I know that Robert Baird did not like it so much (http://blog.stereophile.com/musicroom/robertbaird/022508loud/) but I thought Jonny Greenwood's score for There Will Be Blood was impressively well done. Sure you can say that he's a Radiohead guitarist ripping off classical composers, but I thought it was all very smartly done & greatly added to the movie. (The film, as good as it was, is not even close to The Citizen Kane, however.) I thought of Penderecki and Toru Takemitsu, and the more lyrical passages sounded like Messiaen (a composer that Greenwood's very fond of.) The suspenseful sections - the plucked ostinatos & percussion - reminded me of Bernard Herrmann's work for Hitchcock, albeit in a very different way... but had a similar impact on me. I cannot imagine There Will Be Blood w/o this soundtrack.
I know that Robert Baird did not like it so much (http://blog.stereophile.com/musicroom/robertbaird/022508loud/) but I thought Jonny Greenwood's score for There Will Be Blood was impressively well done. Sure you can say that he's a Radiohead guitarist ripping off classical composers, but I thought it was all very smartly done & greatly added to the movie. (The film, as good as it was, is not even close to The Citizen Kane, however.) I thought of Penderecki and Toru Takemitsu, and the more lyrical passages sounded like Messiaen (a composer that Greenwood's very fond of.) The suspenseful sections - the plucked ostinatos & percussion - reminded me of Bernard Herrmann's work for Hitchcock, albeit in a very different way... but had a similar impact on me. I cannot imagine There Will Be Blood w/o this soundtrack.