For those not familiar, He Shoots He Scores is a fortnightly feature here at Southern Vision where I look at a great film score or soundtrack and highlight its excellence. This week’s score is Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s mammoth 3-hour composition for David Fincher’s recent film The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
I just recently bought this soundtrack and last night and this morning sat down to listen to it properly, and unsurprisingly I’m very impressed. I did hear bits and pieces of it when I watched Fincher’s movie a few days ago, but it was really nice to hear the score on its own. There are 39 tracks, 37 of them original compositions by Reznor and Ross, and there is not a single bad apple among the bunch.
Some are moody, evocative and slow like Another Way of Caring and Under the Midnight Sun, whereas others are frenetic and fast-paced like Oraculum and A Thousand Details. In general, the slow and sadder pieces like What if We Could and One Particular Moment appealed to me more, but the energy of A Thousand Details and An Itch also had me engaged. As a whole, it is a fascinating score to listen to and a more-than-decent way to spend a few hours.
Below I’ve included a few of my favorite tracks on YouTube: