To many, music is an integral part of cinema. So many iconic films have just as iconic scores. Original scores add to the experience of movies in a very special way. As I have fallen deeper and deeper into my movie obsession, that I am thankful this website has given me an outlet for, my opinion on scores in movies has begun to shift. I started thinking about how some movie scores seemed manipulative and unnecessary, but my opinions on music in movies all culminated when I recently saw The Zone of Interest.

The Zone of Interest is a film that has two songs composed for it. That may sound like the score would start to get repetitive as the movie went on, but the thing is, there are only two times in the movie when this music, composed by Mica Levi, is used. During the opening three minutes of black screen one song plays, and during the credits, the other song plays. During the movie itself, there is zero music. The Zone of Interest is a film where you view Nazis living directly next to Auschwitz. You are trapped in the lives of these despicable people, but the thing is, their lives feel so normal and the characters feel so familiar. It’s a film that wants you to think about humanity, and you and the people around you’s own morality. It wants you to think about how so many people have stood by as horrible things take place, and if you would do the same. You are stuck with these terrifying thoughts for the entire runtime, and there is no score for you to cling onto. Nothing to help you escape from your feelings. The more I think about The Zone of Interest, the more I begin to believe that it was the best movie of 2023.

When I imagine an alternate version of The Zone of Interest when there is a score playing throughout, some booming dramatic music or maybe something creepy and disturbing sounding, it begins to fall apart. It is a film that needs to feel real, and the more music you put over something, the less real it becomes. It is a film that is confident enough in its writing, directing, and acting that it doesn’t feel the need to try to manipulate your feelings and emotions with a score playing throughout. It knows that you will feel these things regardless. 

I had heard people call scores manipulative before, but the first time I really felt this was when I watched the 2022 movie, The Whale. The Whale is an incredibly depressing movie, and it communicates these sad emotions greatly through its writing and acting. Even though, for some reason they still felt the need to utilize this very sappy and overbearing score, designed to create miserable emotions inside of you, but honestly, it made the movie less emotionally impactful for me, as it sorta broke my immersion.

There are certain films and certain genres that I think can be enhanced by a score. Action movies are a great example, as a thrilling score can add to the exhilaration you are meant to feel from an action movie. Oldboy (the 2003 original version, not the awful 2013 remake) is a great example of a film that’s action scenes are enhanced by the score, composed by Cho Young-wuk. If a movie is trying to create a vibe, a fitting score can do wonders. For example, my favorite film score of all time, Jerskin Fendrix’s score for Poor Things. Scores can work really well in certain dramas if they are used to set tone, such as Robbie Robertson’s fantastic score for The Killers of the Flower Moon. I just truly believe that any horror or emotional scenes in anything should not be accompanied by a score, as the audience should already be feeling the intended emotions regardless, and like I already said, it just makes the scenes feel less real. Because of that fact, a horror scene with no music will always be scarier and more tense than a horror scene with music, and a sad scene will always be more emotional without music than with music.

I really hope that The Zone of Interest is influential in its decision to forgo a score during the movie itself, as I think this decision would enhance the effectiveness of many films, as well as TV shows, as there are also cases of scenes in shows being bogged down by an overbearing score. For example, there is a scene in the finale of The Bear  Season 2 (wonderful season of television by the way) where a sappy song playing really took me out of it. But if you take anything away from this article, watch The Zone of Interest. It is an achievement like you have never seen before.