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If Beale Street Could Talk (soundtrack)

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If Beale Street Could Talk
(Original Motion Picture Score)
Film score by
Nicholas Britell
ReleasedNovember 9, 2018 (2018-11-09)
GenreFilm score
Length53:20
LabelLakeshore
ProducerNicholas Britell
Nicholas Britell chronology
Battle of the Sexes
(2017) 		If Beale Street Could Talk
(2018) 		Vice
(2018)

If Beale Street Could Talk (Original Motion Picture Score) is the score album to the 2018 film of the same name directed by Barry Jenkins based on James Baldwin's 1974 novel of the same name. Featuring original music written and composed by Nicholas Britell, the film marked his second collaboration with Jenkins after the Academy Award-winning Moonlight (2016).[1] According to Britell, he used two different soundscapes to depict the relationship between Clementine "Tish" Rivers (KiKi Layne) and Alonzo "Fonny" Hunt (Stephan James) as well as the horrors of alleged accusation over Fonny, and the aftermath surrounds. The primary instruments used in most of the scores, were strings and brass to depict the relationship, while orchestra and jazz also accompany the score.

The score album was released on November 9, 2018, by Lakeshore Records[2][3] and received positive response from critics, praising the instrumentation, composition and musical soundscape. Britell received the Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score and BAFTA Award for Best Original Music, losing the respective awards to Ludwig Göransson's score for Black Panther and Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga, and Lukas Nelson for A Star Is Born. However, Britell received the Black Reel Award for Outstanding Score, and was similarly successful at critics' award ceremonies, The album was issued in double vinyl by Lakeshore Records and Invada Records on March 15, 2019.[4][5]

Composition

[edit]

The score is a combination of brass, strings and orchestra. When the music for the film was first written, Jenkins said that he wanted the sounds of brass and horns, that was the "first intuitive idea of a feeling". Later, he assembled the sounds of trumpet, flügelhorn, cornet and French horns, and mixed it for the first piece he had written. But felt that the score missed strings in the musical landscape, as for Britell, the strings became like a "musical exploration or expression of love" adding that "What’s remarkable about the way Jenkins made the film is that it explores so many different kinds of love. It explores the love of parents for their children, it explores romantic love, it explores this divine, pure kind of love that exists between people. The strings came to symbolize that for us in a lot of ways."[6]

"I think the orchestration of things—the instrumental combinations, the sound colors and how they all combine—is essential to the process of composition. For me, the notes and the instruments that they’ll be played on are completely linked. A piece played on brass and [the same] piece played on strings feels like different piece. There were actually pieces that I wrote early on for brass, which are not in the movie. [There was] a piece that I showed to Barry where we felt something was missing; the chords and the melody are throughout the film, but that piece itself is not in the movie. So there was a lot of music that served as a mold, a catalyst for us to find other things that actually worked best. [In terms of] the sound colors, there’s a lot of cello, a lot of bass. As opposed to Moonlight, where the violin was featured, there’s almost no violin in Beale Street at all. When the music goes into those upper reaches in this film, it’s brass, and that was a very conscious choice."

— Nicholas Britell, on the instrumentation and composition of the film's score.[7]

Britell felt that he could chop and screw classical music like he did the same for hip hop in the score of Moonlight (2016). He had the strings and brass were included to write the score in a classical way, but at times, jazz harmonies as included in the score, as "music is incredibly fluid space, and sometimes the labels create boundaries that aren’t really there", thereby enticing to blend multiple genres in several ways, to create an atmospheric sounding.[6] While composing the score, he had explained about the tuning and mixing of the score, saying: "There are few key cues where the cornet is muted. I find it totally fascinating how subtle changes in the way an instrument is played—putting a mute on an instrument, or taking it off—can completely change the things that it associates to, in your mind and in your ear. When I hear that muted cornet, that to me sounds very much like mid-century jazz, right away. At the same time, I was exploring these colors with a mixture of French horn, and trumpet and flugelhorn, even [with regard to] where they sit in the register. If you put certain instruments above others in the way that they’re layered, you’re painting with different colors, and there’s this infinite palette of possibilities. I love having the opportunity to explore these colors because each film is a different kind of creative adventure where you get to learn about different sounds."[7]

Track listing

[edit]
No.TitleLength
1."Eden (Harlem)"2:54
2."The Children of Our Age"1:31
3."Agape"2:55
4."Encomium"2:27
5."Eros"3:15
6."Mrs. Victoria Rogers"1:43
7."Call Him Fonny / The Tombs / PTSD"4:36
8."Jezebel"2:08
9."Eden (LES)"2:30
10."Keepers of the Keys and Seals"2:04
11."Hypertension"2:19
12."P.B.A."1:50
13."Storge"2:09
14."Mama Gets to Puerto Rico"2:56
15."Ye Who Enter Here"2:53
16."Requiem"1:54
17."Philia"2:17
18."If Beale Street Could Talk (End Credits)"1:42
19."Harlem Aria (Bonus Track)"1:27
20."This Is Where My Life Is (Bonus Track)"2:17
21."New Life (Bonus Track)"1:22
22."What Have They Done? (Bonus Track)"1:15
23."A Rose in Spanish Harlem (Bonus Track)"2:56
Total length:53:20

Reception

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James Southall of Movie Wave wrote "Virtually throughout there is this very yearning, affectionate quality to it – the film is after all ultimately a love story, albeit not one without real challenge – and it has a very personal, moving quality. It’s not sweeping romance in the John Barry sense – it’s much smaller-scale in terms of the orchestral forces, most obviously – and while you could say it’s somewhat repetitive on the album, the darker moments do provide the offset that is so often so powerful in strengthening the impact of the emotional material. There is a clarity to the orchestration (even if it is not entirely conventional) and also the performance and recording which gives the album a certain raw directness which is very impressive."[8] Jonathan Broxton had a mixed opinion on the score, saying that "parts of the score appealing on a number of levels. But there is still an inexplicable something about the score which keeps It from clicking, whether it’s the repetitiveness, or the lack of development, or the way in which so many of the musical ideas seem to clash, to the emotional detriment of the whole experience."[9] It has been complimented by film critics as "one of the best scores of 2018" by publications such as IndieWire,[10] Vulture,[11] and Film School Rejects[12] along with Britell's Vice.

Accolades

[edit]
Award Date of ceremony Category Recipient(s) Result Ref(s)
Academy Awards February 24, 2019 Best Original Score Nicholas Britell Nominated [13]
Austin Film Critics Association January 7, 2019 Best Original Score Nicholas Britell Nominated [14]
[15]
Black Reel Awards February 7, 2019 Outstanding Score Nicholas Britell Won [16]
[17]
[18]
Boston Society of Film Critics December 16, 2018 Best Score Nicholas Britell Won [19]
[20]
British Academy Film Awards February 10, 2019 Best Original Music Nicholas Britell Nominated [21]
Chicago Film Critics Association December 8, 2018 Best Original Score Nicholas Britell Won [22]
Critics' Choice Movie Awards January 13, 2019 Best Original Score Nicholas Britell Nominated [23]
[24]
Florida Film Critics Circle December 21, 2018 Best Score Nicholas Britell Runner-up [25]
[26]
Georgia Film Critics Association December 1, 2018 Best Original Score Nicholas Britell Nominated [27]
Hollywood Music in Media Awards November 14, 2018 Best Original Score – Feature Film Nicholas Britell Nominated [28]
Houston Film Critics Society January 3, 2019 Best Original Score Nicholas Britell Won [29]
[30]
International Cinephile Society February 4, 2019 Best Original Score Nicholas Britell Won [31]
[32]
London Film Critics' Circle January 20, 2019 Technical Achievement of the Year Nicholas Britell (Music) Nominated [33]
Los Angeles Film Critics Association December 9, 2018 Best Use of Music/Score Nicholas Britell Won [34]
New York Film Critics Online December 9, 2018 Best Use of Music Nicholas Britell Won [35]
Online Film Critics Society January 2, 2019 Best Original Score Nicholas Britell Won [36]
San Francisco Film Critics Circle Awards December 9, 2018 Best Original Score Nicholas Britell Nominated [37]
Satellite Awards February 17, 2019 Best Original Score Nicholas Britell Nominated [38]
Seattle Film Critics Society December 17, 2018 Best Original Score Nicholas Britell Nominated [39]
[40]
St. Louis Film Critics Association December 16, 2018 Best Score Nicholas Britell Nominated [20]
[41]
Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association December 3, 2018 Best Score Nicholas Britell Won [42]
World Soundtrack Awards October 18, 2019 Film Composer of the Year Nicholas Britell Won [43]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Burlingame, Jon (November 30, 2018). "Composer Nicholas Britell Reunites With Past Collaborators on 'Beale Street' and 'Vice'". Variety. Retrieved December 1, 2022.
  2. ^ "Barry Jenkins' Film If Beale Street Could Talk Soundtrack Announced". Pitchfork. October 31, 2018. Retrieved December 1, 2022.
  3. ^ "Nicholas Britell "If Beale Street Could Talk" Soundtrack Out Now". Jazziz Magazine. November 9, 2018. Retrieved December 1, 2022.
  4. ^ "Nicholas Britell - If Beale Street Could Talk [2 x LP]". www.invada.co.uk. Retrieved December 1, 2022.
  5. ^ "Nicholas Britell - If Beale Street Could Talk: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack - (Vinyl LP, CD)". Rough Trade. Retrieved December 1, 2022.
  6. ^ a b Giorgis, Hannah (December 18, 2018). "How 'If Beale Street Could Talk' Translates Joy and Terror Into Sound". The Atlantic. Retrieved December 1, 2022.
  7. ^ a b Grobar, Matt (December 21, 2018). "In The Right Combination Of Brass & Strings, 'Beale Street' Composer Nicholas Britell Finds The Sound Of Love". Deadline. Retrieved December 1, 2022.
  8. ^ "If Beale Street Could Talk soundtrack review | Nicholas Britell | movie-wave.net". December 21, 2018. Retrieved December 1, 2022.
  9. ^ "IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK – Nicholas Britell". MOVIE MUSIC UK. February 12, 2019. Retrieved December 1, 2022.
  10. ^ Ehrlich, David (December 7, 2018). "The 10 Best Movie Scores of 2018, Ranked". IndieWire. Retrieved December 1, 2022.
  11. ^ Ebiri, Bilge (December 28, 2018). "The 10 Best Movie Scores of 2018". Vulture. Retrieved December 1, 2022.
  12. ^ Brigden, Charlie (December 10, 2018). "The Best Movie Scores of 2018". Film School Rejects. Retrieved December 1, 2022.
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  14. ^ Whittaker, Richard (January 7, 2019). "Austin Film Critics Association Announces 2018's Best Films and More". The Austin Chronicle. Archived from the original on March 22, 2019. Retrieved June 14, 2022.
  15. ^ Whittaker, Richard (December 28, 2018). "Austin Film Critics Release 2018 Awards Nominee Lists". The Austin Chronicle. Archived from the original on December 29, 2018. Retrieved December 29, 2018.
  16. ^ "Black Panther Reigns Supreme!". Black Reel Awards. February 7, 2019. Archived from the original on October 23, 2019. Retrieved June 14, 2022.
  17. ^ "Black Panther 'Roars!'". Black Reel Awards. December 13, 2018. Archived from the original on March 27, 2019. Retrieved June 14, 2022.
  18. ^ "Black Reel Awards – Past Nominees & Winners by Category". Black Reel Awards. Archived from the original on May 17, 2022. Retrieved May 14, 2021.
  19. ^ "Boston Film Critics Name If Beale Street Could Talk The Year's Best Film". Boston Society of Film Critics. December 17, 2018. Archived from the original on May 12, 2019. Retrieved December 30, 2018.
  20. ^ a b "Best of 2018: Film Awards & Nominations Scorecard". Metacritic. Archived from the original on July 10, 2021. Retrieved May 14, 2019.
  21. ^ "Film in 2019". British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Archived from the original on April 30, 2019. Retrieved July 16, 2021.
  22. ^ "2018 Chicago Film Critics Association Awards". Chicago Film Critics Association. December 8, 2018. Archived from the original on December 8, 2018. Retrieved December 8, 2018.
  23. ^ Tapley, Kristopher (January 13, 2019). "Roma, The Americans and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Win Top Critics' Choice Honors". Variety. Archived from the original on January 14, 2019. Retrieved January 15, 2019.
  24. ^ Tapley, Kristopher (December 10, 2018). "The Favourite, Black Panther, First Man Lead Critics' Choice Movie Nominations". Variety. Archived from the original on November 2, 2019. Retrieved December 29, 2018.
  25. ^ "The Favourite leads 2018 Florida Film Critics Awards Nominations". Florida Film Critics Circle. December 19, 2018. Archived from the original on December 20, 2018. Retrieved February 3, 2019.
  26. ^ Morgenstern, Hans (December 21, 2018). "2018 FFCC Award Winners". Florida Film Critics Circle. Archived from the original on December 22, 2018. Retrieved February 3, 2019.
  27. ^ "2018 Awards". Georgia Film Critics Association. Archived from the original on January 8, 2019. Retrieved February 3, 2019.
  28. ^ Xu, Linda (November 15, 2018). "Hollywood Music in Media Awards: Full List of Winners". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on September 19, 2020. Retrieved November 25, 2018.
  29. ^ Darling, Cary (December 17, 2018). "The Favourite a Favorite with Houston Film Critics Society". Houston Chronicle. Archived from the original on December 17, 2018. Retrieved December 29, 2018.
  30. ^ "The Favourite Wins Top Houston Film Critics Society Award for 2018". Houston Film Critics Society. January 4, 2019. Archived from the original on May 28, 2019. Retrieved September 22, 2019.
  31. ^ Lodge, Guy (February 4, 2019). "Lucrecia Martel's Zama Tops International Cinephile Society Winners". Variety. Archived from the original on November 7, 2019. Retrieved November 7, 2019.
  32. ^ Stevens, Beth (January 20, 2019). "Zama Awaits its Fate, While Burning Catches Fire at ICS Awards". International Cinephile Society. Archived from the original on January 21, 2019. Retrieved June 14, 2022.
  33. ^ Lodge, Guy (December 18, 2019). "The Favourite Leads London Critics' Circle Nominations". Variety. Archived from the original on May 9, 2020. Retrieved September 22, 2019.
  34. ^ Shanley, Patrick (December 9, 2018). "Roma Named Best Picture by L.A. Film Critics Association". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on December 16, 2018. Retrieved December 29, 2018.
  35. ^ Nordyke, Kimberly (December 9, 2018). "Roma Voted Best Picture by New York Film Critics Online". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on December 11, 2018. Retrieved December 29, 2018.
  36. ^ "2018 Awards (22nd Annual)". Online Film Critics Society. December 26, 2018. Archived from the original on December 26, 2018. Retrieved December 29, 2018.
  37. ^ "SFBAFCC 2018 Awards". San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle. Archived from the original on March 31, 2021. Retrieved December 10, 2018.
  38. ^ "2019 Winners". International Press Academy. Archived from the original on December 19, 2019. Retrieved May 21, 2019.
  39. ^ "Roma Named Best Picture of 2018 by Seattle Film Critics Society". Seattle Film Critics Society. December 17, 2018. Archived from the original on April 26, 2021. Retrieved December 29, 2018.
  40. ^ "The Favourite Leads the 2018 Seattle Film Critics Society Nominations". Seattle Film Critics Society. December 10, 2018. Archived from the original on December 11, 2018. Retrieved December 29, 2018.
  41. ^ "2018 StLFCA Annual Award Winners". St. Louis Film Critics Association. December 16, 2018. Archived from the original on October 26, 2020. Retrieved December 29, 2018.
  42. ^ "Roma Feels the Love with D.C. Film Critics". Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association. December 3, 2018. Archived from the original on April 17, 2021. Retrieved December 3, 2018.
  43. ^ Hipes, Patrick (October 13, 2019). "Nicholas Britell, Chernobyl Composer, 'Shallow' Among World Soundtrack Award Winners". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on October 19, 2019. Retrieved December 13, 2021.
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