AN AMERICAN IN PARIS – George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin, Saul Chaplin, Johnny Green
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Producer Arthur Freed took in a Hollywood Bowl performance of George Gershwin’s music from the Jazz Age and was inspired by the show’s “An American in Paris” number. For the next three years he sought support in bringing his film version to fruition. He found a partner in Gene Kelly who sold MGM executives on the concept of a dance film by screening the film “The Red Shoes” (1948). Arthur Freed was assigned production with a $2.7 million budget, Alan Jay Lerner was hired to write the screenplay, Gene Kelly would manage the choreography, and Vincente tasked with directing, with assistance from Gene Kelly. Kelly had seen Leslie Caron performing a ballet in Paris and he personally recruited her for the role of Lise Bouvier. Joining her would be Gene Kelly as Jerry Mulligan, Oscar Levant as Adam Cook, George Guétary as Hank Baurel, Nina Foch as Milo Roberts and Eugene Borden as Georges Mattieu. Read more…
Burt Bacharach, 1928-2023
Composer Burt Bacharach died on February 9, 2023, at home in Los Angeles after a short illness. He was 94.
Burt Freeman Bacharach was born in Kansas City, Missouri, in May 1928, but grew up in Queens, New York. He developed a keen interest in jazz as a teenager, after visiting jazz clubs and watching performances by Dizzy Gillespie and Count Basie. He studied music at McGill University in Montreal, at the Mannes School of Music in New York, and at the Music Academy of the West in California, where his teachers included classical greats like Darius Milhaud and Bohuslav Martinů.
After a stint in the US Army he worked as a pianist at resorts in the Catskill Mountains of New York, before going on to work as an arranger and conductor for legendary actress Marlene Dietrich’s nightclub shows. He met lyricist Hal David in 1957, and they began writing songs together; they scored an immediate hit with “Magic Moments” by Perry Como, which reached number 1 in the charts when Bacharach was just 29 years old. Read more…
IFMCA Award Nominations 2022
INTERNATIONAL FILM MUSIC CRITICS ASSOCIATION AWARDS NOMINATIONS ANNOUNCED
TELEVISON AND GAME SCORES ELIGIBLE FOR SCORE OF THE YEAR FOR FIRST TIME; BEAR MCCREARY, MICHAEL GIACCHINO, DANIEL PEMBERTON LEAD LIST OF NOMINATED COMPOSERS; COMPOSERS FROM EGYPT, FINLAND, JAPAN, POLAND, TURKEY, AMONG MANY OTHERS, ALL VYING FOR PRIZES
FEBRUARY 9, 2023. The International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA) announces its list of nominees for excellence in musical scoring in 2022, for the 19th annual IFMCA Awards. Composers Bear McCreary, Michael Giacchino, and Daniel Pemberton lead the list of composer nominees with eight, seven, and five nominations respectively, closely followed by Simon Franglen (4), Alexandre Desplat (3), and John Williams (3).
American composer McCreary’s nominations are for his work on the epic Amazon Prime television series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power based on the classic fantasy writings of J.R.R. Tolkien; the animated comedy Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank, which is a re-imagining of the classic 1970s comedy Blazing Saddles; the epic video game God of War: Ragnarök; and for his continuing outstanding contributions to the most recent of TV series such as Outlander, See, The Serpent Queen, The Walking Dead, and The Witcher: Blood Origin. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power received nominations for Score of the Year – the first television score nominated in that category in IFMCA history since the rule change to allow TV scores to be included was announced in 2022 – plus Best Television score, and for three different tracks in the Composition of the Year category, while McCreary himself was nominated for Composer of the Year.
IFMCA member James Southall called The Rings of Power “a real triumph, undoubtedly McCreary’s own career-defining moment,” and IFMCA member Conrado Xalabarder said that the score was “one of the best in the history of music for television series … a work made from intelligence, commitment and above all respect for Tolkien and the audience. All its central themes work impeccably, coherently, and they develop and interact with each other, creating first-rate narration and dramaturgy.” IFMCA member Jon Broxton similarly praised the score, saying “the level of research and intelligent design McCreary has done in terms of creating the musical structure of The Rings of Power is absolutely astonishing, and is probably unparalleled in the history of television music.” Read more…
M3GAN – Anthony Willis
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
It’s always interesting to me to observe when things go ‘viral’ online. Right now, in the early months of 2023, you can’t open up Instagram or Tik-Tok without being confronted by some pre-teen girl (or, perhaps slightly creepily, not a pre-teen girl) re-creating the dance from M3GAN, a short scene where the protagonist of the movie of the same name prances in an office hallway – whirling arms and hair flips and even a hands-free cartwheel – before bloodily dispatching someone with the blade of a paper guillotine. The dance craze comes from the eponymous movie, a horror-thriller with a rich vein of dark humor, about a toy designer who makes an incredibly lifelike android companion for her recently orphaned niece, but who then comes to regret making it when the doll/robot inevitably becomes self-aware and goes awry, embarking on a murderous rampage. Read more…
DAVID AND BATHSHEBA – Alfred Newman
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Following the success of Paramount’s “Samson and Delilah” in 1949, 20th Century Fox executive Darryl F. Zanuck believed it was time for his studio to enter the Biblical Epic genre. He decided that the film would focus on the life of the legendary King David of Israel. Zanuck personally took control of production, provided a budget of $2.17 million, hired Philip Dunne to write the screenplay and tasked Henry King with directing. The initial screenplay was a biopic, which would if filmed, render a four-hour movie. As such Zanuck directed Dune to pare it down, focusing entirely on David’s illicit affair with Bathsheba. For casting, Zanuck insisted on having the popular, successful, and beautiful actors Gregory Peck and Susan Hayward star as David and Bathsheba. Joining them would be Raymond Massey as Nathan, Kieron Moore as Uriah, and James Robertson Justice as Abishai. Read more…
ALIVE – James Newton Howard
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
In October 1972 a plane carrying a rugby team from Montevideo, Uruguay, who were on their way to play a game in Santiago, Chile, crashed high in the Andes mountains. 15 of the 45 passengers and crew died on impact but the others – some of whom were badly injured – quickly had to figure out how to survive. During the following 72 days, the survivors suffered extreme hardships, including exposure, starvation, and an avalanche, which led to the deaths of thirteen more passengers; famously, but reluctantly, they were forced to resort to cannibalism to stave off death due to lack of food. Eventually two of the rugby players – Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa – decided to strike out for help. They climbed a 15,000 foot mountain without gear, and then hiked almost 50 miles. It took them almost in 10 days, but they finally stumbled into a remote village, where they could obtain help and call for the Chilean Army to rescue the other survivors. This incredible story was turned into a book, Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors by Piers Paul Read, and then eventually into this film, which was directed by Frank Marshall and starred Ethan Hawke, Josh Hamilton, and Vincent Spano. Read more…
DOG GONE – Emily Bear
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Dog Gone is a family adventure-drama film, directed by Stephen Herek, starring Rob Lowe, Johnny Berchtold, and Kimberly Williams-Paisley. It’s a heartwarming true story about a college student named Fielding Marshall and his epic search for his beloved dog, Gonker, who goes missing on a hike and has to be found quickly as he is ill and needs a life-saving injection. Fielding’s search for Gonker becomes a local cause célèbre, making the news, and inspiring the community. It premiered on Netflix at the beginning of January and, normally, it’s not anything I would give a second thought to, based on the film itself. However, I want to take some time out to write about Dog Gone’s score, which was written by 21-year-old composer Emily Bear. Read more…
ALICE IN WONDERLAND – Oliver Wallace
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
As a young man Walt Disney was fond of the two Lewis Carroll novels “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and “Through The Looking Glass”. As early as 1933 he conceived of making a film adaptation, but it did not take form until 1945 and then would require six years to bring his dream to fruition. Disney personally managed production with a budget of $3 million, a team of thirteen writers were hired to craft a screenplay based on both of Carroll’s books, and a trio consisting of Clyde Geronini, Wilfred Jackson and Hamilton Luske were tasked with directing. A fine voice cast was assembled, including Katherine Beaumont as Alice, Ed Wynn as Mad Hatter, Richard Haydn as Caterpillar, Sterling Holloway as Cheshire Cat, Jerry Colonna as March Hare, Verna Felton as Queen of Hearts, J. Pat O’Malley as Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Bill Thompson as White Rabbit, Joseph Kearns as Doorknob, Sink Trout as King of Hearts, and James MacDonald as Dormouse. Read more…
Movie Music UK Awards 2022
The film music world got back to normal, mostly, after two years of COVID-related disruption, and ultimately roared back with a vengeance with a ton of great scores. I heard more than 650 scores in 2022 – either as a soundtrack album, in movie context, or both – and I ended up rating a whopping 79 of them **** or better.
Surprisingly, the best of the year’s music was dominated by scores for television – fantasy shows, super hero shows, westerns, gothic horrors, and more. The lines between ‘film music’ and ‘television music’ are becoming much more blurred; investment in multi-episode streaming series is almost on a par with traditional theatrical films, and as such the scores that accompany them are just as elaborate, dense, complex, and impressive as their big screen counterparts – perhaps even moreso, as composers have to structure their music with multi-season arcs in mind. As such, for the first time, I have decided to allow television and video game scores to compete on an equal footing with film scores for my coveted ‘Score of the Year’ award – and so, without further ado, here are my choices for the best scores of 2022. Read more…
Under-the-Radar Round Up 2022, Part 10
Original Reviews by Jonathan Broxton
My recurring under-the-radar series usually concentrates on the best scores for non-English language films in a given year, but doing so means that I sometimes overlook music written for British, Australian, and American films that are similarly low-profile, but also have outstanding scores. To rectify that, here is the final entry for this year in my ongoing series of review articles, this time looking at seven such scores from the second half of 2022, written for independent English-language features that you might have otherwise overlooked.
The scores are: a heartwarming family drama about the homelessness crisis, an Australian film about a the unlikely friendship between a girl and a fish, a British comedy set in the world of French high fashion, another British comedy set in the world of professional golf, scores for two experimental films by a talented newcomer, a seasonal fantasy-drama about a magical reindeer, and a hilarious mock-biopic of Weird Al Yankovic!
CHAPLIN – John Barry
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Considering that he was one of the most important and transformative figures in the history of cinema, it’s somewhat surprising that there wasn’t a biopic of Charlie Chaplin until 1992. The film was a labor of love for director Richard Attenborough; it was written by a trio of literature greats – William Boyd, Bryan Forbes, and William Goldman – and starred the then 27-year old Robert Downey Jr. in the role that marked his transition from youthful movies to serious adult cinema. The film charts Chaplin’s entire life and career, from his impoverished childhood growing up in Victorian London, to his first brushes with showbusiness via Fred Karno’s vaudeville theatre, his move to the United States in 1914, and his gradual rise to fame via his iconic ‘tramp’ character in silent films such as The Kid, The Gold Rush, and City Lights. It also reveals his tempestuous private life – various love affairs and failed marriages – as well as his political conflicts with FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, which eventually led to him fleeing America for Europe at the height of his fame amid accusations of communist sympathies. The film climaxes with Chaplin’s glorious return to Hollywood in 1972 after decades in exile, when he received an honorary Oscar for ‘the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century’. Read more…
Academy Award Nominations 2022
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) have announced the nominations for the 95th Academy Awards, honoring the best in film in 2022.
In the Best Original Score category, the nominees are:
- VOLKER BERTELMANN (HAUSCHKA) for All Quiet on the Western Front
- CARTER BURWELL for The Banshees of Inisherin
- JUSTIN HURWITZ for Babylon
- RYAN LOTT, RAFIQ BHATIA, and IAN CHANG (SON LUX) for Everything Everywhere All at Once
- JOHN WILLIAMS or The Fabelmans
This is the second Oscar nomination for Bertelmann, the third Oscar nomination for Burwell, the fourth Oscar nomination for Hurwitz (him having previously won for both song and score for La La Land in 2016), and the first nomination for the members of Son Lux.
Incredibly, this is the 53rd Oscar nomination for John Williams, which breaks his own record for being the most nominated living person, and maintains his position as the second most nominated person of all time after Walt Disney (who had 59). He previously won Academy Awards for Fiddler on the Roof in 1971, Jaws in 1975, Star Wars in 1977, E. T. The Extra-Terrestrial in 1982, and Schindler’s List in 1993.
In the Best Original Song category, the nominees are:
- STEPHANIE GERMANOTTA (LADY GAGA) and MICHAEL TUCKER (BLOODPOP) for “Hold My Hand” from Top Gun: Maverick
- M. M. KEERAVANI and KANUKUNTLA SUBHASH CHANDRABOSE for “Naatu Naatu” from RRR
- RYAN LOTT, DAVID BYRNE, and MITUSKI MIYAWAKI (MITSKI) for “This Is a Life” from Everything Everywhere All at Once
- TEMILADE OPENIYI (TEMS), ROBYN RIHANNA FENTY, RYAN COOGLER, and LUDWIG GÖRANSSON for “Lift Me Up” from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
- DIANE WARREN for “Applause” from Tell It Like a Woman
The winners of the 95th Academy Awards will be announced on March 12, 2023
GUILLERMO DEL TORO’S PINOCCHIO – Alexandre Desplat
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
There have been so many versions of Carlo Collodi’s classic story Pinocchio over the years that it’s hard to keep track of them all. The best known version of the story, at least in English-speaking countries, is the classic Disney musical from 1940; in the intervening years there have been dozens of others, including two different ones directed by Italian filmmaker Roberto Benigni, and a remake of the 1940 version starring Tom Hanks just a few months ago. Given all this, one might wonder what Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio might have to offer that is different from all the other versions, but in actual fact it has a great deal to recommend, from its beautiful and detailed stop-motion animation, its unexpectedly deep and sophisticated screenplay adaptation, interesting voice cast, and appealing music. Read more…
ALEXANDER’S RAGTIME BAND – Irving Berlin, Alfred Newman
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
In 1937 composer Irving Berlin was solicited by 20th Century Fox studio executive Darryl F. Zanuck to write a biopic about his life to be called “Alexander’s Ragtime Band, which would showcase some of his greatest songs. Berlin balked, believing such a story would be too intrusive. Zanuck pivoted and asked him if he could instead write a story, which could feature his greatest songs. He agreed, collaborated with screen writer Richard Sherman, and their story was accepted. Zanuck took personal charge of production, hired Kathryn Scola and Lamar Trotti to write the screenplay, and tasked Henry King with directing. The cast would be anchored by singers Ethel Merman as Jerry Allen, and Alice Faye as Stella Kirby. Joining them would be Tyrone Power as Alexander, Don Ameche as Charlie Dwyer and Jack Haley as Davey Lane. Read more…
Under-the-Radar Round Up 2022, Part 9
Original Reviews by Jonathan Broxton
Life has returned to world cinema in 2022 following the easing of the COVID-19 global pandemic, and at the end of the fourth quarter of the year I’m absolutely delighted to present the latest instalment in my on-going series of articles looking at the best under-the-radar scores from around the world. This article covers five scores for projects from Scandinavia and adjacent countries in eastern Europe, and includes a Polish comedy drama set in Denmark, a Norwegian animated film based on a classic children’s book, a Finnish super-hero film for children, a Norwegian WWII action film, and a gorgeous romantic score for a Finnish film set in the wilds of Ireland.
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