The Stars of Stage and Screen…Song #51/250: Lisbon by Jerskin Fendrix from the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack of the Film Poor Things

Academy Award season is at hand. It wasn’t all that long ago that Hollywood was paralyzed by crippling strikes and there was some debate as to whether there would be an Academy Award season at all this year. But here we are. Luckily for all involved, the strike was settled and a boatload of excellent movies hit the screen almost all at once in order to qualify to be nominated in time for the Oscars.

Of the movies that are nominated, I saw the Barbie movie starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling in a theatre with scores of people who were sobbing openly at its conclusion. (I wrote about that movie in a previous post that you can read here).  I thought that it was really well done. Whether Academy voters will view it as the serious movie that it is remains to be seen. If it were to win the Oscar for Best Picture I would be OK with that. 

I have not seen Oppenheimer, but those people I know who have all said that it was a very good movie as well. Cillian Murphy should be a lock for Best Actor. Robert Downey Jr. has done well in other awards ceremonies earning a couple of nods as Best Supporting Actor, so he is definitely a favourite for that prize with Oppenheimer, too. For a long while, Barbie and Oppenheimer seemed like they had the Oscar field all to themselves. But just like the horse race that it is, three other movies are pouring it on as we come down the stretch to the finish line. All three of these movies are receiving Academy Award buzz and are making the Best Picture race as close as it has been in years.  

Killers of the Flower Moon is the Martin Scorsese directed film that examines one aspect of how white American settlers systematically wiped out the various tribes who lived on the lands of the Great Plains. This film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert Deniro and Lily Gladstone, all of whom earned Oscar nods for their work. This movie was inspired by true events and is a dark horse lurking amid the pack. It may be completely overlooked or it may become the favoured one and sweep through the categories in which it is nominated. Neither would be a surprise.

The Holdovers stars Paul Giamatti, Dominic Sessa and Da’Vine Joy Randolph in a character study/comedy/drama that takes place at a private boarding school over the Christmas holidays when one surly professor, one mischievous student and one hard working, grieving cafeteria worker are all forced to spend time together. All three actors have earned nominations in other awards celebrations this year, with Randolph taking the Best Supporting Actress award several times. The Holdovers is considered one of the best movies of the year and has an outsider’s shot at taking home the big prize of Best Picture.  

Maestro is the Bradley Cooper-helmed biopic of the life and times of conductor Leonard Bernstein. Directors Martin Scorcese and Steven Speilberg are involved in Maestro, so it is no surprise that the movie has garnered multiple nominations at the Golden Globe Awards and the Screen Actors Guild Awards. However, even though it is making a late charge, Maestro is probably filler in the Best Picture category this year. It is still a movie that is well worth watching, especially if getting a behind-the-scenes look at how major orchestras work is of interest to you. 

This brings us to a nominee for Best Picture that actually has a bettor’s chance of winning it all, and that is Poor Things. I think that this movie is absolutely amazing. As much as I am cheering for Barbie to win it all, I would be equally as happy if Poor Things won it all, too. In today’s post I will elaborate a little bit about why I feel Poor Things is such a great movie and why I think it will come away with several Oscars before the Academy Awards night is through.

If you are a faithful reader of this series, then you will know that I am drawn toward movies that are creative, original and offbeat. If a movie is quirky, then butter my popcorn because I will probably be invested before too long. Poor Things is a textbook case of a movie being weird and bizarre in the most wonderful of ways. It is a difficult movie to describe in a way that will prepare you for the experience of seeing it in real time. The movie was directed by a man named Yorgos Lanthimos, who has received several Academy Award nominations in the past for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. Lanthimos directs movies that stay far away from cinematic formula. Consequently, he has developed a reputation for being a director who makes movies as if he was an abstract painter. Poor Things is a movie that seamlessly integrates visual imagery, auditory music and sounds, our own societal expectations and experiences, religion, steampunk sci-fi, comedy, feminism and the process of growing up from childhood to adulthood all into one cohesive, all-encompassing movie experience that is unlike anything most people have ever imagined possible from a big budget movie. It is definitely a movie that is more than the sum of its parts. If Poor Things wins the Academy Award for Best Picture…and it just might…it will be because of the unbelievable way in which director Lanthimos has managed to create a movie that in function and form operates like a human body. None of the elements of the movie work independently of the others, but together, they function as miraculous extensions of themselves, just as the parts of a body do. Like I said, Poor Things is a weird and wonderful movie, but its essence is hard to capture in words. Let me give it a try, though. Here we go.

The storytelling foundation of Poor Things was inspired by Mary Shelley’s classic tale, Frankenstein. Without giving away any spoilers, I can tell you that the movie begins with a mad scientist type named Godwin Baxter (played by Willem Dafoe) who comes into possession of the body of a pregnant suicide victim (played by Emma Stone…who will win the Academy Award for Best Actress). In order to bring her back to life, Dr. Baxter transplants the still-living brain of the unborn child into Emma Stone’s character’s skull. She is reborn and is renamed Bella Baxter. Thus, Emma Stone begins the movie as an adult woman who views the world with a newborn baby’s mindset. In order to give you some idea of how every single aspect of this movie works in unison with each other, these initial scenes are filmed in black and white as a tip of the hat to the original Frankenstein movie. The musical soundtrack is strident and abrasive and herky-jerky because it is acting as a Greek chorus for what is going on in Bella Baxter’s mind as she begins moving about her world in a woman’s body with a baby’s mind. As such, the musical score is reflective of her state of mind in the same way that our breathing becomes faster or calmer, more forceful or shallower depending on our emotional state. There is a symbiosis at play that runs throughout the entire journey of discovery that Emma Stone takes in this film. 

Poor Things has also come to be regarded as a feminist movie of sorts. Its take on the impact of being a woman in today’s society is different from the thorough examination the subject received in the Barbie movie. In that movie, Barbie learns that the promise of feminism that she always believed being Barbie represented for millions of young girls was not, in fact, the way the real world worked for women. Coming to terms with that revelation, as well as her role in causing hardships for women in a modern world, is part of what gives the Barbie movie such emotional depth and societal importance. In Poor Things, the exact opposite scenario is at play. In this movie, Bella Baxter enters the world looking like a woman but with the mindset of a toddler. She had no preconceived notions of how she is supposed to act or what the “rules” are for women in a modern world. When Bella heads out into the world, she simply is who she wants to be. She doesn’t know to conform in any manner because of her gender. Part of the social commentary that arises from Poor Things is watching a completely uninhibited woman working her way through a steampunk version of Victorian society and watching the men in her life trying to control her or “reel her in”, as it were. That a woman is/was expected to be passive and polite and subservient to a man, especially while in public, is one aspect of the moral spine of the story being told in Poor Things. Watching a woman experiencing her world with the ferocity of a child who demands to know “Why?!” when forced to heel because of arbitrary rules imposed upon her gives Emma Stone ample scenery to chew throughout the course of the entire film. Hers is a tour-de-force performance that should elevate her into the upper echelon of top actresses today (for those who don’t already consider her in that way). In order to give you a sense of how this comedy works, I want to stop the post and have you watch a short clip from the film. This clip is a scene that happens inside a club where dancing is taking place. Bella has gone off to learn about the world with a lawyer played by Mark Ruffalo (who will be nominated for Best Supporting Actor and is just as likely to win as will Robert Downey Jr.). In this scene you will get a good sense of the quirky, no-filtered personality of Bella Baxter and how futile it is for Ruffalo’s character to try to tame her. The comedic aspect of this scene is one that travels all throughout the film. As well, pay attention to the brief glimpse you will get of the orchestra. Look at the instruments being used. The actors playing the band members are the actual band members themselves. This band was playing these unusual instruments in real time every time the scene was shot. It is just one more example of the attention to detail that this movie possesses and how everything is so closely woven into the overall fabric of the film. So, let’s stop and watch the movie clip here.

Normally in these music/movie posts, I pull out a song from the soundtrack that is showcased in a way that represents important elements of the movie in question. However, I can’t really do that with Poor Things, because there are no “singles” in the sense of what we consider a song to be. Instead, there are snippets of sounds put together by first-time movie score composer Jerskin Fendrix. As stated before, these “songs” are actually elements of Bella Baxter’s mindset, her thoughts and her emotions. They aren’t constructed to place melodies and harmonies on top of a scene and create artificial emotions as a result. Instead, all songs on the soundtrack act as reflections or mirrors for each scene. In Poor Things, music and visuals, such as set designs and cinematography, act as portals into Bella Baxter’s emotional state, her thought processes at any given time, and show us how she views the world. It is not surprising that the times when Bella is filled with wonder involve scenes with brightly coloured skies or overly lush gardens or wide expanses of storm tossed oceans. I can’t stress this enough, it is everything taken together, just like how our own bodies work, that makes Poor Things such an extraordinary movie. The structure of the movie is the embodiment of the miracle of life, which, if you remember how this whole movie started, may just be the whole point of it all.

I will end this post with some predictions. First of all, I believe that Poor Things stands a good chance at winning Best Picture. Knowing how the Academy tends to work, I would place money on Oppenheimer, but in my heart of hearts, I think Poor Things has a chance to win it all. Regardless of what happens in that category, I do believe that Poor Things will bring home at least three, if not four or five Oscars. It will win for Best Actress, Best Cinematography, Best Set Design and maybe, just maybe, Best Costumes and Best Supporting Actor for Mark Ruffalo. As for music, the Academy offers a statuette for Best Song, as opposed to best use of music or best overall soundtrack. The Oscar for Best Song will go to Billie Eilish for “What Was I Made For?” from the Barbie movie. But when it comes to the best use of music in a movie, Poor Things should win in a walk. How director Lanthimos and composer Fendrix used the sounds of music as the soundtrack of Bella Baxter’s breathing and her thoughts was amazing and deserving of recognition, for sure!

If you like your movies straightforward, told in a linear fashion, with the ending tied together with a bow, then Poor Things is probably not the movie for you. However, if you are like me and value originality, creativity and attention to detail, then Poor Things is a cinematic experience like no other. It is amazingly good! I highly recommend it for those of you with adventurous souls. 

The link to the video for the trailer for the movie Poor Things can be found here.

The link to the video for the instrumental song “Lisbon” from the original soundtrack for the film Poor Things can be found here. ***To be honest, I found it hard to listen to this as a stand-alone track. But as to how it is used in the actual movie, I think it is perfect.

The link to a video that contains an interview with composer Jerskin Fendrix about how he came to be involved in this project can be found here. It is instructive to watch this interview, as it reinforces some of what I was attempting to explain and often does so in a better way than I was able to manage. So, go ahead and give it a view.

***As always, all original content contained within this post remains the sole property of the author. No portion of this post shall be reblogged, copied or shared in any manner without the express written consent of the author. ©2024 http://www.tommacinneswriter.com