Justin Hurwitz may have just won yet another Golden Globe for ‘Best Original Score’, this time for his most recent project Babylon – but is this his best soundtrack? After the success of his previous scores for La La Land and Whiplash, Hurwitz has admittedly made the task of outdoing himself very difficult. Perhaps that’s why it’s such a challenge for Hurwitz to escape his previous scores (it doesn’t take a musical genius to hear that Babylon’s ‘Champagne’ is almost a direct copy of La La Land’s ‘Another Day of Sun’). Simply put, listening to the soundtrack of Babylon only makes me want to hear his better scores.
Hurwitz is at his best when he breaks away from the mould of film score stereotypes: across the films that he has worked on, it is clear that his scores aren’t simply ‘background music’. With a speciality in jazz, a genre notorious for its complexity and intricacies, Hurwitz’s scores stand out as something much more, a focal point in their own right. In fact, despite Babylon being set in the 1920s, Hurwitz states that he made an active effort to avoid taking inspiration from this period, claiming that this era of jazz is too “familiar”. It’s clear, then, the composer was adamant that his score should not be hidden in the wings, but rather centre stage. But in a film that is already overwhelming in its bright visuals, fast paced plot and overall chaos, is the score trying to do too much? Perhaps this desire for the limelight is due to the compositions themselves, but it’s also worth mentioning that a large number of the films that Hurwitz has worked on have musicians at the forefront of their narratives. Inevitably, the soundtracks play a more prominent role in these films than ones focused on scientists, painters or athletes.
A running theme throughout Hurwitz’s most successful projects is that each of his ‘big three’ (Whiplash, La La Land, and Babylon) have been written and directed by his long-term friend and collaborator Damien Chazelle. Their first collaboration, however, was a band that the two were members of during their university days at Harvard. As a musician himself, Chazelle clearly values music and storylines which so often follow an artist’s journey to greatness – Whiplash tells the story of an aspiring drummer and La La Land follows a jazz pianist and an actress. Is it then the case that he felt Hurwitz was the only one he could trust with the music of these stories?
La La Land in particular has been a true success amongst those of our generation, or at least takes the cake in my eyes. It’s danceable, it’s singable and, perhaps above all else, it’s relatable. Hurwitz has found a way to write jazzy melodies and funky riffs that somehow still pull at the heartstrings of the audience. He puts the ache and the pining of young love into songs that stay spinning around your head all day. La La Land is a film that encapsulates the potential of young love and the feeling that the possibilities are endless. But it also demonstrates the fine balance between optimism and realism. It’s a film that deals with love – not just romantic love, but love for passions and dreams. At the same time, it illustrates the hardship of achieving whatever it is that you truly want, something that many of us I’m sure relate to as we venture out and begin trying to achieve our own ambitions. In the opening scene, Hurwitz composes an upbeat, singalong number (‘Another Day of Sun’) which is remarkably optimistic about the possibilities that lie in Los Angeles, only to have this immediately juxtaposed with the traffic jam that follows right after, implying that this is the true reality of chasing a dream in LA. Call me a romantic, but Hurwitz takes all of this longing, dreaming, and loss and compiles it into a catchy jazz soundtrack. Surely this in itself is a huge accomplishment.
This desire to dream appears as a running theme in other works of Hurwitz. Whiplash takes a musician to his breaking point all in the hope that he may finally be able to achieve his dream of being a famous drummer. From the very first scene, Hurwitz composes drum patterns and solos that illustrate the protagonist’s desire to push himself beyond his limits and his need for greatness gained through sacrifice. This drummer is fuelled by a fear of mediocrity that pushes him almost to the point of madness. Hurwitz takes this desire and reflects it musically with rapid drumming that becomes more convoluted and impressive throughout the film. It is perhaps ironic that Hurwitz takes jazz, a genre commonly associated with easy listening and relaxation, and writes a score to accompany the story of a man who views his art as anything but. Being a musician himself, perhaps these are dreams and emotions that Hurwitz relates to and this is why his music fits the film so well.
At the end of the day, music is subjective. Whilst I’m such a fan of the La La Land soundtrack, you may find it repetitive, boring, or ill-fitting, and ultimately, neither one of us would be wrong. I can’t make a claim that Hurwitz is the best film composer of our time. But I can argue that he has made some extraordinary music. Hurwitz is a composer who seems to have a gift for turning the ordinary into something much bigger. Ryan Gosling walks down a pier. It’s a simple, mundane action. But suddenly, he starts singing ‘City of Stars’, and that mundane moment turns into a staple of cinema and brings tears to the eyes of thousands across the globe.