Feature

Jonny Greenwood

Jonny Greenwood
There Will Be Blood (soundtrack)
(Nonesuch)

????

“Movie soundtracks are curious things when considered apart from the films,” said David Wiegand in the San Francisco Chronicle. Inextricably linked to the visual images of the director, “they don’t always stand up without them.” The score Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood created for Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood is different. “This is not a pop score; it’s a richly haunting series of symphonic chamber poems that show their influence—Britten, Stravinsky—and cut their own paths as well.” Eclectic electronic orchestrations and Caroline Dale’s cello cast a yearning tone while percussion creates an ominous background. The score captures the madness and mania of the film’s main character, said Jeff Simon in The Buffalo News. But it “has a vigorous life of its own off-screen.” At various times, the intricately allusive score seems reminiscent of “every major dramatic film score of the past 50 years.” Its bleak soundscapes echo the classic work Leonard Rosenman did for East of Eden, while slashing strings bring to mind Bernard Herrmann’s bloody-minded Psycho score. Two compositions in particular, “Future Markets” and “Proven Lands,” sound “as if they belong in a lost Hitchcock picture,” said Tom Coombe in the Allentown, Pa., Morning Call. Some say that Anderson may win a directing Oscar for There Will Be Blood. “Greenwood certainly deserves one for
his soundtrack.”

Recommended

The daily gossip: March 23, 2023
Ben Affleck and Matt Damon
Daily gossip

The daily gossip: March 23, 2023

The Mandalorian's best Star Wars Easter eggs
The Mandalorian
Feature

The Mandalorian's best Star Wars Easter eggs

The daily gossip: March 22, 2023
Gisele Bündchen
Daily gossip

The daily gossip: March 22, 2023

The daily gossip: March 21, 2023
Jamie Foxx
Daily gossip

The daily gossip: March 21, 2023

Most Popular

DeSantis' no good, very bad week
Ron DeSantis at a podium
Behind the scenes

DeSantis' no good, very bad week

Russia's spring Ukraine offensive may be winding down amid heavy losses
Ukrainian tank fires near Bakhmut
Attrition

Russia's spring Ukraine offensive may be winding down amid heavy losses

Essential molecules for life may have been 'delivered' to Earth from space
Asteroid Ryugu.
alien invasion

Essential molecules for life may have been 'delivered' to Earth from space