Jude Law in Breaking and Entering
In the Times of London Nov. 26, Rob Nash looks at some of the more intriguing film scores of 2006, nothing that "the widespread practice in the industry of hiring a composer just three months before a film is finished does not make things easy" to evoke time and place and mood.
Nash's picks for the most successful movie music of fall?
BREAKING AND ENTERING
Composer: Gabriel Yared, who worked with director Anthony Minghella on THE ENGLISH PATIENT, THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY and COLD MOUNTAIN.
Director: Anthony Minghella
" A thoughtful, cohesive score that adeptly sets the mood of dissociation and disquiet as Debussian piano figures blend into Underworld-ian pulsating loops."
Listen up: Yared scored Germany's 2007 Academy Award submission, the Cold War drama THE LIVES OF OTHERS.
That music in your head and your bed? His theme from BETTY BLUE.
THE PRESTIGE
Composer: David Julyan
Christopher Nolan "didn't want a score that reflected the period," says Julyan "The mood we created was much more about the sense of anticipation of magic.
Credits: After working Nolan on his debut feature film FOLLOWING, Julyan did the music for MEMENTO and INSOMNIA.
Listen up: He also did the creepy subterranean undertones for THE DESCENT.
THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND
Composer: Alex Heffes (TOUCHING THE VOID)
Director Kevin McDonald “wanted to show the vision that Amin had," says Heffes. "So rather than portray Africa as mud huts and tribal music, we wanted the soundtrack to be a bit funky, a bit groovy, a bit 1970s."
The team tracked down Kampala recording artists from the era and had them record a country and western song, as it might have been covered in a hotel lounge. Because the story begins Scotland, and because Amin, a veteran of a Scots army division, had a strong affinity for all things Scottish, the music has High- and Lowland echoes. "The collision of East Africa and northern Europe sounds weird and encapsulates the fanatical love of Scotland of a dictator who sent Ugandans there to learn the bagpipes so that he could have a piping band."
