‘Up’ Score Soars, Like the Film; Is Giacchino Our Greatest Living Film Composer?

Like his superlative score for 2007’s “Ratatouille,” Michael Giacchino’s symphonic compositions for the latest Pixar animated feature, Pete Docter’s “Up,” make most others working in the field look bad by comparison. “This ain’t no John Williams,” a friend said to me as we exited the theater, and the general sentiment resonates – this isn’t something we’ve heard a million times before, played with the reliability and mechanical precision of a music box. This score is messy, distinctive and perhaps defiantly retro and classical. Giacchino himself has stated that he looked to the opera for influence on his latest project, specifically in giving each of the characters in “Up” their own distinctive theme which would then change depending on their emotional state.

As always, it’s a testament to the music itself that this original score has so much re-playability, especially after one sees the film its meant to accompany. Like the best movie music, listening to Giacchino’s compositions enables one to relive Docter’s fine film – and without plopping down another 10-odd dollars and enduring crowds of screaming children.

Chicago Tribune critic Michael Phillips told us in Cannes this year that he believes Michael Giacchino to be our greatest living film composer. Assuming that the heat wasn’t getting to him as it was us, listening to the “Ratatouille” and “Up” scores back-to-back makes for a pretty solid argument on his behalf. Both are intricately detailed, ebbing and flowing like classical pieces, and with an overarching theme as recognizable and timeless as that old “E.T.” score, or the “Indiana Jones” tune – pretty much anything Spielberg has been involved with.

Above all else, Giacchino’s scores are strikingly organic, achieving a warmth and sonic unity that can only be reached when a full band plays together in a room, working off each others energies and the direction of their conductor. Computers can replicate these sounds to an extent, but all the ambient Brian Eno knock-offs in the world can’t muster the effect of live instrumentation.

For “Up,” Giacchino incorporates a wealth of instruments, perhaps nothing more striking than the alternating muted brass and lilting string sections on soundtrack stand-out “Married Life,” a duality which represents both the presence of “Up’s” main protagonist, the elderly Carl (voiced by Ed Asner), and love-of-his-life Ellie. One could expound about the quality of craftsmanship that went in to the whole of “Up’s” extraordinary opening montage, but instead just listen to the suite of compositions which enforce the emotional tenure of this great filmic passage – “Up with Titles,” “We’re in the Club Now” and “Married Life” – each representing a different stage of Carl and Ellie’s relationship, and each underscoring the melancholy and the happy moments on screen.

Note that Giacchino’s work isn’t always this memorable – looking over the composer’s recent output it would seem he also wrote the scores for the new “Star Trek,” which left much less of an impression, as well as “Mission: Impossible III” and, of all things, “The Family Stone.” But when the man is on his game, especially given playful and imaginative material as he has been handed by Pixar thus far, the results can be just as enchanting as the films themselves.