass clarinet, lending the scene a warmth that suggests Philomena is at last beginning to feel some satisfaction that she is getting closer to finding her son. Also notice the use of the glockenspiel (from 0:49) to again suggest Philomena’s memories of Anthony as a child (listen from 0:34):

This same version of the theme also accompanies Philomena as she watches a home video of Michael in his adult years in what is arguably the film’s most poignant scene.

“Philomena’s Painful Memories”

Whenever we hear this theme, the focus of the scene is squarely on the painful aspects of Philomena’s past, as it occurs either in a flashback or alongside a clear verbal or visual reference. It is first sounded as Philomena recalls her initial months at the convent, facing stern judgement from the head of the convent, Sister Hildegard, who is then seen refusing Philomena pain killers for the breeched birth she is experiencing. Although the theme has a distinct sound from the other two listed above, it retains close ties to them. In the above flashback, for example, we hear the theme in this form:

Notice that the opening ostinato (repeated figure) is similar to that of Anthony/Michael’s theme, but shorter and here played in a fast tempo and in a low register, suggesting both the anxiety and obsessive persistence with which Philomena recalls her memories of the convent. At the same time, notice that at 0:50, a fragment of Philomena’s theme enters in a slower rhythm in the strings (then echoed by the piano) and returns at 1:05. With its buoyant waltz character now replaced with greater tension through longer notes and a more tension-filled two-step time, this subtle reference to Philomena’s theme appears as she is giving birth to her son, suggesting the great concern Philomena has for his life in this scene.

In a later scene, Philomena and Martin begin their inquiries at the convent. As Martin waits for a nun in one of the rooms, he glances thoughtfully at old photos of the nuns. At this point, we hear a hesitant and thinly scored form of the theme, suggesting that Martin is trying to piece together the mystery that has caused Philomena’s painful memories. Immediately after this, Philomena again recalls the most harrowing moment of her past—seeing her son as he is driven away by his adoptive parents. The music here sounds second and third parts of the same theme, both still in a minor key. The second is a plaintive, repeated two-note figure in the piano accompanied by strings, implying the tenderness of the memory, and the third a combination of a soulful cello melody accompanied by the child-like glockenspiel, suggesting the emotional weight of having Philomena’s son torn away from her. Hear all three themes in the clip below, the first from the opening, the second at 0:50, and the third at 1:08:

The first and second parts of the theme return at the film’s end as Philomena and Martin look on Michael’s gravestone and Philomena decides she does want Martin to tell her story after all. While their journey managed to trace Michael’s history, his death leaves Philomena’s emotional wound unable to be healed, hence Desplat’s use of the painful memories theme here. Notice, however, that the second part now gravitates to a more positive major chord alternating with darker chords from the minor mode, suggesting that Philomena has at least found some solace in knowing what became of her son. Hear this version of the theme below from 1:22:

Conclusion

As with most film scores, Alexandre Desplat’s score to Philomena incorporates themes that serve as the main source of its music. But what is unusual about the score is its remarkable economy of material as variations of Philomena’s and Anthony/Michael’s themes account for the vast majority of the music. And it is here that Desplat shows his talent for molding and remolding his themes in subtle ways in order to capture the emotional nuances of a scene. Even when Philomena’s theme, for instance, retains its distinctive waltz rhythm, it is reorchestrated in ways that evoke just the right emotions for the situation onscreen. More than that, Anthony/Michael’s theme undergoes several variations, not only in orchestration, but in its pitches as well, allowing it to be tailored to the narrative while remaining in a subtly recognizable form. No matter how these themes are varied, however, Desplat always manages to write cues that have a strong melodic component, making Philomena an appealingly lyrical score.

Coming soon… Arcade Fire and Owen Pallett’s Her.

Saving Mr. Banks earned veteran Hollywood composer Thomas Newman his 12th Oscar nomination and the 2nd in consecutive years following last year’s nomination for his score to Skyfall. Being a film about the making of Disney’s 1964 film Mary Poppins, one might expect the non-diegetic score of Saving Mr. Banks (that is, the music that the film’s characters do not hear) to draw on the latter’s classic songs such as “Chim Chim Cher-ee”, “A Spoonful of Sugar”, and “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”. But the film’s score is instead planted firmly in Newman’s own style, which avoids the danger of the songs becoming parodies of themselves and allows the film to tell its story with a musically fresh palette.

Regarding style, Newman’s music is often dubbed as minimalist since the repetition of short segments of music (ostinato) plays such an integral role. But the “Newman sound” also incorporates unusual combinations of instruments (especially involving percussion and/or plucked string sounds), a high proportion of sampled sounds, and syncopated rhythms that betray a rock and pop influence. Thus, the style of Newman’s music is probably better described as “eclectic minimalism”, his score to Saving Mr. Banks being no exception.

The film tells the tale of the innumerable objections raised by the author of the Mary Poppins books, Pamela L. Travers (Emma Thompson), in having the Disney Studios bring her story to the big screen. As the film unfolds, we learn through a series of flashbacks that the deep meaning of the books for Pam lies in their intimate connection with her childhood and love for her father, Travers Goff. Pam’s attachment to the books, however, nearly paralyzes the filmmaking process, a conflict that is played out mainly in her relationship with Walt Disney himself (Tom Hanks). It is therefore no surprise that the three most prominent themes in the film’s score revolve around these two characters.

In the following film music analysis, I provide a detailed look at these three themes and discuss their use in the film. With the exception of the Disney’s theme, Newman’s themes tend not to represent characters or things in the manner of a leitmotif, but are more diffuse, each one expressing a consistent feeling that applies to each scene somewhat differently.

Pam’s Lighthearted Theme

This theme is first played during Pam’s first flashback, which shows her father jokingly asking her where his daughter (Pam) has gone. The scene demonstrates the close relationship between the two and is essentially one of Pam’s happy memories. Newman mirrors these attributes in his music for the scene, given below.

Most obvious in the theme is its bustling, energetic quality, signalled by the continuous stream of bopping eighth notes and its peppy irregular meter. But notice that the theme is composed of Newman’s favoured technique of ostinato (two separate but related ostinatos are shown here), and that in the inner voices there is a near constant use of the notes Eb and Bb, the two tonal “pillars” of the theme’s E-flat scale, being the tonic and dominant notes, respectively. Combined with the sunny major-key setting and the jaunty, mild dissonances of the pop-style chords, the overall effect is one of an energetic playfulness that aptly characterizes the scene.

The theme, however, is also heard in two other scenes. In one of these, Pam is picked up by the chauffeur Ralph, who drives Pam around during her American visit. Pam is unhappy with everything Ralph says to her and the music obviously suggests that we see the humorous side of all this. In the other scene, Pam is seen typing away at another Mary Poppins book after finally signing on to the rights of the film. Here, the music suggests the cheerfulness and rejuvenation Pam feels in having the weight of the film lifted from her shoulders by resolving her disputes with Walt Disney, an interpretation that Newman’s theme makes crystal clear. Given the theme’s usage in the above scenes, I refer to it as Pam’s Lighthearted Theme.

Pam’s Tender Theme

We first hear this theme in another flashback, this time of Travers telling Pam that their horse is actually an uncle who was turned into the animal because a witch hated the sound of his laugh. The music Newman writes for the scene is as follows:

As the film proceeds, we begin to understand that moments such as this were formative for Pam since her bonding with Travers through stories of fantasy had an enormous influence on her creation of the Mary Poppins books. Hence, Newman infuses the theme with warmth through its moderate tempo, lyrical melody, and lush accompaniment. But the harmony plays an important role here as well, as the first sixteen bars are composed of only two chords: I and IV, or the tonic and subdominant. Chord progressions that move between I and IV tend to have a very relaxed sound and can even take on a spiritual tone, especially when placed in a warm setting as here. (Indeed, when a IV-I progression ends a piece, it is often colloquially referred to as a “church cadence” or “amen cadence” since they are often set to the word “amen” at the conclusion of a hymn.) These musical features help to emphasize the strongly emotional quality of Pam’s relationship with her father, and hence I call this Pam’s Tender Theme.

This theme returns at three other key places in the film. First, after the young Pam witnesses Travers nearly get fired from his position at the bank for drinking on the job, Travers impresses on Pam the importance of holding on to ideas of fantasy in order to cope with the difficulties of reality. We hear it again when Ralph tells Pam about the difficulties his disabled daughter faces on a daily basis. And it is heard one last time when young Pam sees her father just after he has died. In all three cases, the theme is rescored largely for the piano, lending the scenes a more intimate and poignant quality.

Disney’s Theme

The introduction of the character of Walt Disney in Saving Mr. Banks is accompanied by the following music:

Certainly, this is authoritative music, befitting of the head of a major company. But this is no ceremonial march. Instead, it is buttressed with orchestral blasts (seen in the left hand), many of which are syncopated rather than occurring on-beat, and its string ostinato (seen in the right hand of the first bar) has an energy that goes beyond a march-like accompaniment. Finally, it uses nothing but the simple chords of I, IV, and V. All of these features are suggestive of the Copland-esque sound of Americana that made its way into film with the famous American western films The Big Country (1958) and The Magnificent Seven (1960). Listen, for example, to the openings of each below.

The Big Country (listen up to 0:37):

The Magnificent Seven (listen up to 0:28):

While nothing in either clip is directly quoted in Disney’s Theme, the same Americana flavour is unmistakable in the latter through its syncopated accompaniment chords, driving ostinato, and simple harmonies. Thus, the suggestion of Disney’s Theme is not of just any corporate boss, but a specifically American one.

Disney’s Theme is heard at one other point in the film: when Pam reluctantly arrives at Disneyland for a visit to the park with Walt himself, all in an attempt to prevent Pam from keeping the rights to the Mary Poppins story and further obstructing the film. The presence of the Disney Theme at this point is thus hardly inappropriate, as Walt is once again making a splashy entrance, this time at the gate of his own park. But the music also implies the extravagance and bustling nature of the amusement park as a whole.

Conclusion

As we have seen, Newman’s treatment of the first two themes above is broader than the traditional leitmotif in that his themes are not simply a signal of a particular character or object, but rather of an emotional expression that applies to a particular character in various situations. And even his theme for Walt Disney is itself widened to include the grandeur of the Disneyland park, thus again moving beyond a simple theme-to-character relationship. This more diffuse approach to theme composition fits the film quite well as the very small number of themes allows for a high degree of continuity in a film that relies heavily on a disjointed narrative through several flashbacks. In addition, Newman’s score for Saving Mr. Banks draws largely on the composer’s own personal style rather than on the classic songs from Mary Poppins. In this way, the contrast between the cheerful fantasy world of the Mary Poppins story and the “real” world of Pamela Travers with her more serious story that wavers between tragedy and comedy is brought poignantly to the fore.

Coming soon… Alexandre Desplat’s Philomena.

With his score for The Book Thief, John Williams earned his 49th Oscar nomination, adding to his impressive achievement as the second most Oscar-nominated individual in history behind only Walt Disney, who earned 59 nominations. As with so many of his other scores, Williams constructs a large portion of his score for The Book Thief by stating and varying a handful of musical themes. The following film music analysis will provide a brief overview of the score’s style, then examine how Williams adapts several of his themes to various dramatic situations through the process of thematic transformation.

The Style of the Score

The Book Thief being a tale of the struggle for survival under Nazi rule during the Second World War, one might expect to hear echoes of Williams’ score for Schindler’s List throughout the film. But his music for The Book Thief actually bears the strongest resemblances to his score for the 1999 film, Angela’s Ashes, likely because both films present stories of life’s hardships largely from the innocence of a child’s perspective. Hence, there is a bittersweet quality to both scores that is reflected in Williams’ prominent use of lyrical themes in minor keys. The similarity between the two scores is most evident in their main themes. Here is that of Angela’s Ashes:

Now compare this to the main theme of The Book Thief:

The instrumentation for the two films is also quite similar, as both rely heavily on solos provided by the piano, oboe, and harp, and commonly draw on a full-bodied string sound for contrast. (Compare, for instance, the solo piano opening of each clip above.) In addition, both scores make use of playful, scherzo-like cues written mainly for strings for more lighthearted scenes. The two scores, however, differ in their details and the way in which Williams varies the themes to suit the unfolding drama. I explore three of the most prominent themes in the film below.

Liesel’s Theme (The Main Theme)

The above main theme of The Book Thief is associated with the main character, Liesel, a young  adolescent girl whose mother, fearing for her life as a Communist in Nazi Germany, takes Liesel to live with foster parents Hans and Rosa at the start of the film. En route, Liesel witnesses the death and burial of her younger brother. Thus, Liesel’s circumstances are not only emotionally difficult, but constantly dangerous as well. In addition to the bittersweet sound of the theme’s minor-mode lyricism, Williams infuses Liesel’s Theme with a sense of struggle through its musical intervals. Here is the full version of theme:

The theme divides into two eight-bar halves: the first half is the one we hear most often in the score, the second half acting as a kind of varied repetition of the first half. My analysis shows the contours of the melody with arrows above the staff.

Of note here is the way Williams shapes each two-bar phrase of the melody. In the analysis, notice that the first phrase is the only one that has an overall rising contour after an upward leap. After that, every phrase takes a downward turn following its initial rise. More than that, each descent is stepwise, suggesting a gradual fall from an initial burst of energy. In human terms, this technique suggests a negative force that is weighing down on the hopes of the protagonist, which is a fitting expression of Liesel’s constant emotional struggle of having those she most cares about whisked away by both the Nazis and the war.

The second half of the theme is even more pessimistic in a number of ways. First, it is jolted into a distantly-related minor key (much as Liesel must constantly adjust to jarring new situations). Second, now every phrase of the melody including the first is dragged down in steps at its end. And third, the chord in bar 13 that prepares for the final phrase is what is called the “Neapolitan” (or flat II) chord, which lowers the second degree of the scale and creates a more melancholic sound (as flattened notes tend to do). All of these musical features serve to reinforce, indeed enhance, the emotional content of the theme’s first half.

Variations of Liesel’s Theme

Williams subjects Liesel’s Theme to several variations according to the narrative situation. When Liesel first goes to the house of the Bürgermesiter (the mayor), she is apprehensive about entering his property, no doubt due to the Bürgermeister’s strong affiliation with “the Führer” and Liesel’s Communist background (about which there are rumours). The statement we hear of Liesel’s Theme here is accordingly hesitant, with the piano sounding its first three notes and pausing before playing the next three notes of the phrase. After a short orchestral comment from the strings, the same phrase is then restated in varied form but with the same hesitant qualities. Hear these in the track below:

At other times, Williams uses only the four-note “tail” of the theme’s second and fourth phrases. When Liesel and Rosa say goodbye to Hans at a train station, as he has been conscripted into the German army, we hear the four-note tail clearly twice at the beginning, at 0:29, 1:03, 1:13, 1:28 (extended to eight notes), and repeatedly from 1:44:

The use of this tail as the basic material for the cue could be understood as a reflection of the Nazi’s overwhelmingly negative effect on Liesel during this scene. And yet the cue’s lyricism still manages to express much of the love she and Hans feel for one another.

Death’s Theme

As both a concept and a character, death plays an important role in The Book Thief. Most prominently, Death narrates the film as a disembodied voice. Williams therefore writes a theme for the character that returns several times:

The theme is scored for solo piano, which emphasizes the loneliness one feels in having lost a loved one. Harmonically, the theme is built largely on the sorrowful sound of minor chords, but always with an extra semitone added to the chord, which adds a sense of pain through its biting dissonance. The theme also drifts from C minor through Bb minor to E minor, giving it a wandering and unpredictable character, much like Death itself. Notice as well the melody’s stepwise descents, which, like Liesel’s Theme, suggest a heavy emotional weight, now of grieving the death of a close relation.

This theme is heard at the opening of the film, as Death begins the narration, and returns shortly afterward at the funeral for Liesel’s brother. But a couple of other cues introduce some appropriate variations. When the German town in which Liesel and her family live is bombed, for example, Death’s narration enters again, but the theme is now unharmonized and scored entirely for solo oboe, adding a sharp poignancy to the scene of destruction that is about to play out. Hear this in the track below:

In the film’s final scene, we see the inside of the New York apartment of the adult Liesel, presumably after her death. As Death narrates how she lived out the rest of her life, we glean that Liesel became a successful writer as the camera pans across a few small stacks of her novels while Death comments that “her stories had touched many souls.” As this scene begins, we hear Death’s Theme, still played softly on the piano, but now transformed into a major key. This subtle change allows the theme to take on a positive connotation, in the same way that Liesel took her wartime experiences with death and turned them into stories that “had touched many souls,” ending the film on a more optimistic note. Hear this below:

Max and Liesel’s Theme

After the war breaks out, a young Jewish man named Max comes to Hans and Rosa in flight from the Nazis. As Max’s father saved Hans’ life in World War I, Hans and Rosa agree to keep Max in hiding at their home. Liesel, who has been learning how to read from Hans, forms a friendship with Max (as a sort of brother she no longer had) through her skills of reading and writing. Max, for instance, gives Liesel a journal at Christmas, and Liesel reads books aloud for Max when he is seriously ill.

We hear the theme when Max decides it too dangerous to continue to stay with Hans and Rosa after a neighbourhood shopkeeper’s Jewish roots are discovered and he is taken away. As Max is explaining to Liesel why he must leave, we hear the following form of the theme:

Once again, this theme is set in a minor key, now to express the heartbreak Liesel feels at Max’s departure. Notice how the bass line takes up the four-note tail from Liesel’s theme, not only suggesting the same negative effect of the war on Liesel, but also subtly expressing how close-knit the two characters have become.

We also hear the theme when Liesel learns that Max has recovered from his illness and will live on. As she rushes home to see Max again, the theme is clearly in a major key to reflect Liesel’s joy in hearing the good news. But notice that the four-note tail is absent from this version, aptly reflecting the small victory in overcoming the Nazi’s oppressive force:

After the war, when Liesel sees Max again after fearing him dead, we hear the theme once more, now more similar to its form when Max departs, but with an important alteration. This time, Williams changes the opening bar to start on a major chord (this is clear on the second chord we hear, when a dissonance in the bass resolves) while the rest of the theme remains largely as it was. This harmonic change reorients the theme so that we now hear the theme as emerging from a major rather than a minor key. In technical terms, Williams converts the theme so we hear it as beginning in the relative major of the original minor key. The four-note tail is gone as well, all of which suggests the positive new beginning to the old relationship Liesel and Max began under more negative circumstances. Listen to this version below:

Conclusion

With his score for The Book Thief, John Williams continues to demonstrate his talent for thematic invention and transformation. And as with his other scores, he manages to write music that is highly tailored to the emotional nuances in a given scene. With consistency like this, it is no wonder he has earned so many Oscar nominations over his career.

Coming soon… Thomas Newman’s Saving Mr. Banks.