Every year in the aftermath of the Academy Awards I’m left wondering how they do it. Yes I should be in awe of the creations: but I was speaking of the awards process. Why this film and not that one? and why suddenly a stampede towards one film?  

Why has Danny Elfman (whose work I love for films such as Good Will Hunting, that we re-watched on the weekend) never won an Oscar, while Ludwig Göransson has now won two Oscars before the age of 40 (he’ll reach that milestone in September). I loved his work on Black Panther but did not agree with his win for Oppenheimer. I can’t lose sleep about it given that every year there are awards that drive me a bit nuts.

I again muse on the process as I speak of an even younger composer. I’m especially fascinated by the work of Jerskin Fendrix, who isn’t even 30 years old yet.

Fendrix scored Poor Things, scoring an Oscar nomination for the film. “Score” is the perfect word, don’t you think?

And I see that Fendrix has also scored Kinds of Kindness, a new film to be released soon, reuniting his Poor Things collaborators Yorgos Lanthimos, actors  Emma Stone and Willem Dafoe.  Don’t be surprised if some in that group are again nominated, although I don’t understand how Dafoe was ignored this time, anymore than how Martin Scorsese could again be snubbed, having seen online that his last four films received 26 nominations but zero wins. And alongside Dafoe, why wasn’t Leonardo DiCaprio nominated? Or perhaps what I should be seeking is the pattern explaining the politics of wins & losses. If I could figure that out perhaps there’d be no surprise, less pain. Every year I’m not so much baffled as disappointed, hurt, upset.

In fairness some wins make total sense in hindsight. The pair of songs from Barbie can be seen as yin & yang, male and female principles captured in song. Billie Eilish’s delicate barely audible song “What Was I Made For” so sad in its existential doubt as a thing, a plastic toy suddenly realizing its true nature, in contrast to the garish and simple-minded construction of “I’m Just Ken.” Of course, in a year when the director of Barbie was being snubbed, they would have to throw the film a bone, and that would be via Billie Eilish. But wait, that’s suggesting that the Academy is some sort of monolith that deliberately snubs or rewards, when it’s actually an electorate of members making choices, some really good and more than a few really frustrating.

While Terry Gilliam’s Adventures of Baron Munchausen received four nominations in visual categories (art direction, costumes, visual effects and makeup) nobody seemed to notice its extraordinary score by Michael Kamen, possibly the most impressive score I’ve ever encountered. At its core it is essentially a set of variations on a theme taken from a song from the depression-era about cheering up in spite of our poverty, in keeping with the madness of Maggie Thatcher’s Britain that frames the film.

The original song is from Irving Berlin. Notice the italicized words of the refrain:
“let’s have another cup of coffee and let’s have another piece of pie“.

Now here’s The Baron’s main theme, which comes from that song, beefed up with Handelian pomp and brass. It’s heard at the beginning of the film and at the conclusion.

It’s a lot like Richard Strauss’s tone poem Till Eulenspiegel. In both the Strauss and Gilliam’s film we’re watching the adventures of a character in a series of variations, and brilliant orchestrations. When the Baron is in danger, the theme is suspenseful and in a minor key. When he dies there’s a miniature Requiem Mass for him (complete with chorus).

It ends with the voiceover of the Baron telling us how much he recommends death as something we should experience, and the immortal story-teller fabulist is back, miraculously.

I’m also reminded of Kamen’s score for The Baron because, while somehow in 2024 young Fendrix broke through to get a nomination (and a win in BAFTA), Poor Things won three of the same oscars as the Baron (costumes, makeup & production design).

Maybe the key to having your music recognized & appreciated is eye candy.  

And speaking of eye candy, as in Kamen’s score for the Baron, there’s a show-stopper of a dance sequence. 

Here’s the one from Kamen, featuring John Neville and Uma Thurman. Please note: the youtube example I’m sharing takes Kamen’s music, likely from the soundtrack album, matching it with the actors in the right sequence of the film but without the dialogue that we should be hearing (their lips move without hearing their words). Sorry it’s the best I could find.

I have to think that director Gilliam must have liked this idea of a dance, given that he imitates his moment in his next film The Fisher King, with a different composer. But it’s nowhere near as interesting.

And wow here’s the one from Fendrix, featuring Mark Ruffalo and Emma Stone. Notice that among the steampunk magic of this film there’s even a new musical instrument with an attempt to create its original sound.

What would that instrument (seen roughly 27-28 seconds into the clip) be called? I wonder. I love that the music-making is integrated into the production design, representing so much more than just underscoring, as we saw with the surreal team of Kamen and Gilliam previously for Brazil & The Baron. This kind of dance is an integral piece of the film, telling us more about the characters.

If you’ll forgive me, I want to zero in on the music. In the film music classes I taught I used to enjoy playing the Psycho shower music without the visual so that students would actually hear what Bernard Herrmann had created. Let’s listen to the dance music without the distraction of the visual.

I found Fendrix’s Winterreise (2020) on YouTube, a fascinating mixture of sounds & musical moments. Has he come a long way? yes, although this album is already full of bold and original moments. While it may sound like a do-it-yourself project, he’s so young, right? And that sense of being clever and original is precisely what’s so appealing in his film-score.

No it’s not Schubert (who wrote a song cycle of the same name and come to think of it at the same age), but the title is still a fascinating choice.

Fendrix is still as direct & clean as this in the film-score, amplified by the astonishing visuals from Lanthimos and his team.

While I continue to be puzzled by the mysterious Oscar process, pleased yet often frustrated, I’m mollified somewhat after watching Poor Things, seeing that there’s lots to celebrate in this film. And now I’m eager to see and hear what Lanthimos & the young Mr Fendrix (as well as Stone & Dafoe) can do in Kinds of Kindness, scheduled to be released on June 21st. I can’t wait.