According to Deadline, the Birdman score has been disqualfied from competing for the Best Original Score category. The score, composed by Antonio Sanchez was left off the December 12 list of eligible films. Now an appeal that was filed has been denied.
What does it mean? Sanchez’s drum heavy score was deemed not eligible to compete. The rule states, “scores diluted by use of tracked themes or other pre-existing music, diminished in impact by the predominant use of songs, or assembled from the music of more than one composer shall not be eligible.”
The full list of films eligible for Best Original Score was posted here. Take a listen to the score below and tell us your thoughts.
http://youtu.be/MCOfAu4OQVQ
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Some of my grammar is also laughable. Apologies.
It is really disappointing when they do this. i will never get over Jonny Greenwood being “disqualified” for There Will Be Blood. The officially ruling is almost laughable:
“Scores diluted by use of tracked themes or other pre-existing music, diminished in the, thingy thing, some of the songs sound familiar and shit, and some others made the music too, not sure how many, we’re not in the business of caring if we disrespect the artists with this, we think we’ll just take it off the list – bit complicated. Easier for us that way. Sorry about that.”
Anyway I think Fox Searchlight should retire Birdman from Oscar competition. In every category. Just to send a message: fair game or no game. I know it won’t happen, they can’t turn down the show, but it would be fucking GREAT.
Paddy, I did not know Moonrise Kingdom’s score wasn’t eligible…I was wondering all this time how the hell Desplat missed for that movie. Sanchez’s score being ineligible is a crime. People can say they didn’t like the score all they want but one thing that can’t be denied is that the drumming is an absolute integral part of the final product. The music is Riggan’s mind, it is meta humor and a wink wink to the audience. I know some don’t like loud, bombastic music, but I felt the music for both Inception and Gravity were both as integral to their movies as well. Zimmer’s work with Inception played with elements IN the movie and Price’s work became our sound for what was happening in space. Music like Sanchez’s does not come around too often.
[Correction]
Probably the same difference but let me change the phrase “#it sounds to me that” to “it seems to me that”. (#It sounds odd to me, too.)
@Al Robinson
“Corvo, what would you say is the 2nd best score this year?”
Gone Girl
(I have yet to see Birdman. But . . . ) I am hoping they appeal if they also truly believe and can prove that their drum *score has not been diluted by the original scores.
It sounds to me that the committee may have taken the precaution to another level probably because of what happened last year in a sisterly category. Or, I simply did read too much into it.
(*As we all of us know, drum is an instrument and [just in case . . . ] it can be written as a score in a drum score sheet; so, any argument that drums being played do not constitute a score is entirely illegitimate.)
Also worth noting, “Guardians of the Galaxy”‘s score is also desqualified…
Does Desplat ever sleep? This year alone, he had ”Monuments Men” ”The Grand Budapest Hotel,” ”Godzilla,” ”The Imitation Game” and ”Unbroken.” Anyway, I hope he gets his 7tth Oscar nomination (and 1st win) for ”The Grand Budapest Hotel.” … Speaking of Thomas Newman, I’m rooting for him to win someday. He has 12 Oscar nods to his name (and I think he should’ve won for ”The Shawshank Redemption”).
Wellington I agree — the score for the Theory of Everything is gorgeous and moving.
Larry also agree with you — the Birdmam score is repetitive, self-conscious and after awhile, a snooze. This Is good news in my book.
And anyone who thinks the Academy will vote for the Under the Skin score is high, sorry. There will be no “upset” on that front.
I, too don’t care much that this score has been disqualified. There were far better scores this year than Birdman’s.
Anne Dudley, not Rachel Portman, won for The Full Monty. Rachel Portman won for Emma.
Sigh, reading through these comments takes me back to the good old days of arguments on the comment sections. Good to see such a lively discussion about film.
^^ Agreed. ^^
THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL is a much better score than ‘Unbroken’ and ‘The Imitation Game’
Alexandre Desplat’s best effort to date. Give this man an Oscar!
P.S. I am disappointed with the Academy’s decision to nominate Thomas Newman’s ‘Skyfall’ instead of THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL.
My favorite film score (so far) has been ”The Grand Budapest Hotel” by Alexandre Desplat.
His use of the balalaikas is brilliant!
Alexandre Desplat will win his first Oscar for IMITATION GAME
For those who’ve seen INHERENT VICE: Is Greenwood’s work as prominent and memorable as it was in THE MASTER and especially THERE WILL BE BLOOD or is it overshadowed by the use of great songs a la BOOGIE NIGHTS?
On the other side of the ledger, two of the three Top 40 hits from this year’s soundtracks are ineligible for Best Original Song. One is a cover (JLaw’s Hanging Tree). The other (Boom Clap) wasn’t written specifically enough for the movie. Which IIRC would have disqualified White Christmas, but there you go.
Also, isn’t the music in the rowing scene of the Social Network a famous classical piece run through a synthesizer. Social Network won, didn’t it?
You’re right, Corvo.
And let’s be honest here. Birdman score has not been disqualified for the quibble they are invoking but for two reasons:
1. Antonio Sanchez is not an Academy member.
2. The same reason for which Gravity wasn’t eligible for SAG best ensemble last year. The actors think two actors are not an ensemble, the music branch members think one instrument is not a score. If the actors can be right, the music branch members for sure are not.
Other great ones were The Grand Budapest Hotel, Whiplash, The Guest, The Theory Of Everything (mostly) and Gone Girl
I genuinely don’t give a fuck that the Birdman score is out. Doesn’t bother me one bit. The best scores I heard this year were for Under The Skin, Inherent Vice, Nightcrawler, Interstellar and A Most Violent Year
I guess I’m the only one who thinks this is good news. I found the “score” to Birdman extremely annoying.
Sorry JOES but in a fair competition you have to win by fair means. If your major rival is disqualified for no valid reasons your win is fatally diminished. That doesn’t mean the scores named eligible aren’t worthy. The Oscar race is a game, it should be treated like that.
Pete, you’re on the right track about ”Round Midnight,” but it was Herbie Hancock, who won that controversial Oscar (1986). He beat out James Horner (”Aliens”), Jerry Goldsmith (”Hoosiers”) and Ennio Morricone (”The Mission”). In an interview with the Guardian, Morricone, who has never won a competitive Oscar, said: “I definitely felt that I should have won for The Mission, especially when you consider that the Oscar-winner that year was Round Midnight, which was not an original score. It had a very good arrangement by Herbie Hancock, but it used existing pieces. So there could be no comparison with The Mission. There was a theft!”. … Academy voters seem to think that the movie with the most music is automatically the most Oscar-worthy. Which helps explain why Alan Menken (whose work I adore) won for his scores to the Disney animated movies ”The Little Mermaid,” ”Beauty and the Beast” and ”Pocahontas.” But I thought it was unfair for song scores to compete against dramatic scores. Talk about apples and oranges.
Through its history, the Academy has wrestled with this, realizing there’s a big difference: During the 1940s and 1950s, there were separate categories for Scoring for a Dramatic or Comedy Picture vs. Scoring of a Musical Picture. During the 1960s, Score was split into Substantially Original and Music Adaptation or Treatment. During the 1970s and 1980s, there was Original Score and Original Song Score or Adaptation. And starting 1999, the Academy cut Score to only one category, Original, which seems a shame. There SHOULD be for a Song or Adaptation Score category, so movie musicals, like ”Chicago,” ”Moulin Rouge” and ”Dreamgirls” could’ve won a deserving Oscar, like ”Cabaret,” ”Gigi” and ”All That Jazz.”
That’s right. I remember that it was pretty blatant on the Academy’s part there.
It was Herbie Hancock who won for ‘ROUND MIDNIGHT. And, yes, that was one of the scores that should have been disqualified which has led to the tightening of the rules. Hancock did compose original music, but the overall soundtrack full of great Jazz playing tremendously prejudiced the voters who didn’t differentiate Hancock’s stuff from standards by Chet Baker, Monk, Cole Porter etc.
And, those who say that if BIRDMAN is disqualified then the winner of the Score category this year is cheapened, is an affront to all the fine and original scores written and performed in 2014. They will be WORTHY winners, little doubt.
Not at all, Salina. Birdman’s drum score runs through major sections of the action. The soundtrack features approximately 30 minutes from the original drum score. That’s plenty enough. Like it or not, the score deserved to be in the mix for consideration. Bad decision to disqualify it. Every year this branch finds a way to disgrace itself
Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Bobby McFerrin win an Oscar for the music for “Round Midnight”, which in no way shape or form was composed by him?
The score of “The Theory of Everything” is the best of the year.
Period.
🙂
Shameful. Whoever will win best score this year will be not deserving.
Birdman is disqualified, because it has not enough “original” material. The King’s Speech used two Beethoven symphonies, but it still had a lot of original tracks in it. Come on guys, I’m in love with Birdman too. But the case is clear.
This is a terrible decision. Everyone knows the drum score is what Birdman would be considered for in this category, not whatever classical track may have also been used (frankly I can barely remember, it’s so obviously the drumming that distinguishes this score). By this measure The King’s Speech should have been disqualified, considering the prominent use opf Beethoven’s Seventh. But no, Desplat was not disqualified. This development doesn’t pass the smell test. This branch is applying their rules inflexibly in a discriminatory fashion to cancel out a popular unconventional upstart composition.
Zooey’s right. The music branch’s reasoning behind declaring specific scores eligible and ineligible each year is not consistent. Gustavo Santaolalla won consecutive Original Score Oscars for soundtracks that were heavily diluted with pre-existing music. Alexandre Desplat was nominated for both Fantastic Mr. Fox and The King’s Speech – two scores which made prominent and memorable use of non-original material, but his work on another Wes Anderson film, Moonrise Kingdom, was deemed ineligible. And Joes’ point about Alan Menken’s (deserved) wins is also relevant in this regard.
But you overlook a pertinent point in your argument, Joes. It’s clear to anyone who’s been following this story that the soundtrack to Birdman features cues from existing works of music, and that’s why it has been ruled out of Oscar contention. But nowhere does it state that Antonio Sanchez’s work on that soundtrack is anything but wholly original and unique to the film. And it’s not the soundtrack as a whole that is considered, as one can observe by noting the fact that only a film’s credited composer is ever nominated for the Oscar, and not, say, the film’s music supervisor nor the composers of any of the pre-existing music on those soundtracks.
To nominate Antonio Sanchez for Birdman would not be to credit him with the entire soundtrack, but to recognise him for his own work on that soundtrack. The reason that the score has been deemed ineligible is that the music branch does not trust its own members to be capable of differentiating between their memories of his tracks alone and their memories of the whole soundtrack, which (as far as I can discern) is diluted with pieces that bear very little resemblance to Sanchez’s distinctive compositions. In other words, they’re just not sure that they’re smart enough to be able to make these simple differentiations.
This is freaking ridiculous. Every year there’s one call like this that really drives me nuts. Birdman is my favorite film of the year and the highly original score is such a huge part of its success.
I kind of agree that if Mica Levi’s score makes it in, we could have an upset. That score makes the film and I haven’t understood, from the second this season began, why it wasn’t a huge part of the conversation. Until it started picking up awards. They might not ever go for the film itself, but the score is undeniably effective.
Joes – There should be an adapted category. There used to be, but if AMPAS wants only one category to recognize scores, it should be all-encompassing, recognizing how the use of music worked advancing the filmmaker’s objective.
Hell, how many sound categories are there? CGI has totally encroached on cinematography territory, as well as having its own FX category. I have no problems with either, and I also think motion capture should not stand in the way of an actor being acknowledged for a great performance.
All of these things have to do specifically with filmmaking. The music division should not be judging solely based archaic rules that apply only to composition – that’s what the Grammys are for.
And, btw – I wondered when I’d get to say this again this season – ditch the Best Song category – er, Orginal Song Category – the prupose is to recognize achievement in film, not a hootenanny.
But JOES, what about cases like Johnny Greenwood, whose score for There Will Be Blood was about 85-90% original, but was deemed ineligible because some of the music was things he released on an album before the film was released? It’s almost all his own work, but got shafted.
The score for Interstellar was loud and annoying which means it will get nominated.
Steve50: “They should be judging the USE of music, not the composition itself. They will eventually outlive their reason-to-be as scores advance along with technology.”
Why is it only in Music that people feel this way? The music awards are for ORIGINAL compositions, not remakes, rehashes or soundtracks filled with other music. Nor, is it a “technology” one. The rules are proper and should be strictly enforced, popular sentiment nothwithstanding. If they CGI’d in Marlon Brando’s performance in THE GODFATHER into a 2014 crime drama nobody would say that Brando should be up for Best Actor. If INTERSTELLAR used sfx from 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY should they be eligible? Of course not. It’s only when it comes to songs and music that people want to bend the rules for music they “like” over ORIGINAL WORK.
What part of “Original” do people have an issue with? If you want to add an adapted category, go petition the Academy. But, don’t deprive original artists of Nomination and Awards because you “like” a particular piece of music, song or soundtrack mixtape.
Why didn’t they disqualify Gustavo Santaolalla for the same reason for Babel?
If they apply the rule, they should apply it every time, not just sometimes.
Yet another reason why this division is bullshit.
They should be judging the USE of music, not the composition itself.
They will eventually outlive their reason-to-be as scores advance along with technology.
OT – Latest UK trailer for In the Heart of the Sea (March can’t get here soon enough)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSGcocTLMlk
As diffiicult a decision as this may have been, it is the proper one. Too many Academy voters are unable to distinguish between original music and sourced material. A similar, and even more proper, decision was made by the academy on BLACK SWAN a couple of years ago.
When you mix original score compositions with some of the most melodic music ever recorded, it simply isn’t fair to composers who write 100% (or very close) of the music directly for a movie.
And, I’m convinced that the two Howard Menken Disney animated score wins and Rachel Portman’s for THE FULL MONTY can largely be attributed to dense Oscar voters who mixed the SONGS with the actual score in their heads and checked the box while mixing up the two. It sucks for the composers involved, but, sometimes the Academy has to do such pre-emptive strikes to save deaf & dense voters from themselves.
If Mica Levi gets nominated be prepared for an upset. But I think it’s now down to Zimmer for Interstellar, which I would love, and Desplat for Imitation Game.