Engage with These Revealing Secrets About American Beauty
Thomas Newman‘s Oscar-nominated score was both bright and pleasing to the ear while also carrying tension, drawing inspiration from German composer Carl Orff‘s Gassenhauer from the 1920s. Newman, with 15 Oscar nominations for scores in films like The Shawshank Redemption, Finding Nemo, and Skyfall, as well as American Beauty, has yet to secure a win, a shared record with the late Alex North.
“I remember driving around L.A. for the first time in my car, listening to this music over and over,” Mendes shared in 2019 on WNYC’s The Open Ears Project, “trying to get myself in the headspace to make a movie about American suburbia—even though I had never spent time in American suburbia myself. It was completely foreign to me.”
The Reading, England native continued with a chuckle, “And here was this piece of European classical music that somehow resonated with a different world and environment, and I found it truly inspiring.”
“Music transcends language in many ways,” Mendes elaborated. “One of its charms is that it bypasses words and direct storytelling. It’s also the quickest route to evoke emotions. Sometimes, you don’t even understand why you feel a certain way. Other times, it swiftly disperses emotions.”
Reflecting on Gassenhauer, Mendes added, “I feel a strange sense of nostalgia for a time before I delved into filmmaking. It felt like a new revelation.”