The Cambridge Student • Part 2 • 18 February 2016
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Culture
Film music in the 21st century
Playlist: Film & TV Ollie Smith Music Editor
Jared Bennett
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n 2015, Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Birdman received a host of Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Sound Editing, amongst others. Despite many other awards associations nominating the film’s score, composed by jazz drummer Antonio Sánchez, the Academy Awards didn’t even include the music for Birdman on the longlist for Best Original Score. Although much of the music was composed specifically for the film, the soundtrack also includes works by various jazz composers, along with Tchaikovsky, Mahler and Ravel, and it is for this reason that Birdman was not nominated. Even so, the score is hugely effective, the use of original composition and pre-composed material blending together, effortlessly fitting the contours of the film. It helps to bring a sense of cohesion to a feature that is in equal parts tragic, satirical, and ultimately extremely poignant. The tradition of making use of pre-composed music goes back to previous generations of filmmaking. It is used to great effect in the films of Kubrick – think of A Clockwork Orange or 2001: A Space Odyssey – and continues right up to the present day. The Beach Boys’ ‘God Only Knows’ in Love Actually springs to mind as an example – but there seems here to be a danger of de-contextualisation. The number of people who are first exposed to ‘God Only Knows’ by watching Love Actually is surprisingly large. Similarly, the opening of Richard Strauss’s ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra’ is known to many as ‘that bit at the start of 2001’. It could certainly be argued that this damages the true impact of the music: this argument is particularly strong in terms of Strauss, since
the segment used in the film is the prelude to a work which totals over an hour in length. This is not the first time in the history of music that segments of music have been separated from their parent works – in many 18th century concerts, this was standard procedure, to provide the audience with the highlights of several composers’ outputs. Is this inherently dangerous to the integrity of the original composition? Probably not, especially at a time when technology permits the curious to discover the rest of the work from which the ‘famous bit’ came. What about its use in film? This is a trickier question. In the earlier days of film composition, composers such as Erich Korngold (The Adventures of Robin Hood, 1938) were as much concert composers as they were film composers, and often film scores were written in a late Romantic classical music style. As musical style diverged and scores began to be written in differing genres (The Matrix’s rock and metal-inspired soundtrack stands out as an obvious example), classical music began to be used more as a counterbalance to the grittier musical style of the rest of the film. Re-enter Birdman. The use of music in this film is genius, with the percussive and classical soundtracks seamlessly intertwining. But, should it have picked up that coveted Academy Award? Ultimately, it probably isn’t of much importance – after all, it was disqualified for technical reasons as opposed to aesthetics or quality grounds With or without the award, it is an inspirational, gripping soundtrack: together, Iñárritu and Sánchez have created a genre-defining collection of music that isn’t easily forgotten.
Behind every good movie is a killer soundtrack. Music can make or break a film, and the best soundtracks are just as compelling as stand alone works. Among the eight I’ve selected are some real movie classics, as well as some slightly more unusual picks to try. 1. Jon Hopkins, ‘Candles’ From Monsters (2010) 2. Antonio Pinto, ‘Opening’ From Amy (2015) MOVIEMANIACSDE
3. Radiohead, ‘Talk Show Host’ From Romeo and Juliet (1996) 4. Mogwai, ‘Relative Hysteria’ From Les Revenants (2012-2015) WORLDHASPOSTROCK
TCS Books: Spotlight fiction Arenike Adebajo Books Editor
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ometimes you just want to curl up with a good book and forget those looming essay deadlines. The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is the perfect book to read when you’re feeling a bit blue. It’s a gorgeous novel by Dominican-American writer, ARENIKE ADEBAJO
Junot Díaz, chronicling the life and times of an unlucky in love “ghetto nerd” called Oscar, who lives in New Jersey with his Dominican family. Oscar believes he’s cursed with the Fukú, an ancient curse that has haunted his family for generations, causing all sorts of mayhem. Díaz narrates the majority of the action through the eyes of Oscar’s smart-mouthed – and better looking – friend Junior, who cuts back and forth between the present day and the turmoil of Oscar’s family’s past life in the Dominican Republic under the Trujilo dictatorship. The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is written with a huge amount of warmth and is astonishingly funny. Díaz makes liberal use of long and digressive footnotes, peppering the text with colourful Spanish and slang. My favourite thing about the book is its sheer range of reference. Everything from The Fantastic Four to Oedipus Rex, from Lord of the Rings to Siouxsie and the Banshees is mentioned in a heady blend of high and low culture. Díaz admirably counterbalances the hyper-masculinity prevalent within Dominican culture with nuanced explorations of the female experience through the characters of Oscar’s sister, Lola and his mother, Beli. His mother, whose skin is described as “the darkness before the black, the plum of the day’s last light” struggles with colourism, handled with a fierce self-assurance that never fails to move me. This book is foul-mouthed, unashamedly nerdy, and very sweet – a perfect escape from term-time stress, essay crises, and hectic supervision schedules.
5. Antonio Pinto, ‘A Transa’ From City of God (2002) 6. Nino Rota, ‘The Godfather Waltz’ From The Godfather (1972) LANCASTER DODD
7. Prince, ‘Purple Rain’ From Purple Rain (1984) 8. Wendy Carlos, ‘Main Theme’ From A Clockwork Orange (1972) MOVIECLIPS TRAILER VAULT