MOVIE MUSIC UK

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) have announced the winners of the 93rd Academy Awards, honoring the best in film in 2020.

In the Best Original Score category composers Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, and Jon Batiste won the award for their score for the Pixar existential animated film Soul. With this win Reznor and Ross double their Oscar tally, having previously won for The Social Network in 2010. Accepting the award for the trio, Batiste said:

“Hello! Hello! Man, you know what’s deep is that… God gave us twelve notes. It’s the same twelve notes Duke Ellington had. Bach had. It’s the same twelve, Nina Simone. And all the nominees. I just wanna first point out that every gift is special. Every contribution with music that comes from the divine, into the instruments, into the film, into the minds and hearts and souls of every person who hears it, the stories that happen when you listen to it and watch it, and the stories you share, the moments you create, the memories you make… man. It’s just so incredibly special, and I just want to first recognize the nominees and say that I’m incredibly – I speak for all of us – we are incredibly humbled and grateful to the Academy for this recognition, and I’m just thankful to God for those twelve notes, man. That’s so dope. Thank you to my parents, Sulaika for your support and love, for coming here with me, flew on a plane for the first time a year. My parents took me around clubs in New Orleans when I was ten years old, put me in piano lessons with Miss Shirley William. Hahaaa! The Vibe! Just so much, so much has happened, this moment is a culmination of a series of miracles, and I just can’t go into all of them, we don’t have that much time, but it’s just so incredibly powerful to be standing here in the lineage that we come from and the lineage in this film.

The collaborators on this film are the best that you could have ever asked for, the most generous, rigorously visionary collaborators. Pete Doctor is a… I love this man. Pete Doctor, he’s a genius and a visionary. Dana Murray, Kent Powers, Tom MacDougall at Disney, thank you for welcoming us to the family with open arms. This was so much of a true collaborative process. My team, thank you for just dealing with me because I get ideas all the time, I’m changing direction, y’all are holding me down. Michael, Chris, Adam, all the people. And thank you all for doing what y’all do, putting it on the line, putting yourself out there. It’s hard to put yourself out there, just thank you for putting yourself out there, I’m a fan of, like, everybody here. So, much love, much light to you, I love you even if I don’t know ya! Lay it on!”

Later, in comments made backstage, Reznor said “Well, I would like to thank my wife and my awesome kids, for providing the energy and the spirituality and the engine that allows me to tap in to… and just to be happy and alive. Thank you Academy for the recognition. It really means a lot, thank you”. Ross followed by saying “I’d like to thank the Academy, and most of all I’d like to thank my wife Claudia and my children. I love them, and thank you”.

The other nominees were Terence Blanchard for Da 5 Bloods, James Newton Howard for News of the World, Emile Mosseri for Minari, and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for Mank.
In the Best Original Song category, the winners were Dernst Emile II, Gabriella Wilson (H.E.R.), and Tiara Thomas for “Fight For You” from Judas and the Black Messiah, the biopic about the founder of the Black Panthers, Fred Hampton.

The other nominees were Savan Kotecha, Max Grahn (Fat Max Gsus), and Rickard Göransson for “Húsavík” from Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga; Leslie Odom Jr. and Sam Ashworth for “Speak Now” from One Night in Miami; Daniel Pemberton and Celeste Waite for “Hear My Voice” from The Trial of the Chicago 7; and Diane Warren and Laura Pausini for “Io Sì (Seen)” from The Life Ahead.