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Definitely the film I'm eagerly waiting for out of this year's arthouse/Oscar hopefuls. I'm sure this messageboard's Ayn Rand fan club has already condemned the films for crimes against the individual, but for me the subject is ripe for something in between Citizen Kane, F Scott Fitzgerald and Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven.
Anyway, looks like Jon Brion will not be doing the score, which is a surprise, since he has done the music for so many of Paul Thomas Anderson's other films. (ie. the last two.) The early reviews are all crediting Radiohead guitarist (and classically-trained musician) Johnny Greenwood for the score. The reviews mention a mixture of guitar and strings... Greenwood also wrote the theremin-based score for BODYSONG a while back. I'm curious about this work - hopefully it will be a step up from the sort of score we've been getting from that 'other guitarist' who recently won two Oscars.
(Interesting that a few major releases have gone to popular artists lately - Johnny Greenwood on this, and Nick Cave / Warren Ellis on ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES.)
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I have Bodysong and it's nothing special. Hopefully this will be better.
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I've just seen the trailer of this film on Apple.com and I have to say I'm definitely intrigued. P.T. Anderson is one of the few young directors working nowadays that grabs me every time.
The trailer is also made in a very unconventional way, especially the use of music. If this is a hint of the scoring approach for the whole film, it looks very promising.
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I agree. This is a score that could really stand out in a good way.
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Posted: |
Nov 14, 2007 - 10:15 AM
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By: |
Bond1965
(Member)
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There was this artice in today's L.A. Times section, "The Envelope":
Radiohead's Greenwood goes sinister for 'There Will Be Blood'
After a screening of "There Will Be Blood" last night at Writer's Guild theater in Beverly Hills, director Paul Thomas Anderson said he "had to learn how to be simple" to make film. The movie tracks the life of an oil magnate played by Daniel Day-Lewis, and takes its inspiration from Upton Sinclair's 1927 novel "Oil!."
Much of the post-film discussion focused on the way Day-Lewis (above, with Dillon Freasier) approached the role of an arrogantly scheming and oft-paranoid oil man. And if there's anything simple about the film, it's in Anderson's focus on this one man, as the film has an underlying -- almost horror-like tension -- to it.
That foreboding sense of dread, though, comes in large part from the score by Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood. The soundtrack won't be released until Dec. 18 via the Warner Bros. imprint Nonesuch, preceding the Dec. 26 opening of the film. It should be a fascinating, if difficult, listen, judging by the moments of the music in the movie.
It'll be curious to see if it stands as a singular piece, or if Academy voters find it too experimental, too hauntingly sparse, for the original score nomination it deserves.
Like Anderson's film, Greenwood's music often feels deceptively simple, playing out like a twisted, mutated take on orchestral music of the turn of the century.
At times, strings are manipulated into something that sounds like an air-raid siren, and in the few moments there's percussion, it's startling. The rhythms resemble the clangs of the oil machinery in the film, a carefully orchestrated but scattered-sounding noise -- the sound of a mind going mad, perhaps.
Greenwood and Anderson earlier discussed the music and how it relates to certain scenes of the film with Entertainment Weekly, where Greenwood said "The Shining" was a conversation point between the two. Indeed, the opening scenes of "There Will Be Blood," with its wide-open shots of Texas land and guttural orchestra sounds, certainly recall the 1980 Stanley Kubrick thriller.
Greenwood told EW:
I think it was about not necessarily just making period music, which very traditionally you would do. But because they were traditional orchestral sounds, I suppose that's what we hoped was a little unsettling, even though you know all the sounds you're hearing are coming from very old technology. You can just do things with the classical orchestra that do unsettle you, that are sort of slightly wrong, that have some kind of undercurrent that's slightly sinister.
Greenwood's words above best describe the music.
Last night, Anderson also cited John Huston's 1948 film "The Treasure of Sierra Madre" as inspiration, and said he sent pieces of Max Steiner's score to Greenwood. While the music of the latter took a more majestic approach, Greenwood is able to grace "There Will Be Blood" with a similarly epic sonic scope.
"I knew our score would sound nothing like that," Anderson said, "but this is what I was trying to get into the mix."
More on the film, and the soundtrack, as their respective release dates approach.
Direct link: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/extendedplay/
James
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