@@WhoAmIHmmm dude it's not even that terrifying at all, accuracy is needed so it can be as awful and horrific, an example of a ww1 movie would be westfront it's an old movie but it portraits how war was.
What I loved about this simplistic score is, that the 2 most used patterns (the now famous 3 not brass pattern, as well as the snare drum rhythm) are not subtle at all. They are the opposite of film music that merges perfectly with the film without you realizing it. This music is disruptive. It's present. It's impossible not to notice. It's terrible, in a a sense that it evokes terror within the audience. It's almost like a jump scare. And boy, does it fit that horrible war.
People who say the score is shit obviously haven’t watched the film and listened to Tjaden, Bomb Crater, Comrades, Flares, and Paul. Amazing tracks that tore a hole through my heart. Bertelmann did an amazing job
4:03 I think the piano piece highlights the fact that they are back at the farm, where they had one of the few good moments. The first time they get shot at, but they get away, laughing and enjoying the food. It calls back to that moment with it's beauty, while being somber for obvious reasons. That's the way I viewed it at least.
Agreed. I also think it is somewhat of an elegy because it is a moment of respite, and they have time to take stock of the fact that the war is soon to be over and they (incorrectly) think they are going home soon, and will be able to process the horrors of what they have endured and be able to properly mourn and reflect on their fallen comrades. But it's also a premortem elegy for Kat and ultimately Paul.
@@Swamp72 "Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ" BWV 639 th-cam.com/video/fLLEumabTPA/w-d-xo.html It has been used in movies before, for example by Tarkovsky in Solaris (th-cam.com/video/apvgFZCSeQY/w-d-xo.html), or quite originally by Lars von Trier in Nymphomaniac (th-cam.com/video/ltjToiuP4xs/w-d-xo.html)
Well I think the point of the soundtrack kind of is that it’s modern, WWI was the first modern war, and all of the generals were still trying to fight war in a very traditional way, an example is ending the war at 11 AM November 11 (11 11 11), and it’s to show the modern age is closing in on these people, the soundtrack literally sounds like a machine clanking and chains running along the ground, and constantly throughout the movie the soldiers are being killed by some new very modern machine like flamethrowers or tanks, and of course planes are bombing them throughout a lot of the movie, and yes the soundtrack is very repetitive, but it is effective, it shows nobody had experienced that kind of warfare before, high schoolers were being sent off to a war where they’d probably be dead before the end of the first day, and they were fighting with technology never used before
You could say that composing just 3 bass tones is a sort of brilliant minimalism. For me it’s the same with abstract art. Yes, a couple of Paint dots can be art, but at least you can’t say that it is fine craftsmanship. I don’t like it and it’s not really music for me, but I can understand that it is considered art and fitting to the film.
A film score can be assessed on its own as a musical piece. But in this context it is about the entirety, not just the musical piece. The paint comparison isn't really fitting because of that. The point of Marcel Duchamp's Fountain isn't the piece itself but rather its place in the context.
Great honesty Christoph. I agree with you. I don't watch a lot of TV but due to health reasons I was stuck watching to pass the time. I've noticed that the lack of melody, long slowly-evolving dark drones and a minimalist approach has really overtaken film and TV. In the movie, that large minor triad blasting out of nowhere seemed to have been added as a, "Hey, let's do something bold and obnoxious here to stand out from the otherwise mundane themes!" I'm afraid that comment may appear snarky, but when I watched this movie with a friend, we both said, "What's up with that?" and laughed. It's still very subjective, so I enjoy hearing what people think. I am a composer, by the way. Cheers!
You're right...sometimes movie music is bombastic yet as ordinary and forgettable as bathroom wallpaper...which I think is what a lot of directors want.
I personally disagree with this, but it’s only because I think that the context of the music is the way these things are awarded. Music for movies and tv is made for moments which have other things going on over the top of the music. This can’t be judged in the same way as an album with no external piece to serve.
The first time I heard those three “dark” notes…YOOOOOOO!!! I was immersed in the movie immediately because, well, it was a totally different approach to the usual type of compositions that are used for this movie genre!! It was pretty darn good!! And thank you for explaining deeper!! 👊👊
I study International Relations, so i've been reading about war (as an institution and as a practice) since i was 18. The day i watched this rendition of AQOTWF was the day something changed. I can't hear the name of any war theorist, can't read about historical campaigns, can't listen to the news about any current conflict, can't do nothing related to war without hearing the brass pattern. Sometimes i'm doing the most random of things, and the three notes slam against my brain walls, and my day is dragged to the mud. This score may be considered simple, but it lingers like a PTSD. I'm no music student, I can't debate over the theory superiority behind other scores, but I can say this: no other soundtrack did the same to me.
As someone who has studied music theory, and this lick is VERY dissonant. The interval between the first two notes is a minor third, what sets major and minor apart and holds a very somber, darker sound. Followed by the minor third is, to the first note played, a tritone. Tritones are THE most dissonant interval in music and invoke a lot of fear in this context. So yeah. Very simple but so so effective since it never resolves.
A very good appraisal / deconstruction of the score here. As a film composer myself, I know how challenging it can be to walk the fine line between being original, supporting the story, providing an appropriate tone for what is on screen, adding something to the scene which is not on screen and also staying out of the way enough so as not to pull attention away from the movie. I think the composer did a superb job of balancing those elements here and deserved the award not least for his carefully pitched subtlety. I have just finished scoring a film where my music never follows the on screen action which is almost entirely dialogue between two characters. Instead, I’m scoring their various thought processes as they figure out their mysterious relationship to each other, which at times are confused and conflicting, at other times in unison and generally, a little devious / sneaky yet never malicious. So the score supports the story by adding something which does not become apparent until we get to the final act, making for a lot of mystery, and perhaps not only giving the audience more questions, but also making them ask why they are even asking those questions in the first place! Fortunately I was working with a director who understood all of that subtext and liked the approach but it doesn’t always go so smoothly! I can also see why some folk might not like this choice as a winner when what they love in a score is a big, strong and memorable melody. But those are things for musical appreciation, a score is often, if not always, serving other priorities. 😊
From a trailer composer’s perspective, I think it’s awesome to hear a braam/signature sound be the primary feature of a score. It works really well and the sound design and production were incredible
"Boring. Repetitive. No melody" could literally be said of 90% of Zimmer's scores in the last 15 years, yet people don't mind. At least AQOTF has soul. The strings and the piano gave emotion and poetry to the soundtrack. It isn't Babylon, it isn't The Batman, nor Pinocchio. But it's great.
Hans has done a good number of melodic scores, and they were quite good. Apart from TDK trilogy, Dunkirk (which were not boring) and Dark Phoenix, I'm curious to know the rest of the 90% you're talking about.
Everyone makes fun of the BUMMM BUMM BUMMMM because that's all they played at the Oscars... but in the film it's played over our first view of the war machine. It's a really industrial sounding part of the score giving us our introduction to the war machine... it's actually a really interesting and noteworthy choice... You might say this during the video I haven't watched yet
maybe another aspect of the music becoming more happy is that from a meta perspective we are closing in towards the end of the war, the desired peace as well as the scene where Paul steps into the light outside the bunker which can of course also be seen as "stepping into the light" aka dying, leaving all sorrows, bitterness and pain behind
bros are complaining about melody when its a WW1 movie thats supposed to have horrific scenes and extreme suffering so what is wrong with it? its a great sound even with just the 3 notes its terrifying
I liked your humor with the part about us watching you watch the movie for two hours. 😆 "There's not really anything 'tuneful' or 'memorable' other than maybe like a three note lick." This is one of the reasons I like your videos and why I subscribed sometime ago. You listen to the music and you try to hear the music from a different perspective. This sort of reminds me of when you talked about Metroid Dread's music. People were saying the music wasn't memorable for that game as well, and like you said in that video, the music is made for the setting of that game, and the music in this film was specifically made with a different approach in mind rather than relying on it just using melodies. I've never seen this movie, but again, I like your perspective. Great review.
Glad you did this. I am in the process of scoring a film (for local film maker) and your remarks - "works with film and the story" - are spot on. Fortunately the writer/director I am composing for has given me free reign......(as you probably know Bertelmann has an instrument library issued by Spitfire...which I find quite fascinating and useful....)...keep up the good work, Mr. Leach.
I prefer melodic scores, but an ambient score can work wonderfully. The one thing that DOES annoy me immensely with ambient scores, though, is when I can't tell if the sounds I'm hearing are part of the score or something in the movie that the characters are hearing. This happens a LOT in modern horror movies.
That 3 notes score with synths (look out of place at first) was the first soundtrack that could transcribe lots of feelings mixed together. Eerie. You knew something bad was going to happen. It stuck with me ever since, when I remember the scenes. That’s a real genius there! Totally deserves.
The music is wonderful! It was so out of place and machine sounding - it was great! It shows how war is a machine, and the charecters we see go through it are a cog in it.
Even just the first cue is amazing. The famous motif with that synth... rips out your heart. Even the way the synth is designed with a slight fall at the end. Outstanding.
that three bass lick had/has more of an emotional impact on me than any other movie soundtrack EVER. i still get goosebumps just hearing it. easily deserved the oscar and should go down as one of the greatest compositions in all of cinema.
Would I buy the soundtrack? No. But the score fits perfectly to the movie and thats why the guy won. A great score doesnt not has to be great on its own.
The music instantly sticked out to me in the beggining scene, it reminded me that this is not going to go well, the contrast really helped to highlight the score, and because it was done so quickly in the movie, it grasped my attention for the entire runtime, and this is why I think the score being repetitive worked really well here, because every time I heard those iconic 3 notes, I once again remembered what kind of impression this movie wanted to make on me, and this score is honestly one of the first things that comes to my mind when thinking about this movie, so if it burned itself so strongly into my memory, it must be phenomenal.
"Didn't have any themes?" Dude, anyone with ears can parse out a main theme. That loud blaring horn for the main theme is the same notes used in most of the violin tracks like Ludwig, Paul, Making sense of War, Flares, etc. Speaking of the specific arrangement used in the nighttime scene with the flares is used only one other time, and that's in the part where Albert Kropp gets killed by a flamethrower. How can anyone go through this soundtrack and say "no themes?"
Every time i heared those 3 bass lines, my heart started to hurt, i knew that Something was coming. The sadness and the fear that beat produces me is crazy
The Oscar for music score should have gone to "Babylon" hands down. . . The was the most inventive and moving score I've heard in a movie for a long time.
The composer took what we know of 1920's jazz music and cranked it to a whole other level. He basically had to invent a subgenre of 1920's music that we have no record of. We've heard 20's scores in movies before, but he took those arrangements and instrumentations and created something totally unknown before. There's a track from that soundtrack that I swear sounds like an EDM track, but it's all played on 1920's period instruments. I've never heard such a thing before. It's bold, inventive and really puts you in the wildness of the 1920's that the public never saw before.
@@drmoonrat It is a bit rich when it is the same composer of la la land, which is very similar to Babylon and the scores are similar as well. Furthermore, the score shouldn't be taken away from the movie. Bertelmann did many things and genres in a single score, very rock influenced, some edm too, very modern score despite the film was period (proving that scores don't have to be historically accurate), using the harmonium, adding metal noises to link the score to WW1, the first war with machineries. It deserved the Oscar.
The only thing that counts when scoring a film is: does it make the audience connect with the film? If it does that, it succeeds. That having been said, could it be said that Bertelmann relied on cliches about war and pacifism?
My complaint about this score wasn't that it was boring, it was that it DID NOT fit this movie. Every time it played I felt taken out of the moment and it just did not hit the mark with me.
I feel like the reason it won was not because of the quality of the music by itself (although I greatly enjoyed both the film and the soundtrack) but by the context of the scenes the tracks are featured in and the intensity and fear of the scenes that the music helps deliver, all while being so minuscule and simple in nature. I see why some don’t agree with its winning. However, the soundtrack in my opinion was masterful and perfectly fit the theme and atmosphere it was trying to create. Those three pronged bass notes in Remains gave me chills as I saw the tanks lurk in the shadows. Sometimes simplicity can deliver better results that complex and convoluted musical pieces
I love history and I’m a historian and this movie 🎥 is about all his friends getting killed in front of him and he went through all that just to die seconds before the end of the war it was also probably about the last man to die in WWI
I listened to the track and found it extraordinary fitting. The weird almost outdated sound together with the 1918 theme makes it perfect. In 1918 the war became more mechanized and tanks were introduced in larger numbers. And as you said, it is honest.
This score is fuckin perfect. The deep unsettling electronic sounds make the movie feel very uncomfortable, almost alien. Which is very much how those soldiers felt in those trenches.
I think there's a lot to be said about how easily we criticise a composer's vision of a movie while forgetting that when all is said and done they have to serve another person's vision, the director's.
The score repeats itself a lot, sure, but it is DAMN memorable. I remember being extremely taken aback by those sounds when I first saw this movie, and in all honesty, that's what makes it work. It's supposed to be industrial, not fitting, and scary. If you have sufficient knowledge on what the first world war was like, you know that this was going to be the last time these new recruits would ever sing joyfully if they were lucky, and if they weren't lucky, the last time they would ever sing in their lives. Every aspect to that sound is refined to fit with this film alone to invoke a sense of terror in you, because no matter what side people fought on, it was essentially young adults being sent out by idiotic, arrogant, power-hungry generals to die.
Tbf, I feel it was the best movie score of the decade. It did not need to have any fancy music, it needed to provoke dread within you and it did that very well.
Completely agree with your explanation on this one. I feel like the fact that it wasn't the typical Hollywood, neo-romantic score bothered some people.. which is understandable in some way. But the inventivity put to the service of the film deserved to win. I really wanted to see Banshees of Innisherin win best score for the same reason. The contrast it created with the humorous tone used throughout the film. But it's definitely a deserving win for All Quiet On The Western Front!
Thank you. However I'm not so sure the Banshees was in the same league. Volker's score had me subdued and wondering, asking questions about why, how etc. Banshees was a bit cliché and the harp is the national symbol, not only the official musical instrument of Ireland. Bear in mind the story of Banshees was all about the backdrop, the scenery made that movie whereas the story made the movie in All Quiet. What's strange for me is that when I first heard this score, I dismissed it but now I realised I was drinking good wine after cheap wine which is never a good idea because we never appreciate it. Good luck.
I noticed that the Bach cantata being used, "ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ" was the same one that was being used in tarkovsky's solaris. I'm wondering whether that was an intentional reference or not
A good score just has to fit the material and help create the best possible version of the film. That doesn't mean it should have themes or _not_ be repetitive. It doesn't have to be a compelling listening experience in its own right. An argument can be made that film scores can sometimes be distracting by being too melodic when it doesn't fit the material or the scene.
Your theory is easy to disprove because all great film music does call attention to itself. It is unfair to the bastard art of film music to dampen and bury it, and I suspect the real reason this is done, is just because complex music is something common people don't hear anymore, so it would be strange to them.
@ That is not true. I can specifically remember seeing Schindler’s List in the theater, getting to the end credits, seeing John Williams’ name, turning to my friend and saying, “I don’t even remember there being music,” and him agreeing. Not all great film music calls attention to itself. Great film music can be subtle and complementary without taking your attention away from what is on the screen.
@@Windupchronic I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I think you are just repeating the current mainstream theory of film music - that it SHOULDN'T call attention to itself, and then it can even be bad music, as long as it pertains to the picture. That's a very low bar for me, and boring. It sees music as atmosphere only, not as a parallel discourse. Great film music proves itself as capable of much, much more. I also saw Schindler's List in the cinema and my experience was different from yours. Bernard Herrmann said all serious composers should do same film music. He saw this as a way for avant garde music to reach the public, and the public would accept it, as long as it, again, pertained to the picture. Contrast Herrmann's dream to what we have today: music is not really allowed to express itself, it can only serve as background. This is a sad state of affairs.
@ I’ve had this opinion since the early 90s, so no, I’m not repeating any current mainstream theory. This is my own, based on my own observations, and confirmed over 30 years of watching movies and listening to film scores, of which I have a massive collection.
Here's an interesting counter to the "heavy and depressing" (as you, rightly, put it) approach to scoring war movies. One of my all-time favourites is John Addison's score for A Bridge Too Far, the movie that tells the story of Operation Market Garden, the Allies' failed attempt to get over the Rhine by seizing a series of bridges in Holland, of which the one in Arnhem is the most famous. Addison's score is very tuneful, and by turns jaunty and wistful. It's the exact opposite of the heavy and depressing war-is-hell school of movie scoring, and could easily be accused of being unrealistic. The kicker is that Addison was *actually there*, at the battle. He was a tank commander - rather on the fringes of the action as depicted in the movie, but he had been wounded in Normandy, and would have known what war was all about. Yet he chose to write a very upbeat score, even though the movie itself is notable for its lack of jingoism. Anyway, this is apropos of nothing, really, but I always think of it when I hear very gritty, dark war movie scores.
I believe that the 3 brass pattern was used similarly to the Prowler's theme in Spider-man: Into the Spider-Verse. Where we the audience get used to a certain melody. It is established already that this melody is dark, ominous, almost sinister. Once the rapport is built, we hear it all over the movie at key moments, establishing that what just happened is certifiably fucked up. I don't know for sure though, and I might be wrong so take that with a grain of salt.
That "three note bass" was coming out of nowhere, getting mixed up with the other tune and even in the screenplay itself but the thing is it suits the theme of the movie. It shows us that "the impending doom is coming, get ready for your shit!" A very depressing movie nonetheless but the score is brilliant, period.
I saw people reacting to the music the first time it plays in the movie and many don't seem to like it at first. Most of them say it sounds too modern. But that's exactly right for ww1 if you ask me. The great shock of ww1 was how warfare, which was the same for the last thousand years of humanity, has become something unrecognizable. Yes fire weapons and artillery were a thing for about a century, but the way wars were waged was still the same in the 19th century. Your comrades beside you, your enemy a person ahead and a battle that could be won or lost by your involvement. But modern war is inhuman, mechanical and unnatural. For the most part you don't even see the enemy, only dead comrades and harsh living conditions. To me the soundtrack represents the unnatural mechanical grinding machine that eats up people faster than they can be replaced. It reminds me a bit of Made in Abyss (an anime). Your enemy is not a person that wants your death. Then at least you could fight it and win, which is what the human psyche is built for. Instead the enemy is a formless entity that kills indiscriminetly, we are not made to comprehend that. Neither the first world war, nor the Abyss care if you survive today or die. There are no hero narratives you could spin around this kind of enemy, to make sense of it in your mind. It's like fighting an (un-)natural disaster, not a person or an animal. So it takes the place of a malevolent deity, an indifferent transcendent entity that cannot be reasoned with or understood. It slowly eats away your humanity and twists you into an unrecognizable shell of your former self. Pretty fitting that our culture has agreed upon "hell on earth" as the most fitting analogy for modern wars. In both this film and Made in Abyss music is eerie and revolting, but also has an underlying primordial beauty that works very well parallel to the beautiful nature we see in contrast to the horror the characters experience. The soundtrack is nothing special but still unique and it perfectly achieves what it sets out to do. Worthy of an oscar in my view (the only valid question ofcause is wether it was more worthy than the other contenders).
Talking about minimalism in a score : Matthew Herbert did a much better job in The Wonder. Also not nominated but in my opinion better scores were : Emily by Abel Korzeniowski , Living by Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch , Pearl by Tyler Bates & Timothy Williams , Men by Ben Salisbury & Geoff Barrow and Women Talking by Hildur Guðnadóttir. Is all a popularity contest at the oscars.If your film is well recieved by critics and box office most probably u will land some nominations, obscure and small films don't stand a chance. Sad but true.
My opinion it deserved to win cuz it made you feel the most emotion. The brass instruments terrified me and made me wonder what kind of movie I was going into
Great analysis! I loved this score, and while it's true I wouldn't listen to it on its own, I thought it was a perfect complement to the picture. There couldn't be a more fitting soundtrack to the wasteland of no-man's-land than 3 notes outlining a minor chord! I only wish I'd been able to experience it in the cinema with a big screen and big sound system.
I don't think of it as a minor chord, because the tonic is the final E, not the initial A. I think it's better described as a 4th, minor 6th, followed by a 1. It doesn't feel like a chord, but like a dissonant evil spirit.
People don’t get that movie music is more than just nice music, lyrics or melody. However when it comes to movies it’s all about what way in which movies are able to make use of their score to amplify the tone and the story. If your looking at individual songs it’s different cause it’s only looking at the song not the song and the music.
its not boring at all. just hits me wrong. i wanted their sense of pride be crushed slowly to a haunting realization, not abruptly halted. But thats what this film was all about. Abruptness. Life is taken from you not a second too soon. If im looking from the perspective of a critic, this novelty should be praised. as an ordinary consumer who rarely watches movies as it is, my mood is abruptly ruined everytime it plays on a none combat scene.
I LOVE this score (and am one of few how also likes listening to it away from the film hah). It's the score I would have picked, that would have gone to EEAAO, but I think this score deserved it's win and you laid out many great reasons as to why. I saw a comment that said the score should have sounded like [Insert score for any other war film here] and I adamantly disagree with this, if only for the reason that this film is about the 'villains.' This film has a challenge of making us care about kids who don't realize they are fighting a losing war that their leaders started over petty hubris reasons and that will forever change their country internally and how it is viewed by the world for about 80 years. Whilst Saving Private Ryan, Atonement, and War Horse, are about the 'heroes' who risked their lives to save us, the tragedy it is to lose these great men who would die fighting Evil, this film is about the kids that were sucked into that evil and lost everything. Good kids that lost their lives for the villains, villains that don't even care when the war is over because their pride matters more. Scoring it like SPR would have and absolutely inappropriate and the filmmakers understood this. The score is mechanical to represent the oppression of industrialized war, spiritual as a cry out to god, with hints of folk to remind us of the every day people that were sucked into this monstrosity. This score is subtext at its finest and it's clear Volker understands this. When watching the film the first time I kept thinking that the score felt almost spiritual and religious, as if the score was crying out "O Why, my God? Why must this happen?" there's a deep fated pain to it seeping through the entire score. In an interview Bertelmann states just this, that he wanted the score to feel religious. I think he succeeded. AQOTWF is a fantastic score that I do think is deserving of it's win this year (though, truthfully, I would have been happy with just about any of the nominees - or heck, even the short list!) Thank-you for this video and spreading the appreciation for great art. Cheers!
What bothered me the most is not the string pads, but the fucking snares. The fucking snares in the most inappropiate of times, had me thinking I had a snare vst open and doing weird shit. It has probably the worst screen-music sync I've ever seen
The Oscars got it right. Babylon's music might be the best but All Quiet on the Western Front had the best score matched with the movie. Hopefully, you get what I mean. It's not an award for Best Music it's an award for Best Music made for a film. All Quiet on the Western Front made me remember the unique score of Jaws in that it's a perfect match in both cases.
Alison MacKenzie, Actress, Producer, Orchestrator - AMPAS Member Since 1986: "All Quiet on the Western Front" won an 2023 Original Score Oscar which was outstanding in most cases. Because in many ways in the process of scoring a movie for filmmakers that works with film and the story are spot on.
The distorted synth/maybe cello line used was not my favorite and actually took me out of the movie a bit, but I think this is because I'm preconditioned to anticipate something more conventional for a film depicting the early 20th century vs. a sound that could've made an appearance in Bladerunner 2049 or the last Tron movie. On the flipside, makes sense that such a "rude" sound would rear its head given the overwhelming industrial presence in WWI (fierce shelling, tanks, machine guns). Sidenote on the movie: I much preferred this to 1917, because this is what WWI was, absolute hell.
I found that repetitive 3-note synth line annoying. Every time I heard it, I was like, "no, not this again". It too took me out of the movie, each time. So yes, colour me surprised it won the Oscar. However, I'm just one of the masses here, as I am neither a composer nor even a musician.
The score is Satanic, it's not depressing as much as horrifying. The music is 20th century and extremely effective, and the composer wasn't trying to impress anyone, just to do his job. It is extremely important to the film, because it removes the emotion of the characters and gives up a sort of superhuman spirit over the whole events, with malevolent intent.
To me, the main 3-note part reminds me a lot of the theme music from JAWS. It also makes me think of the creaking of a huge sinking ship - as in the Titanic movie. Really not so sure about it - does not sound all that original IMHO.
A brilliant and daring score. Having an overtly electronic soundtrack to such an historical time made for an interesting juxtaposition. It de-sentimentalized the whole approach. I can't imagine the horrors of war to have much to be sentimental about, and shouldn't. It would have been easy to have had a rousing orchestral score but it would have been not as interesting if it had. The score is one of the most arresting things about the film.
The movies doenst have soo many musics cause music most of the time give an heroic feeling All the songs on all quiet in the western front are random sounds to represent how pointless war is and has no heroism in it
I can't believe people complained the music didn't match the mood of the kids going to war. It's so clearly and obviously setting the mood of how naive and misinformed they are about what they are about to go through. The movie even has an extended scene literally showing us how bad it went for the group sent before them. It's clearly a soundtrack aimed at us the viewers, with the information we have available that the characters do not have. It almost makes you want to reach in and save them by telling them not to go. It couldn't be more blatant, yet people missed it so badly and still expected a happy and excited soundtrack? It would have missed the mark so hard if it did and feel generic and paint by the numbers without any thought put behind it.
Its not meant to be musically pleasing, its meant to convey the mood at different times of the movie. Whether it be fear, tension or small bits of happiness, it does it right.
While ignoring the music itself for a moment - The points you made about the ideas and concept behind certain decisions make sense and are valid and I would agree with you on pretty much everything, however, I feel that one major flaw with the actual score was that it tore a stylistic hole into the entire movie. I, for one, started watching the movie not knowing what to expect at all, which was well before the Oscars took place or I read any comments about it. I was intrigued by the cinematography, the set design, the acting, and the editing, but I couldn't stand listening to that movie anymore after about 20 minutes. The music entirely ruined the experience for me. Whenever I started getting into the story and experienced the environment, the music would come bashing in and remind me: "this is a movie, these are actors, that's a set". I love when music is present and very noticeable in films, but it has to deserve to be present and noticeable by belonging and pulling you even further into the film. That did not work for me at all and it made me actually stop watching the movie. But I also feel the need to point out another factor for the win: The other nominees. You have briefly touched on this in this video, however, I'm looking at that a bit differently. I felt that all the other nominated scores were either incredibly bland or predictable and simply not special. I wouldn't have remembered any of them, but I would have remembered this one, albeit for not-so positive reasons. I believe this to have a significant impact on the Oscars winners for many categories actually, and I have a strong suspicion that for this, it might have been a close win too and may as well have been decided by rolling some dice. That's what the Oscars often feel like for many categories. Just my thoughts, not that it matters. All suspicions and personal feelings too, just different opinions.
You nailed it. Deep Purple took a lot of heat for how basic "Smoke on the Water" is and now everyone gushes over the same three notes (in different order/ inversion).
John Williams defined the horror blockbuster with just two notes. Hans Zimmer perfectly captured the Joker also with only two notes. Complexity is not necessary for greatness.
You know a movie is depressing when it even darkens the color of your shirt..
Everything has become so bleak
Were you expecting a movie about WW1 to be joyful or funny?
@@michaelfitzgerald38 I didn't expect it to alter the color of real life objects 😉
@@simonjohansson248 bro nobody gets the joke and it gives me physical pain
@@michaelfitzgerald38 r/wooosh
How could anyone call this score boring??? I watched the movie 3 times and it literally gave me chills ever time
I dont think ill ever be able to go through that again
It's not accurate
@@johnrojas8215accuracy is not the point of the movie
@@WhoAmIHmmm dude it's not even that terrifying at all, accuracy is needed so it can be as awful and horrific, an example of a ww1 movie would be westfront it's an old movie but it portraits how war was.
this movie is like hella boring ngl not even that terrifying.
What I loved about this simplistic score is, that the 2 most used patterns (the now famous 3 not brass pattern, as well as the snare drum rhythm) are not subtle at all. They are the opposite of film music that merges perfectly with the film without you realizing it. This music is disruptive. It's present. It's impossible not to notice. It's terrible, in a a sense that it evokes terror within the audience. It's almost like a jump scare. And boy, does it fit that horrible war.
I couldn't say better
It also pushes the concept of how mechanical and uncaring the *machine* of war is
If you like it you should use the word “simple” not, “simplistic”. The negative connotation of “simplistic” is the main reason the word exists at all.
People who say the score is shit obviously haven’t watched the film and listened to Tjaden, Bomb Crater, Comrades, Flares, and Paul. Amazing tracks that tore a hole through my heart. Bertelmann did an amazing job
Totally agree. The score is phenomenal
I agree with you. The score is amazing 👏👏👏
How are you doing with your lumbago?
@@TheGamingFishkiller it’s a slow and painful death my brotha
My favourite is Making Sense of War. Gets me every time.
I seriously don't understand the hate to the score. It's not boring at all. It gives me goosebumps. It's heavy
I love the soundtrack. Wouldn’t say it is boring at all 😅
It’s super modern and fits the film very good.
Congrats to Volker Bertelmann!
4:03 I think the piano piece highlights the fact that they are back at the farm, where they had one of the few good moments. The first time they get shot at, but they get away, laughing and enjoying the food. It calls back to that moment with it's beauty, while being somber for obvious reasons.
That's the way I viewed it at least.
Agreed. I also think it is somewhat of an elegy because it is a moment of respite, and they have time to take stock of the fact that the war is soon to be over and they (incorrectly) think they are going home soon, and will be able to process the horrors of what they have endured and be able to properly mourn and reflect on their fallen comrades. But it's also a premortem elegy for Kat and ultimately Paul.
Do you know the name of that piece?
@@Swamp72 "Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ" BWV 639
th-cam.com/video/fLLEumabTPA/w-d-xo.html
It has been used in movies before, for example by Tarkovsky in Solaris (th-cam.com/video/apvgFZCSeQY/w-d-xo.html), or quite originally by Lars von Trier in Nymphomaniac (th-cam.com/video/ltjToiuP4xs/w-d-xo.html)
@@tobiaskringe8734 awesome, thank you!
Well I think the point of the soundtrack kind of is that it’s modern, WWI was the first modern war, and all of the generals were still trying to fight war in a very traditional way, an example is ending the war at 11 AM November 11 (11 11 11), and it’s to show the modern age is closing in on these people, the soundtrack literally sounds like a machine clanking and chains running along the ground, and constantly throughout the movie the soldiers are being killed by some new very modern machine like flamethrowers or tanks, and of course planes are bombing them throughout a lot of the movie, and yes the soundtrack is very repetitive, but it is effective, it shows nobody had experienced that kind of warfare before, high schoolers were being sent off to a war where they’d probably be dead before the end of the first day, and they were fighting with technology never used before
just so you know they weren't getting bombed, it was artillery
My exact thought as well :) Loved the movie.
@@samuelbrooker1553 bombing suprisingly was on a more strategic scale, like bombing airfields, artillery, and even factories in london and paris
You could say that composing just 3 bass tones is a sort of brilliant minimalism. For me it’s the same with abstract art. Yes, a couple of Paint dots can be art, but at least you can’t say that it is fine craftsmanship. I don’t like it and it’s not really music for me, but I can understand that it is considered art and fitting to the film.
A film score can be assessed on its own as a musical piece. But in this context it is about the entirety, not just the musical piece. The paint comparison isn't really fitting because of that. The point of Marcel Duchamp's Fountain isn't the piece itself but rather its place in the context.
Great honesty Christoph. I agree with you. I don't watch a lot of TV but due to health reasons I was stuck watching to pass the time. I've noticed that the lack of melody, long slowly-evolving dark drones and a minimalist approach has really overtaken film and TV. In the movie, that large minor triad blasting out of nowhere seemed to have been added as a, "Hey, let's do something bold and obnoxious here to stand out from the otherwise mundane themes!" I'm afraid that comment may appear snarky, but when I watched this movie with a friend, we both said, "What's up with that?" and laughed. It's still very subjective, so I enjoy hearing what people think. I am a composer, by the way. Cheers!
No no no. Not everything is art
You're right...sometimes movie music is bombastic yet as ordinary and forgettable as bathroom wallpaper...which I think is what a lot of directors want.
I personally disagree with this, but it’s only because I think that the context of the music is the way these things are awarded. Music for movies and tv is made for moments which have other things going on over the top of the music. This can’t be judged in the same way as an album with no external piece to serve.
The first time I heard those three “dark” notes…YOOOOOOO!!! I was immersed in the movie immediately because, well, it was a totally different approach to the usual type of compositions that are used for this movie genre!! It was pretty darn good!! And thank you for explaining deeper!! 👊👊
The signature sound was incredible with the story. However I feel like Babylon should’ve won.
Waiting for video about Babylon "How did THIS score didn't win an Oscar?"
I thought Babylon should have won too but all quiet was an incredible film
I thought women talking should have won but most people refuse to watch the movie because they look at the title and run a mile away
@@jacklafferty6654 haha I’ll check it out
Babylon has the better "CD soundtrack". AQOTWF has the better movie score
I study International Relations, so i've been reading about war (as an institution and as a practice) since i was 18. The day i watched this rendition of AQOTWF was the day something changed. I can't hear the name of any war theorist, can't read about historical campaigns, can't listen to the news about any current conflict, can't do nothing related to war without hearing the brass pattern. Sometimes i'm doing the most random of things, and the three notes slam against my brain walls, and my day is dragged to the mud. This score may be considered simple, but it lingers like a PTSD. I'm no music student, I can't debate over the theory superiority behind other scores, but I can say this: no other soundtrack did the same to me.
As someone who has studied music theory, and this lick is VERY dissonant. The interval between the first two notes is a minor third, what sets major and minor apart and holds a very somber, darker sound. Followed by the minor third is, to the first note played, a tritone. Tritones are THE most dissonant interval in music and invoke a lot of fear in this context. So yeah. Very simple but so so effective since it never resolves.
@@boipoi_78 Thank you so much for explaining! Sometimes what seems "simple" hides so much technical efficiency! This is dope
I can't believe some composers don't seem to recognise the difference between music scored for film and a stand alone score.
A very good appraisal / deconstruction of the score here. As a film composer myself, I know how challenging it can be to walk the fine line between being original, supporting the story, providing an appropriate tone for what is on screen, adding something to the scene which is not on screen and also staying out of the way enough so as not to pull attention away from the movie. I think the composer did a superb job of balancing those elements here and deserved the award not least for his carefully pitched subtlety. I have just finished scoring a film where my music never follows the on screen action which is almost entirely dialogue between two characters. Instead, I’m scoring their various thought processes as they figure out their mysterious relationship to each other, which at times are confused and conflicting, at other times in unison and generally, a little devious / sneaky yet never malicious. So the score supports the story by adding something which does not become apparent until we get to the final act, making for a lot of mystery, and perhaps not only giving the audience more questions, but also making them ask why they are even asking those questions in the first place! Fortunately I was working with a director who understood all of that subtext and liked the approach but it doesn’t always go so smoothly! I can also see why some folk might not like this choice as a winner when what they love in a score is a big, strong and memorable melody. But those are things for musical appreciation, a score is often, if not always, serving other priorities. 😊
From a trailer composer’s perspective, I think it’s awesome to hear a braam/signature sound be the primary feature of a score. It works really well and the sound design and production were incredible
"Boring. Repetitive. No melody" could literally be said of 90% of Zimmer's scores in the last 15 years, yet people don't mind.
At least AQOTF has soul. The strings and the piano gave emotion and poetry to the soundtrack.
It isn't Babylon, it isn't The Batman, nor Pinocchio. But it's great.
Hans has done a good number of melodic scores, and they were quite good. Apart from TDK trilogy, Dunkirk (which were not boring) and Dark Phoenix, I'm curious to know the rest of the 90% you're talking about.
The music is so memorable for me to the point I just hear it in my head whenever I’m learning about ww1 or ww2
The timing of the synth and tension it builds is crazy, love this score.
Everyone makes fun of the BUMMM BUMM BUMMMM because that's all they played at the Oscars... but in the film it's played over our first view of the war machine. It's a really industrial sounding part of the score giving us our introduction to the war machine... it's actually a really interesting and noteworthy choice...
You might say this during the video I haven't watched yet
4:16 if anyone is wondering it’s a Bach Choral « Ich ruf zu dir, Herr » BWV 639
That transition from before seeing the movie and after doing it says a lot of things 💀💀💀
maybe another aspect of the music becoming more happy is that from a meta perspective we are closing in towards the end of the war, the desired peace as well as the scene where Paul steps into the light outside the bunker which can of course also be seen as "stepping into the light" aka dying, leaving all sorrows, bitterness and pain behind
bros are complaining about melody when its a WW1 movie thats supposed to have horrific scenes and extreme suffering so what is wrong with it? its a great sound even with just the 3 notes its terrifying
I liked your humor with the part about us watching you watch the movie for two hours. 😆 "There's not really anything 'tuneful' or 'memorable' other than maybe like a three note lick." This is one of the reasons I like your videos and why I subscribed sometime ago. You listen to the music and you try to hear the music from a different perspective. This sort of reminds me of when you talked about Metroid Dread's music. People were saying the music wasn't memorable for that game as well, and like you said in that video, the music is made for the setting of that game, and the music in this film was specifically made with a different approach in mind rather than relying on it just using melodies.
I've never seen this movie, but again, I like your perspective. Great review.
The score sets the tone from the beginning. Industrialized murder isn't going to have a snappy tune.
Glad you did this. I am in the process of scoring a film (for local film maker) and your remarks - "works with film and the story" - are spot on. Fortunately the writer/director I am composing for has given me free reign......(as you probably know Bertelmann has an instrument library issued by Spitfire...which I find quite fascinating and useful....)...keep up the good work, Mr. Leach.
Some of the moments felt like a video game
I prefer melodic scores, but an ambient score can work wonderfully. The one thing that DOES annoy me immensely with ambient scores, though, is when I can't tell if the sounds I'm hearing are part of the score or something in the movie that the characters are hearing. This happens a LOT in modern horror movies.
Music is epic .
Their “No end” theme is epic.
And these three notes have the potential to become a sound depiction of the word “war” in general
That 3 notes score with synths (look out of place at first) was the first soundtrack that could transcribe lots of feelings mixed together. Eerie. You knew something bad was going to happen. It stuck with me ever since, when I remember the scenes. That’s a real genius there! Totally deserves.
The music is wonderful! It was so out of place and machine sounding - it was great! It shows how war is a machine, and the charecters we see go through it are a cog in it.
Even just the first cue is amazing. The famous motif with that synth... rips out your heart. Even the way the synth is designed with a slight fall at the end. Outstanding.
that three bass lick had/has more of an emotional impact on me than any other movie soundtrack EVER. i still get goosebumps just hearing it. easily deserved the oscar and should go down as one of the greatest compositions in all of cinema.
Would I buy the soundtrack? No. But the score fits perfectly to the movie and thats why the guy won. A great score doesnt not has to be great on its own.
The music instantly sticked out to me in the beggining scene, it reminded me that this is not going to go well, the contrast really helped to highlight the score, and because it was done so quickly in the movie, it grasped my attention for the entire runtime, and this is why I think the score being repetitive worked really well here, because every time I heard those iconic 3 notes, I once again remembered what kind of impression this movie wanted to make on me, and this score is honestly one of the first things that comes to my mind when thinking about this movie, so if it burned itself so strongly into my memory, it must be phenomenal.
When I heard the piece by bach, while watching the tragic story unfold, I couldn’t hold back tears. It’s just so emotional.
4:05 Side note: the piano piece isn’t a church cantata by Bach. It’s an organ chorale by Bach named Ich ruf zou dir, Herr Jesu Christ (BWV 639)
ah interesting, there's a cantata BWV 177 with the exact same title Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ
@@RyanLeach All of Bach's cantata's, like the chorale prelude heard in the video, are based on existing hymn tunes (aka chorales) :)
"Didn't have any themes?"
Dude, anyone with ears can parse out a main theme. That loud blaring horn for the main theme is the same notes used in most of the violin tracks like Ludwig, Paul, Making sense of War, Flares, etc.
Speaking of the specific arrangement used in the nighttime scene with the flares is used only one other time, and that's in the part where Albert Kropp gets killed by a flamethrower. How can anyone go through this soundtrack and say "no themes?"
Every time i heared those 3 bass lines, my heart started to hurt, i knew that Something was coming. The sadness and the fear that beat produces me is crazy
The subtle touch of Ryan's shirt going dark after watching the movie...
The Oscar for music score should have gone to "Babylon" hands down. . . The was the most inventive and moving score I've heard in a movie for a long time.
inventing?
@@aqualcunopiaceclassico3201 "Inventive" was the word I used.
The composer took what we know of 1920's jazz music and cranked it to a whole other level. He basically had to invent a subgenre of 1920's music that we have no record of. We've heard 20's scores in movies before, but he took those arrangements and instrumentations and created something totally unknown before. There's a track from that soundtrack that I swear sounds like an EDM track, but it's all played on 1920's period instruments. I've never heard such a thing before. It's bold, inventive and really puts you in the wildness of the 1920's that the public never saw before.
@@drmoonrat It is a bit rich when it is the same composer of la la land, which is very similar to Babylon and the scores are similar as well. Furthermore, the score shouldn't be taken away from the movie. Bertelmann did many things and genres in a single score, very rock influenced, some edm too, very modern score despite the film was period (proving that scores don't have to be historically accurate), using the harmonium, adding metal noises to link the score to WW1, the first war with machineries. It deserved the Oscar.
The only thing that counts when scoring a film is: does it make the audience connect with the film? If it does that, it succeeds.
That having been said, could it be said that Bertelmann relied on cliches about war and pacifism?
The novel is nearly 100 years old so I feel like cliches are gonna naturally be there.
The movie isn't pacifist as much as socialist. The spirit it invokes makes you want to attack the commanding officer, not lay down your arms.
The music drew me into the story and into the movie. Great score.
My complaint about this score wasn't that it was boring, it was that it DID NOT fit this movie. Every time it played I felt taken out of the moment and it just did not hit the mark with me.
I feel like the reason it won was not because of the quality of the music by itself (although I greatly enjoyed both the film and the soundtrack) but by the context of the scenes the tracks are featured in and the intensity and fear of the scenes that the music helps deliver, all while being so minuscule and simple in nature. I see why some don’t agree with its winning. However, the soundtrack in my opinion was masterful and perfectly fit the theme and atmosphere it was trying to create. Those three pronged bass notes in Remains gave me chills as I saw the tanks lurk in the shadows. Sometimes simplicity can deliver better results that complex and convoluted musical pieces
I love history and I’m a historian and this movie 🎥 is about all his friends getting killed in front of him and he went through all that just to die seconds before the end of the war it was also probably about the last man to die in WWI
The score was ideal for a film that was about the truth of war.
I listened to the track and found it extraordinary fitting. The weird almost outdated sound together with the 1918 theme makes it perfect.
In 1918 the war became more mechanized and tanks were introduced in larger numbers. And as you said, it is honest.
This score is fuckin perfect. The deep unsettling electronic sounds make the movie feel very uncomfortable, almost alien. Which is very much how those soldiers felt in those trenches.
I think there's a lot to be said about how easily we criticise a composer's vision of a movie while forgetting that when all is said and done they have to serve another person's vision, the director's.
The score repeats itself a lot, sure, but it is DAMN memorable. I remember being extremely taken aback by those sounds when I first saw this movie, and in all honesty, that's what makes it work. It's supposed to be industrial, not fitting, and scary. If you have sufficient knowledge on what the first world war was like, you know that this was going to be the last time these new recruits would ever sing joyfully if they were lucky, and if they weren't lucky, the last time they would ever sing in their lives. Every aspect to that sound is refined to fit with this film alone to invoke a sense of terror in you, because no matter what side people fought on, it was essentially young adults being sent out by idiotic, arrogant, power-hungry generals to die.
Tbf, I feel it was the best movie score of the decade. It did not need to have any fancy music, it needed to provoke dread within you and it did that very well.
Completely agree with your explanation on this one. I feel like the fact that it wasn't the typical Hollywood, neo-romantic score bothered some people.. which is understandable in some way. But the inventivity put to the service of the film deserved to win.
I really wanted to see Banshees of Innisherin win best score for the same reason. The contrast it created with the humorous tone used throughout the film. But it's definitely a deserving win for All Quiet On The Western Front!
Thank you. However I'm not so sure the Banshees was in the same league. Volker's score had me subdued and wondering, asking questions about why, how etc. Banshees was a bit cliché and the harp is the national symbol, not only the official musical instrument of Ireland. Bear in mind the story of Banshees was all about the backdrop, the scenery made that movie whereas the story made the movie in All Quiet. What's strange for me is that when I first heard this score, I dismissed it but now I realised I was drinking good wine after cheap wine which is never a good idea because we never appreciate it. Good luck.
I noticed that the Bach cantata being used, "ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ" was the same one that was being used in tarkovsky's solaris. I'm wondering whether that was an intentional reference or not
A good score just has to fit the material and help create the best possible version of the film. That doesn't mean it should have themes or _not_ be repetitive. It doesn't have to be a compelling listening experience in its own right. An argument can be made that film scores can sometimes be distracting by being too melodic when it doesn't fit the material or the scene.
Your theory is easy to disprove because all great film music does call attention to itself. It is unfair to the bastard art of film music to dampen and bury it, and I suspect the real reason this is done, is just because complex music is something common people don't hear anymore, so it would be strange to them.
@ That is not true. I can specifically remember seeing Schindler’s List in the theater, getting to the end credits, seeing John Williams’ name, turning to my friend and saying, “I don’t even remember there being music,” and him agreeing.
Not all great film music calls attention to itself. Great film music can be subtle and complementary without taking your attention away from what is on the screen.
@@Windupchronic I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I think you are just repeating the current mainstream theory of film music - that it SHOULDN'T call attention to itself, and then it can even be bad music, as long as it pertains to the picture. That's a very low bar for me, and boring. It sees music as atmosphere only, not as a parallel discourse. Great film music proves itself as capable of much, much more.
I also saw Schindler's List in the cinema and my experience was different from yours.
Bernard Herrmann said all serious composers should do same film music. He saw this as a way for avant garde music to reach the public, and the public would accept it, as long as it, again, pertained to the picture. Contrast Herrmann's dream to what we have today: music is not really allowed to express itself, it can only serve as background. This is a sad state of affairs.
@ I’ve had this opinion since the early 90s, so no, I’m not repeating any current mainstream theory. This is my own, based on my own observations, and confirmed over 30 years of watching movies and listening to film scores, of which I have a massive collection.
Here's an interesting counter to the "heavy and depressing" (as you, rightly, put it) approach to scoring war movies. One of my all-time favourites is John Addison's score for A Bridge Too Far, the movie that tells the story of Operation Market Garden, the Allies' failed attempt to get over the Rhine by seizing a series of bridges in Holland, of which the one in Arnhem is the most famous. Addison's score is very tuneful, and by turns jaunty and wistful. It's the exact opposite of the heavy and depressing war-is-hell school of movie scoring, and could easily be accused of being unrealistic. The kicker is that Addison was *actually there*, at the battle. He was a tank commander - rather on the fringes of the action as depicted in the movie, but he had been wounded in Normandy, and would have known what war was all about. Yet he chose to write a very upbeat score, even though the movie itself is notable for its lack of jingoism. Anyway, this is apropos of nothing, really, but I always think of it when I hear very gritty, dark war movie scores.
Gave me anxiety through the whole movie and that's what he was going for.
I believe that the 3 brass pattern was used similarly to the Prowler's theme in Spider-man: Into the Spider-Verse. Where we the audience get used to a certain melody. It is established already that this melody is dark, ominous, almost sinister. Once the rapport is built, we hear it all over the movie at key moments, establishing that what just happened is certifiably fucked up. I don't know for sure though, and I might be wrong so take that with a grain of salt.
That "three note bass" was coming out of nowhere, getting mixed up with the other tune and even in the screenplay itself but the thing is it suits the theme of the movie. It shows us that "the impending doom is coming, get ready for your shit!"
A very depressing movie nonetheless but the score is brilliant, period.
tanks, war machines,ludwig mmm *chef kiss* i could listen to those on repeat all day long
I saw people reacting to the music the first time it plays in the movie and many don't seem to like it at first. Most of them say it sounds too modern. But that's exactly right for ww1 if you ask me. The great shock of ww1 was how warfare, which was the same for the last thousand years of humanity, has become something unrecognizable. Yes fire weapons and artillery were a thing for about a century, but the way wars were waged was still the same in the 19th century. Your comrades beside you, your enemy a person ahead and a battle that could be won or lost by your involvement. But modern war is inhuman, mechanical and unnatural. For the most part you don't even see the enemy, only dead comrades and harsh living conditions.
To me the soundtrack represents the unnatural mechanical grinding machine that eats up people faster than they can be replaced.
It reminds me a bit of Made in Abyss (an anime). Your enemy is not a person that wants your death. Then at least you could fight it and win, which is what the human psyche is built for. Instead the enemy is a formless entity that kills indiscriminetly, we are not made to comprehend that. Neither the first world war, nor the Abyss care if you survive today or die. There are no hero narratives you could spin around this kind of enemy, to make sense of it in your mind. It's like fighting an (un-)natural disaster, not a person or an animal. So it takes the place of a malevolent deity, an indifferent transcendent entity that cannot be reasoned with or understood. It slowly eats away your humanity and twists you into an unrecognizable shell of your former self. Pretty fitting that our culture has agreed upon "hell on earth" as the most fitting analogy for modern wars.
In both this film and Made in Abyss music is eerie and revolting, but also has an underlying primordial beauty that works very well parallel to the beautiful nature we see in contrast to the horror the characters experience. The soundtrack is nothing special but still unique and it perfectly achieves what it sets out to do.
Worthy of an oscar in my view (the only valid question ofcause is wether it was more worthy than the other contenders).
It's the first film depiction of the book that was actually made by germans and made in germany. And it's good!
Talking about minimalism in a score : Matthew Herbert did a much better job in The Wonder. Also not nominated but in my opinion better scores were : Emily by Abel Korzeniowski , Living by Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch , Pearl by Tyler Bates & Timothy Williams , Men by Ben Salisbury & Geoff Barrow and Women Talking by Hildur Guðnadóttir. Is all a popularity contest at the oscars.If your film is well recieved by critics and box office most probably u will land some nominations, obscure and small films don't stand a chance. Sad but true.
You are a very nice music teacher
Thanks so much for share your knowledge
All the best :)
My opinion it deserved to win cuz it made you feel the most emotion. The brass instruments terrified me and made me wonder what kind of movie I was going into
I actually really enjoyed the score, the harmonium motif is really cool in my opinion.
Great analysis! I loved this score, and while it's true I wouldn't listen to it on its own, I thought it was a perfect complement to the picture. There couldn't be a more fitting soundtrack to the wasteland of no-man's-land than 3 notes outlining a minor chord! I only wish I'd been able to experience it in the cinema with a big screen and big sound system.
I don't think of it as a minor chord, because the tonic is the final E, not the initial A. I think it's better described as a 4th, minor 6th, followed by a 1. It doesn't feel like a chord, but like a dissonant evil spirit.
People don’t get that movie music is more than just nice music, lyrics or melody. However when it comes to movies it’s all about what way in which movies are able to make use of their score to amplify the tone and the story. If your looking at individual songs it’s different cause it’s only looking at the song not the song and the music.
its not boring at all. just hits me wrong. i wanted their sense of pride be crushed slowly to a haunting realization, not abruptly halted. But thats what this film was all about. Abruptness. Life is taken from you not a second too soon. If im looking from the perspective of a critic, this novelty should be praised. as an ordinary consumer who rarely watches movies as it is, my mood is abruptly ruined everytime it plays on a none combat scene.
This was a great review.
The score is really good and deserves it. I swear people need to stop associating greatness and complexity !
What-if: *John Williams − Gatchaman: Complete Motion Picture Score* (Imagi film project)
3 Flutes (2nd and 3rd dbl. Piccolo)
2 Oboes (2nd dbl. English Horn)
3 Clarinets (3rd dbl. Bass Clarinet)
3 Bassoons (3rd dbl. Contra Bassoon)
6 French Horns
4 Trumpets
4 Trombones (3rd and 4th dbl. Bass Trombone)
2 Tubas
Timpani
Percussion
2 Harps
2 Celestes/Pianos
14 Violins I
12 Violins II
10 Violas
10 Celli
6 Double Basses
Surely the score helps the director reinforce the mood(s) out forward by the picture
You can’t imagine how many bad scores have won oscars.Sometimes film music is not music
Then what exactly is music in your opinion?
That ”The Batman” wasn’t even nominated is BEYOND me
People forget that the score is to complement the film , not outshine it. It is probably the perfect score if you look at it that way
This is nonsense. Every great film music calls attention to itself in a film. The idea that the music must be insignificant is miserable.
This is a really good analysis on the musc of the film. Been looking fr this kinda video great work!
I LOVE this score (and am one of few how also likes listening to it away from the film hah). It's the score I would have picked, that would have gone to EEAAO, but I think this score deserved it's win and you laid out many great reasons as to why.
I saw a comment that said the score should have sounded like [Insert score for any other war film here] and I adamantly disagree with this, if only for the reason that this film is about the 'villains.' This film has a challenge of making us care about kids who don't realize they are fighting a losing war that their leaders started over petty hubris reasons and that will forever change their country internally and how it is viewed by the world for about 80 years. Whilst Saving Private Ryan, Atonement, and War Horse, are about the 'heroes' who risked their lives to save us, the tragedy it is to lose these great men who would die fighting Evil, this film is about the kids that were sucked into that evil and lost everything. Good kids that lost their lives for the villains, villains that don't even care when the war is over because their pride matters more. Scoring it like SPR would have and absolutely inappropriate and the filmmakers understood this. The score is mechanical to represent the oppression of industrialized war, spiritual as a cry out to god, with hints of folk to remind us of the every day people that were sucked into this monstrosity.
This score is subtext at its finest and it's clear Volker understands this. When watching the film the first time I kept thinking that the score felt almost spiritual and religious, as if the score was crying out "O Why, my God? Why must this happen?" there's a deep fated pain to it seeping through the entire score. In an interview Bertelmann states just this, that he wanted the score to feel religious. I think he succeeded.
AQOTWF is a fantastic score that I do think is deserving of it's win this year (though, truthfully, I would have been happy with just about any of the nominees - or heck, even the short list!) Thank-you for this video and spreading the appreciation for great art. Cheers!
What bothered me the most is not the string pads, but the fucking snares. The fucking snares in the most inappropiate of times, had me thinking I had a snare vst open and doing weird shit. It has probably the worst screen-music sync I've ever seen
I love the score, it really conveys the message that " this shit is not going to end well".
The Oscars got it right. Babylon's music might be the best but All Quiet on the Western Front had the best score matched with the movie. Hopefully, you get what I mean. It's not an award for Best Music it's an award for Best Music made for a film. All Quiet on the Western Front made me remember the unique score of Jaws in that it's a perfect match in both cases.
Alison MacKenzie, Actress, Producer, Orchestrator - AMPAS Member Since 1986: "All Quiet on the Western Front" won an 2023
Original Score Oscar which was outstanding in most cases. Because in many ways in the process of scoring a movie for filmmakers
that works with film and the story are spot on.
Outstanding score. Deserved the win IMO.
Also I’d just like to say this was an excellent analysis, well done.
Great analysis! Thank you very much!
The distorted synth/maybe cello line used was not my favorite and actually took me out of the movie a bit, but I think this is because I'm preconditioned to anticipate something more conventional for a film depicting the early 20th century vs. a sound that could've made an appearance in Bladerunner 2049 or the last Tron movie. On the flipside, makes sense that such a "rude" sound would rear its head given the overwhelming industrial presence in WWI (fierce shelling, tanks, machine guns). Sidenote on the movie: I much preferred this to 1917, because this is what WWI was, absolute hell.
I found that repetitive 3-note synth line annoying. Every time I heard it, I was like, "no, not this again". It too took me out of the movie, each time. So yes, colour me surprised it won the Oscar. However, I'm just one of the masses here, as I am neither a composer nor even a musician.
wirklich informativ gemacht. Danke, Joachim, Berlin
The score is Satanic, it's not depressing as much as horrifying. The music is 20th century and extremely effective, and the composer wasn't trying to impress anyone, just to do his job. It is extremely important to the film, because it removes the emotion of the characters and gives up a sort of superhuman spirit over the whole events, with malevolent intent.
To me, the main 3-note part reminds me a lot of the theme music from JAWS. It also makes me think of the creaking of a huge sinking ship - as in the Titanic movie. Really not so sure about it - does not sound all that original IMHO.
I gotta say, the whale had one of my favourite scores of all time. It made the simplistic set design and location feel so much more deep.
A brilliant and daring score. Having an overtly electronic soundtrack to such an historical time made for an interesting juxtaposition. It de-sentimentalized the whole approach. I can't imagine the horrors of war to have much to be sentimental about, and shouldn't. It would have been easy to have had a rousing orchestral score but it would have been not as interesting if it had. The score is one of the most arresting things about the film.
War is a boring horrific slog that drones on. The music should fit that theme.
The movies doenst have soo many musics cause music most of the time give an heroic feeling
All the songs on all quiet in the western front are random sounds to represent how pointless war is and has no heroism in it
I can't believe people complained the music didn't match the mood of the kids going to war. It's so clearly and obviously setting the mood of how naive and misinformed they are about what they are about to go through. The movie even has an extended scene literally showing us how bad it went for the group sent before them. It's clearly a soundtrack aimed at us the viewers, with the information we have available that the characters do not have. It almost makes you want to reach in and save them by telling them not to go.
It couldn't be more blatant, yet people missed it so badly and still expected a happy and excited soundtrack? It would have missed the mark so hard if it did and feel generic and paint by the numbers without any thought put behind it.
The score was phenomenal i added it to my playlist within first ever hearing it in the first few minutes of the film
Sound design was so great, win is deserved
ROFL the look on your face after watching was brilliant. I had a similar reaction tbh.
Its not meant to be musically pleasing, its meant to convey the mood at different times of the movie. Whether it be fear, tension or small bits of happiness, it does it right.
While ignoring the music itself for a moment - The points you made about the ideas and concept behind certain decisions make sense and are valid and I would agree with you on pretty much everything, however, I feel that one major flaw with the actual score was that it tore a stylistic hole into the entire movie. I, for one, started watching the movie not knowing what to expect at all, which was well before the Oscars took place or I read any comments about it. I was intrigued by the cinematography, the set design, the acting, and the editing, but I couldn't stand listening to that movie anymore after about 20 minutes. The music entirely ruined the experience for me.
Whenever I started getting into the story and experienced the environment, the music would come bashing in and remind me: "this is a movie, these are actors, that's a set".
I love when music is present and very noticeable in films, but it has to deserve to be present and noticeable by belonging and pulling you even further into the film. That did not work for me at all and it made me actually stop watching the movie.
But I also feel the need to point out another factor for the win: The other nominees. You have briefly touched on this in this video, however, I'm looking at that a bit differently.
I felt that all the other nominated scores were either incredibly bland or predictable and simply not special. I wouldn't have remembered any of them, but I would have remembered this one, albeit for not-so positive reasons. I believe this to have a significant impact on the Oscars winners for many categories actually, and I have a strong suspicion that for this, it might have been a close win too and may as well have been decided by rolling some dice. That's what the Oscars often feel like for many categories.
Just my thoughts, not that it matters. All suspicions and personal feelings too, just different opinions.
You nailed it. Deep Purple took a lot of heat for how basic "Smoke on the Water" is and now everyone gushes over the same three notes (in different order/ inversion).
That 3 note lick.
John Williams defined the horror blockbuster with just two notes. Hans Zimmer perfectly captured the Joker also with only two notes. Complexity is not necessary for greatness.
I think the reason the music got more beautiful overtime is because the end of War got nearer