Last week I saw Prince of Darkness on the big screen. It had been awhile; I have to downgrade it from “fucking rocks” to “pretty damn good”, but no matter what the score remains amazing. Prince of Darkness is the first movie I can remember noticing the score of. I mean, sure, there’s some iconic John Williams stuff that I knew about before then, but I experienced those as isolated musical cues. John Carpenter delivers a score, an audio bed that almost never lets up, ratcheting the tension higher and higher until finally all hell breaks loose (in the movie, the phrase is meant more-or-less literally). There is a simple three-note synth motif carried through the whole thing, a rise and fall, but that’s all it takes.
The Conversation has one of my favorite scores. Cold, minor key piano figures for an uneasy night.
The score for The Witch stuck with me. Haunting string pieces that feel old-timey in a creepy way. I dunno man, can’t be smarter than “old-timey” here, I feel like the time where religious terror was a central feature of European/American life was at least a few hundred years and it seems like I imagine the same sort of scales in the folk music throughout the whole period. Some music historian knows better.
I have complicated feelings about the Upstream Color score.
Darling is a somewhat cliché descent-into-madness/unreliable-narrator story, elevated by being very stylish. Black-and-white with everything drowning in darkness and a mostly silent lead performance, the score makes everything feel on-edge even when not much is happening. Pizzicatos, climbing violin crescendos, high-pitched drones, all the good stuff. I also see that the composer is now doing the score for Netflix’s The Witcher series, so good for him. I’m sure it’s pretty different.
It’s hard to pick just one Denis Villeneuve film score honestly. Sicario’s score was what sucked me in immediately, a deep low hum evoking something massive and dangerous kicking off the very first scene. But Arrival’s score is another Jóhann Jóhannsson banger (with an assist from a well-deployed Max Richter piece that apparently cost it Oscar eligibility), and Dune’s score impressed the hell out of me too. I remember being so glad that it wasn’t just some Hans-Zimmer-knockoff BWOOOMMM-fest, only to be surprised that it was done by the man himself. Turns out the guy has more than one trick up his sleeve!
Have you seen Mandy? Do you like slow-paced movies drenched in unnatural light that are psychedelic to the point of making me feel high at times? Or maybe unhinged Nicolas Cage performances? Also an excellent Andrea Riseborough performance while we’re at it. I really like the movie, and the score is part of the overall otherworldly feel. Yet another Jóhann Jóhannsson joint.
Here are a pair of video essays (the second a response to the first) that go into a bit of why modern scores sound the way they do. What I find most interesting is that they both settle on a technological explanation; in showbiz it’s easy to say that trends and artistic decisions are fickle strange things but these guys both pretty much go “nah it’s computers mate”, and are reasonably convincing about it.
You included Dune! :D