Five Best Film Scores: Christophe Beck

Welcome back to Five Best Film Scores, a series where I select a film composer and select, well,  his or her's five best film scores. Today's symphonist: Christophe Beck.

Christophe Beck's experience with film scoring began when he attended the USC Thornton School of Music, where he taught by the great Jerry Goldsmith. At one point, he studied and worked under Mike Post, another composer who is best known for creating the theme songs of TV shows like "Law & Order" and "The A-Team." After doing uncredited music on some of Post's projects, he was hired to do the score for the TV show, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," which he did from 1997 to 2001. In 1998, Christophe Beck won an Emmy while working on the series. That's just the work that he did for television shows.

As for feature films, his discography is all over the place. Christophe Beck's first film project was for the direct-to-DVD flop called "Past Perfect," released in 1996. From then on, he's been scoring films from all different genres. Kudos to him for the variety. One of the great things about him and his music, is that he doesn't team with one single director, he teams with multiple directors, each with their own style. Because of that, he's amassed a discography with a variety of scores with their own separate style. That's what makes the composer so perfect to be the subject of an article like this. To see what he's five best works are. Let's begin with number five.

5. Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief

"Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief" isn't unbearable, but the whole film is a muddled affair which enables for certain positive elements to come to light. Quite often, there are those films that turn out to be terrible, but one of the few redeeming qualities of said film is the musical score. This is one of those times.

From the main theme alone, the score establishes the film as a thrilling adventure. Granted, the adventure in the film isn't as epic as I'm making it out to be, but on the flip side, the main theme sounds like the distant cousin of John Williams' theme for the famous "Indiana Jones" franchise. The only difference is that the music contains a certain mythical element to make it fit more into its setting and as a film that strongly incorporates greek mythology, it fits in alright.

Though what's happening on screen isn't that engaging, the music does its best to tether you to the film enough that you somewhat get caught up in the thick of things. It makes you feel emotions that you're supposed to have for the characters. Sure, this is basic qualifications for a great score, but it's impressive considering the lack of effort seen in the film's other areas. In fact, the score is the element of the film that pulls a significant amount of weight. So much so, that for as poorly-written as the dialogue in the film is, the music is so good that it successfully makes you forgot the lesser dialogue. I don't want to oversell it, but Christophe Beck's work is too good for the lackluster film it accompanies and is undeserving of such passion.

4. Edge of Tomorrow

Now here's a musical score with an interesting history. "Edge of Tomorrow," the critically-praised science-fiction film, had much more of a troubled production beyond its botched marketing campaign and seemingly uninteresting title.

"How to Train Your Dragon" composer, John Powell, was director Doug Liman's first choice to compose. Because he was on sabbatical, "Iron Man," "Game of Thrones," and "Pacific Rim" composer, Ramin Djawadi, was all set to compose this film until he was unceremoniously left this project for some unknown reason. As a late addition, Christophe Beck stepped in and composed his first score for a science-fiction film.

To get into the right mindset, Christophe Beck watched the film and installed music from the 2012 film, "Battleship," often repeating the same tracks to play along this film's montage of the days repeating themselves. This approach did not work as it quickly became known to the composer that though repeating the same tracks fit into the film thematically, the repetition got old quick and the music got stale. While writing his own score, Beck was instructed by Doug Liman to not make a "traditional hero theme." You know, ones that feature horns and trumpets as the key ingredient. Instead, Liman recommended a score led by percussion and distorted orchestra, and that's what I love most about this score.

"Edge of Tomorrow" is set in a version of Earth that's mostly a war-torn wasteland. All color and positive energy is sucked out of the film, making a clear path for its music to fit perfectly. Despite repeating the same music when appropriate, the themes don't go stale. If anything, they heighten the sense of danger every time they repeat. The gritty and unrelenting tone of the film is encapsulated by its score alone. Sure, we quickly get invested in the lead characters and watching them figure out the best way to survive as the days reset adds further interest, but the score oozes absolute terror like a rollercoaster full of things that make your stomach churn. Perhaps that's not the best comparison, but you know what I'm trying to say. That is, for a film subtitled "Live. Die. Repeat." and with a tone matching that serious subtitle, Christophe Beck made a score that fits right in and is one of the standouts of the experience the movie provides you.

3. Frozen

Before you jump to conclusions, Christophe Beck had little-to-no involvement in the making of the lyrical songs for "Frozen." He may have worked with Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez to properly arrange the soundtrack as a whole. However, they did not collaborate together beyond that, so the score's placement here has nothing to do with the film's songs like "Let it Go" or "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?"

Regardless, I don't care because I have an unpopular opinion and that is that Beck's score for "Frozen" is more noteworthy than the Lopez's songs. Perhaps, right now, you're saying either aloud or in your mind, "No! This cannot be true! Blasphemy!" Be calm and wait for my explanations.

Sure, the songs, some of them at least, aren't bad. I would like them more if they weren't so overplayed in today's world, but for what they are, they're okay. Anyway, when "Frozen" came out, other than being ignored for saying that the film was just okay, I was personally engaged in Beck's work more than Lopez's. That all comes from the atmosphere of the compositions. To me, the Lopez's songs had a more modern tone to them, something that I don't think worked given the time period and overall design of the film. Beck's work, however, fits in with the film. It's composed of instruments that hail from Norway, the regional setting of "Frozen." The score makes maximum usage of the regional instruments and traditional vocal techniques.

With the Norwegian-inspired architecture, I listen to this score and I'm reminded of it. I instantly think of the film's environments, such as the colorful and detailed buildings as well as the picturesque mountains. These feelings earn "Frozen" positive points in my book. Really, there's no doubt in mind that Christophe Beck's score takes up a decent chunk of the nice things that I have to say about "Frozen."

2. Ant-Man and the Wasp

Unfortunately, "Ant-Man and the Wasp" hasn't exactly gone down as a memorable installment in the MCU, which is troubling considering that it came out only four months ago. To me, that's a shame. I do believe that it should be remembered by more people and one of the areas where it should be remembered the most is for its musical score.

Mere days prior to seeing this film in theaters, I partnered with the Superhero MovieCast podcast and together, we shared our opinions on the ten best superhero film scores. If only this had come out earlier because I would've included it in my rankings, but hey, the past is in the past. As of right now, I believe that "Ant-Man and the Wasp" would earn a spot on the list and here's why.

Following the mid-credits scene, I was in a daze. I did not predict Marvel Studios taking the characters in the direction that it did. To help perplex me even more, Beck played his finishing track,"Anthropodie," over the ending credits. It proved to be a dour and more energized update of the Ant-Man theme that Christophe Beck gave us in the original "Ant-Man." Where the original screamed fun and games and had that heist film feel that that it was all about, this new theme was the complete opposite. It screamed urgency and emanated loss. Fitting, seeing as it played mere seconds after *********************************. I was listening to the track on repeat days after seeing the film for the first time. I still listen to it today and few recent scores have that effect on me.

Though "Anthropodie" is my personal favorite part of the soundtrack, the "Prologue" track was a powerful kickstart to the entire film and successfully engrossed me into the story. It conveyed a sense of intrigue, not entirely unlike the original film. This ended up being different when the music became all about the tragedy of Hank's loss. No doubt, a great opening, but it's time to get to the unique theme given to The Wasp.

Not only is "It Ain't Over Till the Wasp Lady Stings" a clever title for a character's theme, but it is a jovial yet serious set of tunes for an appropriately optimistic and strong-willed heroine. It gets to shine the most during the artistic part of the ending credits, but you can certainly hear it playing in the background when the titular heroine takes on her first group of baddies. In short, Christophe Beck's follow-up score for the second "Ant-Man" film added whole new themes while improving on the established music that seemed top-tier to begin with.

1. Paperman

Would you consider it embarrassing if a score that's only five minutes long is able to beat out scores that are longer and have more quantity? No, I would not.

At first, "Ant-Man and the Wasp" was going to be in this spot, but then I listened to Christophe Beck's score for the short film, "Paperman." Not that I hadn't seen the short or hadn't listened to its music before, but when going through Beck's discography and searching for the best possible scores, "Paperman" stuck out like a sore thumb in the best way possible.

"Paperman" is my number one choice for numerous factors and it's these factors that give it an advantage over its competitors. For starters, because it's made specifically for a short film and has a short length as such, it's hard for it to have any weak points. I'm not going to pretend like the scores that I just listed were always fantastic. There were one or two tracks that serve as simple filler and nothing more. With "Paperman," it's a whole different ballpark. The score is made up of one track. One. It's hard to have flaws in one track and speaking of which, that one track has no weakness.

Another reason why this is number one is because the short film that the score accompanies is silent. You hear no words from the characters in it. Yes, you hear them inhale, exhale, sigh, and snicker on occasion, not to mention hear the sound of wind, paper, and other sounds made when characters interact with objects, but that's only when the score lets the scene speak for itself. Otherwise, it's Christophe Beck's simple music playing over a simple and effective love story. His music makes you feel everything you're meant to feel. That is, emotions that the music lets you feel within the context of the story. You can feel the composer's passion infused in this music. It's like the score is drenched in it. It is clear that "Paperman" is his best work, even with a wide catalogue to choose from. Don't believe me? Just watch the short, pay attention to the music, and you'll likely feel the same way.

Conclusion

Another composer covered. I hope you all enjoyed this article about Christophe Beck and his gifted work. With this series, I encourage you to share a composer whose work you'd like to be the subject of the next installment. Thanks for reading, I'm Dallin, your resident Film Fanatic, and I'll see you next time with another editorial.