10. “Mank”
It doesn’t feel like a stretch to say that David Fincher, Trent Reznor, and Atticus Ross are one of the most beloved director/composer teams in modern movies, and they’ve defined a sound – glitchy, paranoid, largely electronic, suffused with a pervasive sense of menace and fear – that has defined a generation’s worth of American dramas, from “The Social Network” to today. All of which makes the music for “Mank,” Fincher’s dazzling, dreamlike new study of “Citizen Kane” scribe and Hollywood legend Herman J. Mankiewicz, such a lush, lovely, ultimately welcome surprise. Reznor and Ross have made use of analog instruments in their work with Fincher before, but the baroque classical arrangements have never been as front and center as they are with “Mank” – which makes sense, since the film is a meandering period epic set in 1940s Tinseltown, and Reznor and Ross’s trademark touch would have sounded mighty anachronistic against such a backdrop. Ross and Reznor have boasted that they used almost entirely era-appropriate instruments to score “Mank,” and the resulting collaboration is a refreshing and refreshingly subdued change of stylistic gears for Fincher, and proof that even the most unyielding auteurs can find new ways to redefine themselves. – NL
9. “I Know This Much Is True”
As a filmmaker, Derek Cianfrance tends to favor inherently melodramatic soundscapes that summon the deep reservoirs of feeling that all his characters are constantly fighting through. It’s something you hear in Grizzly Bear’s astonishing original music for “Blue Valentine,” and also the ominous, buzzing swell of Mike Patton’s work for “A Place Beyond The Pines.” “I Know This Much Is True” is Cianfrance’s most ambitious undertaking to date, and the stirring score by avant-garde composer Harold Budd is a kind of sonic reflection of the show’s particular brand of grueling empathy. A piece of music like “Angela” sounds nearly classical, evoking the haunting scores that Stefan Will has composed for Christian Petzold, while “Three Rivers” practically transports the listener to the perpetually grey Northeastern landscape that this six-episode drama depicts with such disarming acuity. The use of old and new pop songs throughout the series, which runs the gamut from Anita Baker and Joe Jackson to Bob Welch and The Cars, never feels extraneously flashy; it’s all intended to reinforce the earthy realism of Cianfrance’s preferred approach. “I Know This Much Is True” is a gutting look of loss that is particularly resonant during a year where many of us lost quite loved ones and family members, and the show’s music has a grave, stately beauty to it. – NL
8. “We Are Who We Are”
Luca Guadagnino does not get enough credit for his iconic mastery of pop music and original score, whether it’s a raucous needle-drop from a certain slept-on Rolling Stones LP in “A Bigger Splash,” the incandescent folk poetry that Sufjan Stevens penned for “Call Me By Your Name,” or Thom Yorke’s gnomic “Suspiria” incantations. Guadagnino is a man of fine tastes, and his first foray into prestige television, HBO’s languorous “We Are Who We Are,” is an extension of the director’s winning streak in this specific regard. Not only does Guadagnino’s dreamy coming-of-age saga feature stunning original music from none other than Dev Hynes, known to most as nouveau-R&B innovator Blood Orange, but the Season 1 finale also turns out to be centered around a live Blood Orange gig, one whose audio-visual beauty summons nostalgic memories of what it felt like to be young, reckless and romantic, when going to a show felt like the most important thing in the world. “We Are Who We Are’s” soundtrack is an embarrassment of riches, as any collection that features not only beguiling compositions from Julius Eastman and John Adams, but also scintillating deep cuts from, among others, David Bowie, Kanye West, Prince, and Chance The Rapper, is inevitably bound to be. – NL
7. “Tales From The Loop”
Here’s how a lot of television seems to work, and or at the very least, this particular Amazon show. You hire a fantastic director (in this case Mark Romanek, also an exec producer), then an equally fantastic cinematographer (in this case, David Fincher DP Jeff Cronenweth who was Emmy nominated for his work on the show), let them shoot the pilot and set the visual tone, look and feel for the show for other filmmakers and craftsman to follow in those footsteps. I’m not exactly sure how the relationship between legendary composer Philip Glass and Paul Leonard-Morgan worked, but a) I’m sure it’s sort of similar, with Glass composing the main theme(s) and then passing off some of the work, b) it probably doesn’t matter at all. Yes, this is sad pensive minimalist piano music, that you might want to call painting music or whatever if you want to be reductive about it—yes, some if sounds like it’s directly referencing Arvo Pärt (“Spiegel Im Spiegel” obviously) and Erik Satie, et al. But the best way to put it, is that “Tales From The Loop” masterfully uses the ideas of time and science fiction to empathetically explore the notion of existence, how lonely it can be, and just how melancholy existence is when those we love shuffle off this mortal coil. There is true deep dolor and sadness and beauty as well to “Tales from The Loop,” and from the top down, much of it is echoing outward from this majestically wistful score that will leave you longing for past loves, thinking about departed friends, and compel you to stare out a window reflecting on what’s left. – Rodrigo Perez
