2016_La La Land, by Damien Chazelle, music by Justin Hurwitz.
It doesn’t happen often that even great soundtracks contain unforgettable music when separated from the images. What would the theme of Jaws be without the images of unsuspecting swimmers soaking in the waters of the ocean? American musicals, Michel Legrand, Nino Rota, Ennio Morricone, and a few others are exceptions to this rule. Hurwitz forcefully enters this sancta sanctorum and composes a soundtrack with crazy themes, worthy of the great musicals that have made Broadway’s history.
2017_First Reformed, by Paul Schrader, music by Lustmord.
There are films that you love even if they have flaws, especially because of their flaws. Well, for me, First Reformed is one of these, a love at first sight, made of intangible, transcendental elements just like the cinema loved by Schrader: the sense of chill emanating from the film, Ethan Hawke’s subdued acting, Lustmord’s music, which for 45 minutes is a whirlwind of cold and dystopian digital music before concluding with an angelic version of the gospel Leaning on the Everlasting Arms (remember? Robert Mitchum also sings it in The Night of the Hunter).
2017_The Shape of Water, by Guillermo del Toro, music by Alexandre Desplat.
Desplat’s score is indeed very beautiful, but what really stands out in the film’s sound is the continuous incorporation, within the storyline’s continuum, of songs from various sources: radios, TVs, phonographs… We are in 1962; it’s as if the house and its appliances are claiming a role as protagonists of everyday life.
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