Film Music of 2011

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 
Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross

From sparse, eerie pianos that know all the evil in Lisbeth Salander's world to restrained sonic landscapes layered with industrial noises & looping rythms, Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross's score for Fincher's latest is clearly distinct from their Oscar winning (& Hanz Zimmer beating) Social Network score, & fits Fincher's new film like a black latex glove. A bold, ambient electro metal score that is gloomy, mesmerising &, when it needs to be, truly unsettling.     

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Alberto Iglesias

Rich, classy & atmospheric, Alberto Iglesias' score perfectly compliments the reserved intruigue of Tomas Alfredson's masterfully detailed film. The jazzy horns nearly bumped it to first place.

Hanna 
The Chemical Brothers 
(Tom Rowlands & Ed Simons)

The grinding beats for the fight & chase scenes are easiest to remember, with good reason, but the Chemical Brothers' score for Joe Wright's coming-of-age thriller is far more than a thumping electro score cut to action sequences (although there's nothing wrong with that). The clip above includes two good examples of the score's more haunting, thematic parts: the lullaby vocals & baby mobile chimes of Hanna's Theme evoke Hanna's coming of age in a world of wonder & danger, while The Devil is in the Details channels the sound of a theme park carousel on its last legs to capture the film's demented fairy tale theme. A diverse, exciting score.

The Tree of Life
Alexandre Desplat

An epic, impressionist score for an epic, impressionist film that takes in family, childhood, dinosaurs, God, the universe & everything.

Drive
Cliff Martinez

The perfect score for the year's slickest film: smooth urban beats channeling the slick artifice of the 80s while building an undercurrent of romance, tension and real feeling. Compared to Martinez's also excellent Contagion score, its the restrained atmospherics of Drive that really impress. Give this clip, for example, at least a minute to kick off, and two to really impress. Retro synth pop tunes from College, Electric Youth, Lovefox & Desire don't hurt either. 

The Artist
Ludovic Bource

A score that spans the film's full running time & speaks on behalf of its characters, channelling Hollywood circa 1930. Despite Kim Novak's accusations that the romatic themes ripped off Bernard Herrman's classic Vertigo score, this is still an epic, massively charming & effectively nostalgic achievement. 

Rango
Hans Zimmer

Inventive, playful, occasionally raucous Mexican flavoured western score.

Jane Eyre
Dario Marianelli

Weighty, brooding pianos & soaring strings to match Jane's hidden passion & heavy heart.

The Adventures of Tin Tin
John Williams

Like a brisk stroll down a cobbled European street suddenly diverting into an unexpected adventure: a playful, adventurer's score with jazzy basslines & interesting instrumentation.

Take Shelter
David Wingo


A minimal, mysterious score of ambience, dissonance & rhythmic bell sounds, reflecting the eerie uncertainty at the core of Take Shelter and building up to an emotionally epic climax.


Near Misses:

Hugo - Howard Shore

Moneyball - Mychael Danna

Another Earth - Fall on Your Sword

The Descendants - Various

Jane Eyre - Review

Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre has been adapted for the screen no less than 20 times, so one may wonder why Cary Fukunaga (2009's Sin Nombre) has made another. 


Track it down, though, & be grateful that he did.

As quietly tense & gloomy as the poster suggests, Fukunaga's adaptation is an artful, unhurried piece of cinema perched somewhere between Hitchcock's Rebecca and Campion's The Piano. 


Screenwriter Moira Buffini plots out Charlotte Bronte's substantial plot with a flashback structure that lends a sense of foreboding and inevitability to Jane's story, and the technical elements, from the period costumes and sets, to Dario Marianelli's sumptuous, awards-worthy score, are top notch. But the highlight is Adriano Goldman's misty, smoky, often candle-lit cinematography, casting a sense of perpetual possibility over the whole film.  


Jane Eyre is essentially a character study and a fairly heavy social commentary on the limited opportunities and value of women and the working class in nineteenth century England, but it is also a gothic mystery, and is at its best as an unconventional love story.  


Mia Wasalowski (interpreting another classic literary incarnation after Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland) stretches herself as Jane, restricted by the boundaries drawn for her by society, and withdrawn due to love that was withheld from her, but refusing to quieten the passion & unconventionality within. A passionate and strong-minded heroine unsure of her future, director Fukunaga's style allows her time to explore Jane's moods & inner world beyond the constrains of the plot. 


Wasalowski is young, though, and at times the depth of the character feels more acted out than genuine, as if Wasalowski cannot quite carry the full weight of Jane's life, but it is nevertheless a strong performance and, in its best moments, a startlingly powerful one. 


What brings out the true power in Wasalowski's performance is her co-star, the ever-brilliant Michael Fassbender, as the cold and eccentric Rochester. Fassbender's creation is a truly original one that feels like it couldn't possibly be improved on. He feels fully in command of Rochester's every word and gesture, and brings a sharpness and vitality to him that is at once off-putting and alluring. One of the male performances of the year.

The chemistry between Jane and Rochester is electric, while their conversations are never less than thrillingly unpredictable. He is erudite, confrontational & wildly enigmatic, while she is refreshingly direct, otherworldly and egoless.  

This is no lace and love letters period romance, it is a dark and broody tale of two very unlikely people drawn into a strange and complex courtship with a hard-earned conclusion. Their central relationship fuels the film with an offbeat pulse.

I have never read the book, so I can't vouch for the faithfulness of the adaptation, but Fukunaga's film is a fully formed piece of cinema that never feels rushed or incomplete, and manages to sustain its dreamy mood and and authenticity through major plot and genre coils.

But, of course, one cannot review a movie starring Judi Dench without reviewing Judi Dench. Dame Judi plays Mrs Fairfax, Rochester's devoted, if simple-minded, housekeeper - who believes that the answer to Jane's yearning for the adventures of men - is fresh air & physical exercise. With Judi Dench it is never a question of good or bad, but rather of good or Oscar-worthy. Here she is very good, but not Oscar-worthy. She admirably takes quite a backseat to the passion of the central relationship, but naturally commands attention and brings nuance in all her scenes.  


All in all highly recommended.

Short clip - Mia Wasalowski, Judi Dench & Adriano Goldman's camera work:

Another Jane Eyre - beautiful poster

Awesome poster.

From Sin Nombre director, Cary Fukunaga, with an amazing cast (Alice in Wonderland's Mia Wasikowska as Jane, Michael Fassbender as Rochester & Jamie Bell , Imogen Poots, Judi Dench, Sally Hawkins rounding out the cast) and costumes by Oscar-winner Michael O'Connor (The Duchess).

This post mostly stolen from the incomparable AwardsDaily. 

Trailer: