Emile Mosseri Was Snubbed: Last Year’s Best Film Scores

Awards season is upon us, so here are the real winners.

Written by Laiken Neumann

Hollywood’s awards season is typically characterized by nominations and winners that only show a sliver of the year’s talent. Of the following list, only two were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Score (“Little Women” and “Marriage Story”). The other nominations went to “Joker,” “1917,” and “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” films that seem to lack the same spark between their music and cinematography. Nonetheless, awards season still gives us another chance to discuss our favorite films of the year — regardless of the snubs! Here is a list of original scores from the past year that may cause chills from the depths of your soul and demand multiple replays on Spotify.

“Little Women” - Alexandre Desplat

With the most recent of many adaptations of Louisa May Alcott’s 1868 novel “Little Women,” director Greta Gerwig is already earning a reputation as the one who did the typically-loathed sister Amy some justice. Two-time Academy Award-winner Alexandre Desplat composed the score, which is classically seamless and bursting through with warmth, matching up to Gerwig’s eclectic request of “Mozart meets David Bowie.” The score doesn’t forget its scene of post-Civil War Massachusetts, but rather transcends it — just as the film’s writing and performances do. A string quartet swings throughout the film, an obvious representation of the four March sisters, Meg (Emma Watson), Jo (Saoirse Ronan), Beth (Eliza Scanlen), and Amy (Florence Pugh). The alternating tempo of keys flowing between the strings and the occasional use of harp brings the audience into the March home, simultaneously chaotic and harmonized.

“The Last Black Man in San Francisco” - Emile Mosseri

Joe Talbot’s directorial debut tells the story of his childhood best friend Jimmie Fails (portrayed by Fails himself) who risks it all to take back a San Francisco home that his family lost to rising costs and gentrification. The film’s score, composed by Emile Mosseri, is an amalgamation of different themes constantly flowing in and out of one another, amounting to a cohesive score that complements the film’s ability to capture human authenticity at a remarkable scale. The flourishing orchestra adds to the weight of the soundscape, its constant rising and falling mimicking the steep streets of San Francisco that Jimmie skates down in beautiful wide shots. The score is sprinkled with elements that seem to haunt the Victorian house — voices echoing in and out, both bouncing and crooning horns, an airy, angelic organ that Jimmie’s grandfather used to play. Mosseri’s score is a lush, expansive companion that captures Jimmie’s spirit and also his painful reality as he and his best friend Mont (Jonathan Majors) attempt to reclaim his home.

“The Farewell” - Alex Weston

Inspired by director Lulu Wang’s own life, “The Farewell” sees Billi (Awkwafina) and her family lie to Billi’s dying grandmother, affectionately known as Nai Nai (Zhao Shuzhen), as they keep her cancer a secret and return to China to say their goodbyes. Composer Alex Weston chronicles this lie through a theme of plucking strings and mysterious wavering vocals that builds with both the dramatic irony and the mourning of the family. Weston’s composition varies from heavy string quartets to reverberating harmonies, but it always carries the overbearing weight of the lie and seems to constantly threaten to confess it. Weston doesn’t overuse any elements of the score — he applies the most dramatic bits only when necessary, like Billi and her family’s slow-motion walking. The score is a somber soundscape for a funeral (in which the “dead” is still alive) in a film rich with music moments, especially in a karaoke scene where Billi and her father (Tzi Ma) sing Fugees’ “Killing Me Softly With His Song.”

“Marriage Story” - Randy Newman

Noah Baumbach’s second film about divorce, “Marriage Story,” (the first is “The Squid and the Whale”) could be classified as one of the most controversial films of the year — if only for the Twitter discourse about the heated fight scene between the divorcing couple, Charlie (Adam Driver) and Nicole (Scarlett Johansson). The disintegration of their marriage and the tense custody battle for their young son Henry (Azhy Robertson) is coated in a heavy sense of familiarity, largely due to the film’s score composed by Randy Newman, who previously collaborated with Baumbach on his 2017 film “The Meyerowitz Stories.” Coincidentally, Newman also composed the score for another “Story” — “Toy Story.” While he has a long list of credits preceding his contributions to the Toy Story franchise, his style now seems inseparable from the beloved Pixar film. Coincidences aside, the playfulness of this musical arrangement lets some light into the somber, often uncomfortable plot. Newman doesn’t stray from sadness, however, introducing long strides of strings in a haunting minor key when the characters’ attempts at civility fail. Overall, the score’s goofiness and comfort take the reins, bringing a sense of home to a tale that deals heavily with whether or not they are a New York or an L.A. family.

“Knives Out” - Nathan Johnson

Rian Johnson’s revival of the classic murder mystery wouldn’t be complete without an equally campy, dramatic score, and composer Nathan Johnson delivered. Johnson and Johnson are long-time collaborators (and cousins), and “Knives Out” is arguably their most fun project of all. It’s a biting whodunnit about murder mystery novelist Harland Thrombey’s (Christopher Plummer) death, his family (an ensemble including Jamie Lee Curtis, Toni Colette, Michael Shannon, and more), his nurse/friend Marta Cabrera (Ana de Armas), and private investigator Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig). Johnson’s score is unmistakable from the opening shot, when the first sharp strings introduce the Thrombey home in all its Victorian glory — or channeling the “Clue” mansion, as Lieutenant Elliot (Lakeith Stanfield) puts it. As the orchestra’s menacing tone carries the audience through the twists and turns of Blanc’s investigation, the score constantly returns to a lingering piano which is, only naturally, in minor key. One thing is for certain, Nathan Johnson’s knives are out.

Maybe instead of watching the Academy Awards this year, you should just stream these scores instead. Or, you could watch the movies again to witness the full effect of these compositions; that’s good, too.

Laiken NeumannJanuary 23, 2020laiken neumann, emile mosseri