I’d never heard this noise, and I’ve never forgotten it.

February 28, 2018 7:36 AM

"Set in the haute-couture world of 1950s London, Paul Thomas Anderson’s film “Phantom Thread” brings a renowned fashion designer and a young waitress into a weird codependency. The insinuating and expressive score by Jonny Greenwood — with its blend of Minimalist-like riffs, eerie harmonies, alluring melodic lines you don’t quite trust, and piercing chords that leap about aimlessly — conveys both the posh glamour of the designer’s world and his inner obsessions." How Jonny Greenwood Wove the ‘Phantom Thread’ Score

Listen to all of the best original score nominees:

Dunkirk - Hans Zimmer (spotify)

Phantom Thread - Jonny Greenwood (spotify)

The Shape of Water - Alexandre Desplat (spotify)

Star Wars: The Last Jedi - John Williams (spotify)

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri - Carter Burwell (spotify)

posted by everybody had matching towels (11 comments total)

When it first opened, I noticed a few cinemas showing Phantom Thread with a live orchestra, and wondered why.

Then I saw the film. And I was like... oh.
posted by rokusan at 7:39 AM on February 28, 2018 [4 favorites]

sorry I meant to include the following information and then hit post anyway:

Hans Zimmer: 11 nominations, 1 win (The Lion King, 1995)
Jonny Greenwood: 1st nomination
Alexandre Desplat: 9 nominations, 1 win (The Grand Budapest Hotel, 2015)
John Williams: 51 nominations, 5 wins (most recently Schindler's List, 1993)
Carter Burwell: 2 nominations, 0 wins
posted by everybody had matching towels at 7:45 AM on February 28, 2018

Phantom Thread was probably one of the best movies I've seen like like ... five years? Maybe longer and I purposefully didn't read anything about it before seeing it. Watching it I loved the score and thought it was a compilation of existing music so imagine my surprise when I found out it was composed for the film. Also apparently PTA made a mixtape for theaters to play before the film and here it is.

I couldn't go to the screening with the live orchestra when it was in NYC but I hope to god it comes back.
posted by griphus at 9:10 AM on February 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

Greenwood should have won for There Will Be Blood but his work on Phantom Thread is pretty amazing too.
posted by octothorpe at 10:05 AM on February 28, 2018

Ethan Iverson offers some technical criticism (concerning the voice leading).
posted by oluckyman at 1:25 PM on February 28, 2018

I just got back from seeing Phantom Thread! I did notice the music, and in a good way. I actually don't recognise the article's claim that the chords "leap about aimlessly". I'm not articulate about this, but I feel like a lot of film scores do do that; they seem to be sort of deliberately withholding, in a very predictable way, always with an eleventh hour swerve away from what feels like the natural next step, even though there are only so many ways to turn left. This score, though, felt very generous and pleasing, without being totally ingratiating. I'll listen to it again.
posted by two or three cars parked under the stars at 1:25 PM on February 28, 2018

The Phantom Thread should win for the bold choice of having Paul F. Tompkins record the theme. Even in the space of just the trailer, it's beautiful.
posted by creade at 4:39 PM on February 28, 2018 [3 favorites]

Ethan Iverson offers some technical criticism (concerning the voice leading).

Ethan Iverson is an excellent and versatile musician, so I’m a little surprised at how facile this critique is. He gestures at the notion that listener expectations ultimately guide aesthetic choices more than Theory I voice-leading dicta do, but never really applies that in a context-aware way and instead opts to go for cheap shots like criticizing how a 4-2 doesn’t resolve downwards in the bass. I hope he revisits this in a more holistic way later, since I trust his instincts, but this isn’t really convincing as it stands. Anyway, I can’t wait to see this movie.
posted by invitapriore at 9:02 PM on February 28, 2018

As far as Jonny Greenwood’s composition chops go, it’s apparent enough to me from the There Will Be Blood score that his music is influenced by an intuitive take on the harmonic and melodic procedures of the composers he cites rather than a strict education in harmony and voice leading, and although I can hear the ways in which the mechanics and part-writing of his scores diverge in the small from what a classically-trained composer might write, I think his ear is impeccable and the results are successful because. It’s hard for those sufficiently inculcated in the tradition to accept, but the rule of the shortest way is not a universal aesthetic principle.
posted by invitapriore at 9:12 PM on February 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

Even in the space of just the trailer, it's beautiful.

that's probably my current favorite thing on twitter dot com
posted by numaner at 10:56 PM on February 28, 2018

All I know is that at Phantom Thread last week I couldn't leave my seat until the end credits finished rolling.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 4:17 AM on March 1, 2018