One of the best things about Alejandro González Iñáritu‘s terrific film Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) was its improvised, jazz drum score from Antonio Sanchez. It was propulsive, exiting, odd, and is the only kind of music that could fit that film. And I do not know how much the movie works if you take his music out. I was looking forward to Sanchez garnering many accolades for his work, because he totally deserves it.
After being nominated for a Golden Globe, the natural next step would be an Academy Award nomination. Well… that will not happen. In a terrible decision, Sanchez’s score has been disqualified from the race. The film also features classical music, and the Academy concluded there is not enough original score in proportion to the already existing classical music.
Sanchez, in an interview with HitFix, talks about he just does not understand why he would be left out:
At first it seemed to be a simple error of tabulation from the cue sheets that Fox provided to the Academy. It showed that there seemed to be more classical music than original music. That was the first red flag for them. That’s why it was disqualified originally. Then there was a recount and they found a few mistakes in the accounting for time of original music versus licensed music. One of the rules is if it’s more than 50% licensed music, it’s disqualified. After they reviewed the cue sheets, it turned out I was well ahead of the classical music. We thought we were on really solid ground.
His score comes in at over half an hour, and the preexisting music only takes up seventeen minutes.
The Academy has a lot of stupid rules and regulations, and this certainly shows one of them. If I were in the Academy, this would be the score I would vote for, and to totally discount it for a mathematical reason that is not even true is a little ridiculous. I think this quote from Sanchez says it all:
I think it undermines the credibility of the score. It’s effective and groundbreaking! It’s daring. And, look, I’m a total outsider. When I got approached by Alejandro and what an amazing thing this became, that was the cake. Everything else with awards, that’s icing. I’m honored and thankful, but I would have felt the same way if it was disqualified for any award.
Academy, do the right thing and change this decision.
