Feb. 12--Music is a weirdly personal creation; if you tell someone you don't like music they love, you may as well be telling them you don't like their face, or their children's faces.
There's a flipside to this. Throughout February, I'm hosting an Oscar-themed series called "The Film Score" on WFMT-FM 98.7 and on www.wfmt.com/movies. So many movie fans have let us know how much they adore some of the stuff I love, or at least that I find curious and interesting even if I don't love it. We've been playing Oscar-winning music (Michael Giacchino's "Up," Victor Young's "Around the World in 80 Days," Bernard Herrmann's "The Devil and Daniel Webster"), along with selections from Oscar-nominated scores (Alex North's "Spartacus" is my favorite in its weight class). And -- this is the beauty part, because it opens the door to anything and everything -- film scores that should've been recognized with an Academy Award nomination, but weren't (David Raksin's "Laura" and David Shire's "The Conversation" are tough to beat in that category).
Another peculiar niche we've been exploring: film music that, for various reasons, was disqualified from Oscar consideration.
I don't use the b-word adjective lightly, or often, but Jonny Greenwood's brilliant soundscape for "There Will Be Blood" was robbed. The academy ruled against the score's eligibility because music Greenwood composed prior to the film became part, though not a substantial part, of the soundtrack, alongside selections from other composers.
The same thing happened to "Birdman" last year. Remember that fantastic, rolling percussion-based score composed by the Mexican jazz drummer Antonio Sanchez? It dominated the movie, subtly (one of the few subtle elements of the film, in fact), even though Sanchez's contributions shared the screen with selections by Mahler, Ravel and other classical and contemporary composers. The academy ruled that Sanchez's contributions had been diluted enough to disqualify it.
And I say: bad call. Maybe it's just because I loved Sanchez's work on "Birdman," and I think the world of Greenwood's "There Will Be Blood" score, one of the most striking and memorable of the new century.
On Wednesday we'll play three selections from the "There Will Be Blood" score. "The Film Score" continues with new segments each day, 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. weekdays, 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. on weekends. You'll hear music you love, and (I assure you) some music you don't know and may well detest. When we get around to former London DJ Mica Levi's unsettling distortions for the science fiction fantasy "Under the Skin," it's a cinch it won't generate the warm nostalgia millions of movie lovers have, for example, for the Elmer Bernstein theme from "The Magnificent Seven." I love it, too. But film composition is a wide-open prairie, and magnificence comes in many colors, many moods.
Thanks for listening.
mjphillips@tribpub.com
