10 Best Film Scores of 2014

5. Only Lovers Left Alive – Jozef Van Wissem & SQÜRL

In approaching the vampire genre from a carefully considered, classically influenced angle, Jim Jarmusch gifted us with one of the best films of the year. Exploring the idea of immortality like no film before it, we were presented with a darkly funny, existentialist love story about a race of creatures hiding in plain sight, observing us as our culture progresses through the centuries. Tom Hiddleson’s Adam defines his morbid fascination with humanity though music and science in equal parts and the score reflects that beautifully. SQÜRL, Jarmusch’s own band, did a lot of the scoring work, with lute player Jozef Van Wissem doing the rest. It’s a kind of timeless, droning, pulsing music that belongs to the night, which is fitting, considering the film never leaves it.

 

4. The Grand Budapest Hotel – Alexandre Desplat

Alexandre Desplat has had a pretty major year. The proven, award-winning composer turned out excellent scores for Godzilla, Unbroken and The Imitation Game, but his strongest offering came with Wes Anderson’s latest comedic diorama drama, The Grand Budapest Hotel. Anderson’s distinct style of film-making demands a great deal from composers and Desplat responded admirably here. He approaches the orchestra at his disposal in the same way an Inuit would approach a freshly killed walrus: he doesn’t waste a thing. From the strings to the percussion to the organs, everything is as prominent and significant is it needs to be, every scene is strengthened by the music, bar none. Bonus points for the clever reworkings of traditional Russian folk music.

 

3. Enemy – Danny Bensi & Saunder Jurriaans

Perhaps the creepiest film to come out this year, Enemy (or ‘Intrigue and Spiders’ as I like to call it) wouldn’t be anywhere near as effective without unsung scoring heroes Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans. The music in Enemy is often as twisted and misdirecting as the plot, pummeling you with heavy, evil brass when nothing obviously consequential is happening on screen. The constant tonal shifts, sinister ripples of strings, oboes and waves of percussion have all the trappings of a classic Herrmann or Michel Legrand score. Like all the best psychological thrillers, Enemy is much more entertaining the second time you watch it and pinpointing the moments when the score plays a pivotal role in the storytelling is a huge part of that.

 

2. Gone Girl – Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross

You’d have thought by now that the Fincher/Reznor/Ross trifecta of crushing darkness would have gotten stale. Not so. As a matter of fact, their work on Gone Girl might well be Reznor and Ross’s finest to date as film composers. Without it, the film’s twisting, twisted plot wouldn’t have anywhere near the same impact. Powerful, guttural electronic assaults permeate a skin of tonal tension that never relents, Reznor and Ross never allow you so much as one moment of sobering comfort and when things get really heavy, the music pummels you into submission like a boxing kangaroo that knows all your embarrassing high school secrets.

 

1. Under the Skin – Mica Levi

Sometimes the best scores are the one which are used sparingly. Much of Jonathon Glazer’s ultra-creepy tale of a man-eating alien (Scarlett Johansson) that roams Scotland luring prey via seduction is set to a kind of bitter, constricting silence, but when the score presents itself, it’s all the more potent for the infrequency. Mica Levi, of Micachu and The Shapes crafted the score and to say she gave it her all would be a pretty stark understatement. It was her first attempt at a film score, and it’s as distinct and otherworldy as the film itself. Levi claims that she wanted the music to follow Johansson’s character and react to her actions in real time, rather than foreshadowing or reflecting. The cues are pronounced, distinct and unforgettable, particularly the strangled, misaligned attack of strings during the opening sequence.