By Robert Goldrich, The Road To Oscar Series, Part 17

Composer Justin Hurwitz is a four-time Oscar nominee, the latest nod coming in January for Best Original Score on the strength of writer-director Damien Chazelle’s Babylon (Paramount Pictures). Hurwitz’s first three nominations came in 2017 for Chazelle’s La La Land with the composer winning two Academy Awards–for Original Score and Original Song (“City of Stars”).

In fact Hurwitz has composed the music for all of Chazelle’s feature films, including Whiplash and First Man.

Babylon spans the decades, resurrecting the silent film era–full of free wheeling, madcap hedonism and depravity–and then the advent of the talkies which slows down the decadence yet at the same time brings chaos to those trying to adapt to movies with sound.

The creative process with Chazelle on Babylon, like all their films together, entailed Hurwitz’s involvement early on. With Babylon, Hurwitz got underway well before shooting began on the movie. “As soon as he [Chazelle] had a draft of the script, he sent it to me. I went through marking it up where there would be music–some of which was obvious, some not so clear.” 

Hurwitz explored where the music ended or where it took the audience. There would be music that might start on a bandstand or a party or carry viewers to another scene, a montage or different locations. “I had to wrap my head around the architecture of the music as it related to the movie and the scenes as I was reading.”

Hurwitz created about an hour of music during pre-production, turning out demos based on Chazelle’s extensive storyboarding of scenes which amounted to thousands of pages. For some scenes, Chazelle worked with a professional storyboard artist. But overall the writer-director drew the lion's share himself. Sequences with stick figures based on those storyboards were cut with Hurwitz’s music demos. “They gave us a sense of how these sequences would unfold,” explained Hurwitz. “I would tailor the demos to the length I saw in the animatics. In some cases he [Chazelle] would tailor the animatics to the music. We developed the music and picture through give and take over a yearlong time of prep.”

Fast forward in the process and Hurwitz was on set for music days and then continued work over a year of postproduction. Again the dynamic of picture and music coming together with extensive creative give and take was the norm. Hurwitz’s office was next to the editing room where Chazelle’s long-time editor Tom Cross worked. Hurwitz would go into Cross’ room to look at picture. Chazelle would come in to hear music. “It was," related Hurwitz, "another year of going back and forth,” with artisans spanning images and sound collaborating under the same roof.

Hurwitz said there was plenty of room for musical inventiveness in Babylon. Chazelle and Hurwitz set out to bring a new dimension to music from the 1920s. While the composer explained that they wanted to keep the audience in that era, he and Chazelle aspired to give Babylon a musical feel of its own. “We wanted to avoid the familiar 1920s’ sound, using instruments of the period in a more contemporary manner, introducing some more rock ‘n roll-inspired writing, what Hurwitz described as “a very muscular riff-driven style.” In some respects the sound had one foot in the door of the 1920s, another foot in a more contemporary world, carrying a modern dance music vibe.

This dovetailed with the story. “Damien had written and created a take on the ‘20s we hadn’t seen before,” said Hurwitz, noting that the elaborate parties of that time were out of control, wild and hedonistic. “The music had to match that. It had to be a sound we hadn’t heard before.”

The creative license had some roots in history. The music and jazz we associate typically with the ‘20s was recorded–but that was back in the day when there was a lot more music being performed than what was actually recorded. Audio recording was a new technology, expensive and not accessible to all. Accounts of the underground music clubs from that era described the sounds as a lot more unbridled than what we think of as ‘20s music. It was a more vibrant and interesting music scene than just the sliver that was recorded. That was used as partial justification for creating music that smacked of the ‘20s but distinctly different than what we were accustomed to hearing in order to best tell the Babylon story.

For Babylon, Hurwitz got more heavily involved in the casting of studio musicians, going outside the usual feature talent pool for some key contributors. “We thought it was important to find musicians who had unique and special styles, voices of their own to bring to the music,” related Hurwitz. Among them was trumpeter Sean Jones. Hurwitz wasn’t familiar with Jones at first, learning later that he was legendary in jazz circles. Hurwitz found Jones during a YouTube search and sought him out. Still, it took an extended stretch to get him given his touring commitments and other endeavors. Hurwitz’s casting expedition for distinctive musicians also led him to trumpeters Dontae Winslow from Los Angeles and Ludovic Louis from Paris. Jones. Winslow and Louis performed on varied Babylon fronts, including the music of the film’s on-screen trumpet player, Sidney (portrayed by Jovan Adepo), who becomes a movie star of that era. 

Hurwitz’s search for musicians also turned up such special talents as saxophone players Jacob Scesney and Leo Pellegrino. The latter recorded from his bedroom in Philadelphia. Pellegrino and Scesney teamed to bring a dance sensibility to the movie. Hurwitz was struck by Pellegrino’s performance in a NYC subway captured on a viral video. Hurwitz was also drawn to Scesney’s virtuosity in the L.A. club scene. Hurwitz credited Scesney and Pellegrino with providing “dance music on the sax,” which infused scenes with a whole new energy. 

In addition to the Oscar nomination, Hurwitz’s work on Babylon garnered a BAFTA Film Award nomination and won the Golden Globe for Original Score this year. This marks the fourth Golden Globe win for Hurwitz who also took home the honor for First Man (Original Score) in 2019 and two for La La Land (Original Song and Original Score) in 2017. La La Land additionally netted Hurwitz a BAFTA Film Award for Original Music in ‘17.

This is the final installment of the weekly 17-part The Road To Oscar Series. SHOOT’s coverage continues with the Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday, March 12.

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