[Feb. 28, 2011] - Film score buffs will tell you that the movies just wouldn't be the same without their music, whether those sounds underscore the dramatic tension of a given scene, form a emotional counterpoint to the visual narrative, or even become a plot point.
Just think of two films that were among this year's front runners for Best Picture: the harrowing intensity of "Black Swan" revolves around Tchaikovsky's famous ballet, while "The King's Speech"--the ultimate winner--reaches its emotional apex in a moment underpinned by the Allegretto from Beethoven's Symphony No. 7.
Unsurprisingly, both "Black Swan" and "The King's Speech" also garnered nominations for Best Score (though the prize went to the jittery, tense music of "The Social Network", written by Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor and his frequent musical partner Atticus Ross. The much sought after French film composer Alexandre Desplat contributed the rest of the music for "The King's Speech"; he has also written fine and highly evocative scores to such previous hits as "The Queen", "The Golden Compass", and "Syriana". Clint Mansell--the onetime front man of the Britpop band Pop Will Eat Itself, but who in years since has written the scores for such movies as "The Fountain" and "Sahara"--penned the original music for "Black Swan".
Classical music also found its way into the fabric of another, and perhaps more surprising, Best Picture nominee: "127 Hours", whose main music comes from the brilliant Indian film composer A.R. Rahman, whose international smash was the propulsive score for the 2008 Best Picture winner, "Slumdog Millionaire". In "127 Hours", Chopin is referenced in a flashback scene of beleaguered mountain climber Aron Ralston remembering his youthful sister learning the Nocturne Op. 9, No. 2 in E-flat Major.
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by Anastasia Tsioulcas
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