I know we’re already in 2023 – happy new year, by the way – but allow me to briefly reflect on 2022 in the world of film music. Typically, Mark Kermode hosts a festive movie music show on Scala Radio as close to Christmas as possible, followed by an end of year special the weekend after, reflecting on the past 12 months at the cinema including box office hits and big awards wins, listeners’ favourites and culminating in Mark’s Top 5 Film Scores of the year.
Due to the way dates fell in 2022, his end of year show was right at the very end, on Saturday 31st December, and after a lot of back and forth between the two of us, he eventually settled for the following:
5) Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch – Living
4) Abel Korzeniowski – Emily
3) Hildur Gudnadottir – Women Talking
2) Terence Blanchard – The Woman King
1) Aska Matsumiya – After Yang
Regular listeners to Mark’s Scala show will know this is a very personal list, and that he’s been a fan of Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch for a while now, playing her scores for Only You and Censor on high rotation. Since Scala launched in 2019, he’s been keen to play any music by Aska Matsumiya that he can get his hands on and we’ve featured her scores for short films like Clavadista along with features like I’m Your Woman, Selah and the Spades and Skate Kitchen. I share his enthusiasm for these two composers and look forward to hearing what they’re working on next!
Abel Korzeniowski always gets a big thumbs up from me – I LOVE his score for Nocturnal Animals, it’s one of my favourites – and his scores are often superior to the films themselves (W.E. and the 2013 Julian Fellowes’ Romeo & Juliet, I’m looking at YOU) and his soundtrack for Till shows he’s on a roll right now. Likewise, Terence Blanchard and Hildur Gudnadottir are two total pros who create unique and varied scores, and who have both set themselves high standards which they often exceed. Blanchard’s recent score for Da 5 Bloods is one I re-visit frequently, and I look forward to experiencing Gudnadottir’s Women Talking score with the film when it’s released in February. She’s been tipped for another Oscar win and I think she’s in with a very strong chance of a nomination at least, from a glance at the (incredibly male-dominated, as per usual) shortlist.
I’m quite relieved I’m not obliged to create a top 5 of my own, but I enjoy the process of casting my mind and ears over a year’s worth of soundtracks. Highlights for me – in addition to Mark’s list above – include (in no particular order) Alex Baranowski‘s beautiful string cues in True Things, the breadth, depth and ambition of Son Lux‘s soundtrack to Everything Everywhere All At Once which matches the ambition and unpredictability of the film, the delicious eerieness of She Will by the ever-brilliant Clint Mansell, the jaunty score by Zeltia Montes for The Good Boss, Colin Stetson’s perfectly pitched score for The Menu, at times light and humorous, on other occasions blacker than black, the earthiness of The Drover’s Wife by Salliana Seven Campbell and Sharon Farber‘s nod to Bernard Herrmann in the documentary Brainwashed: Sex – Camera – Power.
I could go on but I’m sure it’d be far more interesting to actually listen to the scores, so I’ve made a playlist of 70 brilliant cues from films released in the UK in 2022:
https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/0MW4HBgf8YAP7e44YAZgaK?utm_source=generator
I hope this leads you down a merry rabbit hole of discovery – and here’s to another creative year of film soundtracks in 2023!
