Oscar Score Race Pits Veterans Against Rookies

Jon Burlingame
·3-min read

Heading into the Academy Awards on March 10, with Golden Globe, BAFTA and Grammy wins behind him, “Oppenheimer” composer Ludwig Göransson would seem to have the original score Oscar sewn up.

The Swedish composer, already an Oscar winner for 2018’s “Black Panther,” spent nine months writing three hours of music for Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster biopic. His combination of orchestral and electronic elements, often given prominence in the storytelling, deepened the movie experience.

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“We had three months of experimenting and writing, coming up with the sonic landscape of the score,” Göransson says, and that was before Nolan even shot a foot of film. During the editing process, “they’ve already put my music in those scenes,” and it’s then a matter of tweaking and carefully conforming the music to the cut.

The “Oppenheimer” score ranges from “an intimate personal journey to an operatic piece,” Göransson notes. He used a 65-piece orchestra (all strings, brass and harp) to augment the synthesizer sounds he envisioned as gradually emerging from the nuclear research, “almost like an impending doom” that the scientist fears for the future.

But could Göransson’s chance for an “Oppenheimer” win be upset by a veteran composer or one of three first-time nominees?

Don’t count out five-time Oscar winner John Williams, now 92, a genuine musical icon who hasn’t won since “Schindler’s List” 30 years ago. “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” is his 54th nomination since the first in 1967, and he remains the most-nominated living person as well as the most-nominated musician in Oscar history.

What if Oscar’s 10,000 voters want to see the audience rise en masse as Williams walks down that aisle one final time, cheering him not so much for his last film but for a lifetime of great movie music? He just won a Grammy for “Helena’s Theme” from the score, signaling an appreciation of his orchestral artistry from music professionals across the globe.

Then consider Robbie Robertson, who died Aug. 9. “Killers of the Flower Moon” was his 11th film collaboration with director Martin Scorsese, and probably his most substantial in terms of musical content. Robertson’s mother was Mohawk, and he told Variety before his death that the score’s “soul is from Indian country.”

Six men have been posthumously nominated for a dramatic score at the Oscars, and three have won — notably Victor Young for 1956’s “Around the World in 80 Days,” another instance of a beloved musical figure who hadn’t previously won and voters chose to honor for a major work at the end of his life.


That leaves Laura Karpman (“American Fiction”) and Jerskin Fendrix (“Poor Things”), both first-time nominees. More than half of all the score winners in the past 30 years have been first-timers at the Oscars, suggesting that fresh sounds and faces make a difference for voters.

Karpman’s jazzy score earned multiple favorable notices; Jeffrey Wright’s character is named Thelonious and nicknamed Monk, after the legendary jazz artist, so that was the starting point.

She is only the fifth woman, and second American woman, to be nominated for original music. Also, Karpman was the first woman governor of the music branch and made a major impact on diversifying Academy membership, something that won’t be lost on many members.

Fendrix is also a possible dark-horse winner for his unconventional but widely noticed approach to “Poor Things.” Oscar voters sometimes use the music category to reward films that won’t win anything else, and if lead actress nominee Emma Stone misses out, the English pop musician-turned-film composer could benefit.

He told Variety he wrote 95% of his score before director Yorgos Lanthimos even began shooting.

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