One of the coolest wrinkles in this seemingly endless (although it’s barely begun!) awards season is that film studios are putting previously unavailable content out to the masses. For instance, the scripts for two of summer’s biggest hits, potential Oscar contenders Wall-E and The Dark Knight, can be officially downloaded right now. (If you need something to read during your lunch hour, you could do worse than The Dark Knight script by Jonathan and Christopher Nolan. "Why so serious?" indeed.) Additionally, Warner Brothers has also released Alexandre Desplat’s beautiful and melancholy score for the upcoming The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; though the cheeky bastards have hidden it on their BAFTA awards consideration site, you can find it here.
We listened to large chunks of Mr. Desplat’s score this morning and found it positively gorgeous. It’s perfect for a rainy day and totally in-line with what we expected to hear from David Fincher’s film, especially after the initial Benjamin Button teaser used Camile Saint-Saëns’ "Aquarium" movement from his Le Carnaval des Animaux. Mr. Desplat’s work borrows heavily from early John Williams/Steven Spielberg collaborations (we’re thinking Jaws) and also Danny Elfman’s various pieces for Tim Burton. We even noticed a bit of Coldplay, on the track titled "The Hummingbird".
Speaking of track titles… lots of times, they can give you a sense of the film. And with names like "The Accident", "Nothing Lasts", "Stay Out of My Life", "Some Things You Never Forget" and "Dying Away", we assume we’ll be a ball of tears and snot by the end credits. While a lot of early reviewers have said The Curious Case of Benjamin Button left them feeling emotionally detached from the proceedings, we can’t imagine that being the case (though of course, we haven’t seen it yet). Any film with a score like this has to illicit some type of deep emotional reaction. We bet it could make even the most pedestrian images crackle with deeper meaning! Regardless, Mr. Desplat, most recently nominated for his work on The Queen, should clear his calendar for February 21st, 2009.
