 |  In what is surely the most open Best Score race in years, the early front-runner looks to be 55-year-old Argentine composer Gustavo Santaolalla, who has been rewarded with a debut nomination for his guitar-driven score for Ang Lee’s drama BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, which stars Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal as two men who embark on a 20-year homosexual affair following a summer spent together sheep-herding in Wyoming. As the film is likely to sweep the main categories in which it has been nominated (Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor), the Academy could well sweep Santaolalla along on the tide, something the Oscar voters have been known to do in the past. He has already won a Golden Globe for his song from the film, and was recognised by BAFTA committee and several film critics organisations for his work. Click here to read Jonathan Broxton’s review of this score. |
Santaolalla’s biggest challenge looks set to come from legendary American composer John Williams, who has picked up his 44th and 45th Oscar nominations for his work on Rob Marshall’s MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA and Steven Spielberg’s controversial but hugely successful MUNICH. Williams has already won a Golden Globe for his score for Rob Marshall’s Memoirs of a Geisha, the story of a young Japanese girl who begins learns the ancient ways of the geisha just as her country stands on the brink of World War II, which was prestigious enough to attract the combined talents of violinist Itzhak Perlman and cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Such is the powerful effect of the music within the film, and the critical acclaim the score has received from many parties, Williams could well walk away with his sixth win – providing his double nomination doesn’t split his vote and allow another score to sneak past him unnoticed.
MUNICH is the more serious of the two Williams scores this year, a dark and dramatic portrayal of the aftermath of the events of 4 September 1972, when members of the Palestinian terrorist organisation Black September took hostage and eventually killed eleven members of the Israeli team at the 20th Olympic Games in Munich, Germany. Relying less on sweeping themes and more on close, claustrophobic writing with heavy strings and electronic embellishments, Munich is one of the least audience-friendly Williams scores to be so honoured in recent years, and may find it difficult to compete with the crowd-pleasing thematic beauty of other scores when it comes down to the final vote. 
British-Italian composer Dario Marianelli is the second of the three debutante nominees this year, picking up the nod for his work on director Joe Wright’s lush and romantic adaptation of Jane Austen’s PRIDE & PREJUDICE, a classic story of love, marriage and social graces starring Oscar nominee Keira Knightley, Matthew MacFadyen, Brenda Blethyn and Donald Sutherland. Marianelli’s classical, Beethoven-inspired score features the talents of the acclaimed French pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and was singled as being as of special note by a number of critics. The nomination caps off a wonderful break-out year for the composer, who was also the recipient of a great deal of praise for his score for Terry Gilliam’s fantasy THE BROTHERS GRIMM. 
Rounding out the nominations is the most surprising one of all - Spanish composer Alberto Iglesias, for his score for the Fernando Meirelles’s critically acclaimed and commercially successful medical thriller THE CONSTANT GARDENER, based on the novel by John Le Carre and starring Ralph Fiennes and Oscar nominee Rachel Weisz. Best known for his collaborations with director Pedro Almodóvar (ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER, BAD EDUCATION, TALK TO HER), the 51-year old Basque composer wrote in the popular “world music” style, with lots of percussion and tribal rhythms, to match the film’s central African setting, but looks like the rank outsider to win - unless there is a major backlash against the other nominated films. 
