Thomas
Newman‘s
Oscar-nominated
score
was so him—bright
and
pleasing
to
the
ear
and
yet
somehow
fraught
with
tension—but
it
was
also
inspired
by
German
composer
Carl
Orff’s Gassenhauer from
the
1920s.
(Newman,
meanwhile,
has
15
Oscar
nominations
for
his
scores
(for
films
such
as
The
Shawshank
Redemption,
Finding
Nemo
and
Skyfall
in
addition
to
American
Beauty)
and
no
wins,
a
record
he
shares
with
the
late
Alex
North.)
“I
remember
driving
around
L.A.
for
the
first
time
in
my
car,
listening
to
this
music
over
and
over,”
Mendes
recalled
in
2019
on
WNYC’s
The
Open
Ears
Project, “trying
to
get
myself
in
the
headspace
to
make
a
movie
about
American
suburbia—and
I’d
never
spent
any
time
in
American
suburbia
myself.
It
was
completely
alien.”
The
native
of
Reading,
England,
added
with
a
laugh, “And
here
was
this
piece
of
European
classical
music
that
somehow
spoke
to
a
different
world
and
a
different
environment,
and
I
found
it
genuinely
inspiring.”
Music “defies
language
in
so
many
ways,”
Mendes
continued. “It’s
one
of
its
joys,
that
it
takes
words
and
direct
meaning,
narrative
out
of
the
equation.
It’s
also
the
fastest
way
to
generate
emotion.
Sometimes
you
don’t
deserve
the
emotion
it
generates.
Sometimes
it’s
the
quickest
way
to
dissipate
emotion.”
And
listening
to
Gassenhauer,
he
added, “I
feel
strangely
nostalgic
for
a
time
before
I
made
any
films.
It
was
a
new
discovery.”
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