Best Original Score

[rolotomasi99]

well, not to add more fuel to this fire about BABEL winning best score (since i had no particular problem with the film's music even though i wanted other scores to win), but i found this on youtube and thought many people would find it interesting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c86RxMVzHTU

now maybe many of you already knew about that piece of music (titled "tazarine" on the BABEL soundtrack) being adapted from JOHNNY GUITAR, but i was shocked. first i find out the most beautiful piece of music "iguazu" was written by santaolalla about ten years ago, but now to know that music that santaolalla takes credit for was written more than fifty years ago for another movie is pretty shocking. now maybe santaolalla gives victor young credit for writing that piece somewhere, but i highly doubt most people in the academy know that now.
i am starting to feel like maybe santaolalla's score should have been disqualified, and the fifth nomination should have gone to desplat for THE PAINTED VEIL. then again, i much prefer BABEL's score to the horrendous work of the usually enjoyable philip glass in NOTES ON A SCANDAL.
well, even if the academy eventually takes away santaolalla's oscar (though i highly doubt that will happen) he still has his other one for BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN which i feel he richly deserved. not only is that music beautiful and works perfectly with the minimalist tone of the entire movie, but it has become one of the most widely heard movie scores outside of the movie itself since CHARIOTS OF FIRE.

[rolotomasi99]

i agree that "igazu" is a wonderful piece of music. so simple and beautiful and haunting. i wish more of the score sounded like it. santaolalla is a talented guitar player and composer. i wish innaritu had gone with a less international sounding score and just let santaolalla focus on what he does best: write beautiful music for a beautiful instrument.

sabin, i am actually not sure about the score for THE DEPARTED being ineligible. i remember reading two years ago that the score for THE AVIATOR was ruled inegilible for some reason and thought i heard the same for THE DEPARTED this year, but i may have imagined it. when you read so much from so many different sites about the oscars you sometimes get misinformation, or maybe my brain created the information itself just because the two situations were so similar: scorsese film with howard shore music but accompanied by many other pieces of nonoriginal music. honest mistake, was not trying to deceive anyone. would be easy to check if the music branch released their eligibility list like other branches do.

[Sabin]

I was just skimming this thread and I would like to chime in for a moment...

1) "Igazu" is a great piece of music and it certainly aids 'Babel' along, but it didn't work nearly as well as it did in 'The Insider'.

2) When was 'The Departed' ruled ineligible for Best Score?! And why? Howard Shore's driving 'Departed Tango' is one of the great pieces of scoring music in years! Essential, absolutely essential to the film's success! Shore can win an Oscar for his utterly banal work in 'Return of the King' but he's ruled ineligible for 'The Departed'? Are your facts right, rolo? Because it's a lot harder for me to deal with ineligibility than bad taste.

[Sonic Youth]

The worst winner of the night. And they played that piece that as been used repeatedly for the past seven years. Someone needs to break that man's guitar.

many people keep saying that the best piece of music from BABEL is seven years old. that beautiful guitar work that they played when they highlighted the film's score is my favorite. is that what everyone is talking about? can someone explain?

Do you remember The Insider? Do you remember the music that was played when Russell Crowe left to go to the deposition? Think about that next time you hear "that beautiful guitar work that is your favorite." Or the fact that it was even used in the first episode of 24. If there were two pieces of music that Santololallo composed before the film was released that he used in his film, then the same rule that applied to both The Truman Show and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers that discluded them from the nominees should apply to him. It was an unfair overlook for him to win.

I was channel flipping and just happened to catch The Insider right when the disputed music was playing. Even though I knew that The Insider shared music with Babel, it was still a little startling to hear this music that I've grown familiar with over the past month or two manifest itself in a different movie.

I did a little research on the matter. The music in question (which is entitled "Igazu") was NOT composed for The Insider. Santaolallo is a recording artist, and Igazu is a stand alone composition that was recorded for a solo album two years prior to The Insider. Michael Mann used the piece as "found music" as it were, just as Martin Scorsese uses "Gimme Shelter" in his films.

The difference between this and "The Truman Show" is because those passages in question that Glass provided were specifically composed for another film (Powaqqatsi). Santaolallo's "Igazu" was not. Now, I do not know the exact wording of the Academy's rule in question, but this may explain the perceived inconsistency here... that, and the awards shows playing this music as if it were original.

Figures that I'd be the only one here who actually LIKES "Igazu." But then, classical guitar has never gotten much respect, particularly when the piece never once departs from its home key. Me, I find it mesmerizing.

[OscarGuy]

No. The Academy doesn't provide those lists. The reason you see the other lists is because those are "Bake Offs". Those categories (now excluding Sound Editing) have a two-tiered voting system. The first is to pick a slate of 7 films from which the nominees will be chosen (excepting foreign film and original song). Not to say that they shouldn't...especially if they are going to disqualify films, but they probably never will send the list of eligible scores because it would probably be too numerous.

[rolotomasi99]

All branches submit lists of eligible features along with ballots.

...but do they make it public? oscarwatch always posts the aforementioned lists but i have never seen a list for eligible scores. that does not mean there is none, i was just curious if it is easily accessible. i am really interested in knowing, for some reason. thank you.

[OscarGuy]

All branches submit lists of eligible features along with ballots.

[rolotomasi99]

Rolo, the "substantially original" part is all there is for clarification on their qualifications. The branch literally meets to rule on eligiblity issues.

do they release a list of eligible films like the fx, make-up, and foreign film branches do and sound editing used to?

[OscarGuy]

Rolo, the "substantially original" part is all there is for clarification on their qualifications. The branch literally meets to rule on eligiblity issues.

And, Sabin, Two Towers was declared ineligible by the Music Branch. They said it was too much like the FOTR score to be considered original. That's the type of decision that smacks of "we don't want to recognize the film two years in a row, so we won't". But somehow it was declared not enough like for the third film.

[Hustler]

I support this guy. He´s from my country and is a very well respected and talented music.

[rolotomasi99]

It has nothing to do with substantially original. As long as they believe a voter can distinguish between previously recorded music and the original score they can be nominated.

i just know that in 1966, DR. ZHIVAGO won an oscar in the category for (and i quote) "best music, score - substantially original" (at least according to imdb). between then and now, the score category has gone through close to seven name changes. it is currently called "best achievement for music written for a motion pictures, original score."
i thought the rule was that there was a vague percentage of how much of the score had to be original music versus non-original music. that is why howard shore's score for THE AVIATOR and THE DEPARTED were ineligible, since scorsese used too much other music.
so for BABEL, the music branch felt that 1) enough of the music was original to justify a nomination and 2) adapting something he had previously written was acceptable since john williams gets away with it all the time.
i have stated several times i wanted desplat or newman to win, but i appreciated santaolalla's creation of a very different type of movie score.

[Sabin]

I think that's pretty speculative, Wes. I love the score from 'The Two Towers'. It's far, far more deserving than the one from 'The Return of the King', but was it really player-hating? I mean, 'Catch Me If You Can', 'Far From Heaven', and 'Frida' all had wonderful scores, whereas I understand why they liked 'The Hours' and 'Road to Perdition' even though I dislike both.

Isn't that a more likely scenario than all these branches collectively working together to shut a movie out? Because these branches never do anything collectively, which is why we end up with such bugfuck awards. Isn't it more likely that they enjoyed the more original and "whole" works of the other five, and that the reason that 'The Return of the King' won the next year was because it's the single shittiest lineup of musical scores to compete in my lifetime?

[OscarGuy]

It has nothing to do with substantially original. As long as they believe a voter can distinguish between previously recorded music and the original score they can be nominated.

Two Towers should have been nominated and was no different than any other John Williams score that's been nominated. They just didn't want LOTR to win two in a row...they renegged their ruling on ROTK.

As for Truman Show, the sections of the score that were original were wonderfully emotive and inventive. I did love the Truman Show soundtrack.

[rolotomasi99]

Do you remember The Insider? Do you remember the music that was played when Russell Crowe left to go to the deposition? Think about that next time you hear "that beautiful guitar work that is your favorite." Or the fact that it was even used in the first episode of 24. If there were two pieces of music that Santololallo composed before the film was released that he used in his film, then the same rule that applied to both The Truman Show and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers that discluded them from the nominees should apply to him. It was an unfair overlook for him to win.

well, i do not have immediate access to THE INSIDER so i cannot compare the pieces of music, but i think composers should be allowed to adapt work from previous films as long as it is theirs. otherwise john williams would never be able to be nominated again since most of his stuff is just variations on his earlier work. i think THE TWO TOWERS should have been nominated for score, but THE TRUMAN SHOW was more of just a compilation score. peter weir does that in many of his movies, where he just uses music from other films. i think the rule with score is it has to be substantially original. this BABEL issue sounds like what happened with the nomination for the first THE GODFATHER film, or why THE PIANO was snubbed for a nomination. it is a fine line between inspiration and ripping something off (as i discussed in the director thread), but i think BABEL still was original. THE PAINTED VEIL deserved to win, but i applaud the academy for awarding a score different than the usual movie music that everyone is used to.

[Hollywood Z]

The worst winner of the night. And they played that piece that as been used repeatedly for the past seven years. Someone needs to break that man's guitar.

many people keep saying that the best piece of music from BABEL is seven years old. that beautiful guitar work that they played when they highlighted the film's score is my favorite. is that what everyone is talking about? can someone explain?

Do you remember The Insider? Do you remember the music that was played when Russell Crowe left to go to the deposition? Think about that next time you hear "that beautiful guitar work that is your favorite." Or the fact that it was even used in the first episode of 24. If there were two pieces of music that Santololallo composed before the film was released that he used in his film, then the same rule that applied to both The Truman Show and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers that discluded them from the nominees should apply to him. It was an unfair overlook for him to win.