"A Ghost Story" - Score Review

a hauntingly gorgeous, utterly terrifying, viscerally painful story of loss, grief, the passage of time, and the voyage to genuine closure.

a tip to enjoy the film better:

let the scene of the dude in the party mansplaining nihilism and existentialism be ironic and satire - if you take this character seriously, you’re gonna let the whole film get ruined for you. i do not think it was written to be taken seriously - in fact, i believe the contrary.

a must must must watch.

regarding the score:

a masterclass in film composition. reminiscent of the brilliance of Bernard Hermmann, Thomas Newman, and Hildur Guðnadóttir, Daniel Hart masterfully nestles the music into the very DNA of A Ghost Story’s narrative. the music serves the story in 3 major ways:

1. Hart characterizes the spectral plane of existence that C is trapped in by uniquely deriving musical material that calls back to, but is not reductive of, pre-tonal, late-renaissance sacred composers (a brilliant narrative choice). this modal wondering and ancient antiquity that the score implies to the viewer creates the timeless stagnation that C has chosen for himself; to feel and experience eternal grief over a guaranteed afterlife of superficial bliss and nirvana. a tangible demonstration of his clear inability to let go of a love, house, and life he was unfairly robbed of and a testament of not just his, but also the viewer’s self-deprecating, unconditional love.

2. Diving further into Hart’s material, his cellular composition, famously demonstrated by Hermmann, gives the score its clear purpose. it’s purpose: penetrating the space between the screen and the audience. the neo-riemannian sonority transformation that acts as the main motive of the score suspends the viewer from reality and into the tangled web of the narrative. Hart’s score is not just supplemental; in other words, the music is not just in the film for directional pathos. it is as integral to the film as its claustrophobic, atypical 1.33:1 aspect ratio and its voyeuristic digital-camera medium. it is as much of a ghost as C is, and it is as silent in the film as C’s ghost is - yet they both paradoxically howl loss, grief, and antiquity at the audience in a reserved, intimate, and nuanced whimper.

3. the texture of the strings specifically feels as delicate and fleeting as the smoke that transcends a candle, or the breath of a loved one in a cold winter’s night; you try to touch it, control it, trap it - it’s gone. as is love, as are memories, and as is time. all three of these fragilities are characterized by the specters in this story (exemplified by C and the neighbor’s disappearance upon their reconciliations) and it is no coincidence that Hart characterized this in his orchestration as well.

i could go on. destructively beautiful film. this film will haunt me for a very, very long time (pun intended).

Carson Zuck

October 16th, 2024