Composing Greatness: #1. Oscars 2019 Edition - "BlacKkKlansman"

Scene from BlacKkKlansman

Welcome to a very special edition of Composing Greatness. In this limited series, I will be looking at the five scores nominated for this year's Best Original Score category. To avoid favoritism, the list will be done in alphabetical order of composers and feature the same guidelines as the original series. This is meant to explore the music behind the great films of 2018, and provide insight into what makes each of them special and whether or not they deserved to be nominated at all. Join me all week as I listen to the  music, leave some thoughts, and hopefully sway you to check out these wonderful, wonderful scores.

Series Composer: Terence Blanchard

Entry: BlacKkKlansman (2018)

Collaborators (If Available): N/A

Nomination: Best Original Score

Other Nominees:
-Black Panther (Ludwig Goransson)
-If Beale Street Could Talk (Nicholas Brittell)
-Isle of Dogs (Alexandre Desplat)
-Mary Poppins Returns (Marc Shaiman)

Note: Listen to the score here.

Exploring the Music

The area of the column where I will explore the music in as much detail as I see fit for each entry.

What's So Great About It?

The whole existence of BlacKkKlansman as an Oscar nominee feels like one of those great Trojan horses. Not only is Spike Lee overdue for a nomination (and, to editorialize, a win), but so is the oven more overlooked composer Terence Blanchard. What he does with this score is a rather incredible achievement that goes beyond great melodies. What he does here is expand upon Lee's text with music that deconstructs the 20th century's relation between music and cultural identity. Seeing as the films Birth of a Nation and Gone With the Wind are films described as promoting racism, the choice to use Max Steiner-esque strings subversively is very smart. As the album progresses and Ron infiltrates the Klan, funk of the 70's (like Shaft) begins to fall into the score and it becomes something bigger. In that way, it's one of the most ambitiously original scores of the year. It works if you don't have any basis for what it's skewering, but it works even better if you do.

What's So Bad About It?

My general gripe with scores that borrow from other scores is that it has disqualified so many great scores from ever getting nominations (see: The Godfather, There Will Be Blood) and it's a hard sticking point to see John Williams get nominated for five Star Wars scores. While I'm more forgiving of a score that borrows from Americana, it still is a sticking point. What Blanchard does with the music is essential and I think is itself an original concept. In fact, it makes the movie easily better by mixing history and melodrama in equal measure. This is a score that is made better if you understand its history, which is both a good and bad thing if you're calling it "original."

Did This Deserve an Oscar Nomination?:
Yes

There's a good chance that one would've thought as early as last January that Blanchard would never be an Oscar nominee. It's a bit of a travesty when you think about his lengthy career with Lee, though it adds a beautiful irony to see them go down together. That is why it feels encouraging to see them complimenting each other in the best ways possible, producing a score that is piercing in all of the best ways, managing to skewer classic cinema and 70's funk in equal measure while never feeling novelty. It's an accomplished piece of work and one of the few that will likely cause audiences to question how music impacts us on a subliminal level throughout history. It's a soundtrack that earns every beat, especially during the three part track where Blanchard is allowed to ruminate in darkness in a way that is haunting and powerful. Here's hoping that whatever he does next will not go unseen like his previous work at the Oscars.

Up Next: Ludwig Goransson - Black Panther (2018) for Best Original Score

Rank the Nominees

1. Terence Blanchard - BlacKkKlansman