Argo (soundtrack)

"It's a movie which has two cycles, you know, there's the Hollywood cycle where we have to be a bit lighter, and there are all the spy Iranian settings. And I guess the challenge was to be able to keep the tension until the very end of the film and release when at last the hostages are released and on the plane. I have to navigate all that, you know, and find the tone, but Ben [Affleck] was really a great driver there."

— Alexandre Desplat, on the score for Argo.[3]

Alexandre Desplat considered the film as three films bound into one: an Iranian story, a Hollywood story and an airport escape, as three separate films. For the first story, he used an otherworldly sound to "underscore people surrounded by danger who don't know how to cope with it", and for the Hollywood story, he used a combination of period rock music, with more humorous cues, as Mendez (Affleck) executes a fake movie cover for an "escape plan". For the airport escape sequence, he used a more symphonic sound.[4] The first half of the film consisted of occidental music. Desplat used minimal underscore in the first 30-minutes of the film, as "There's a sense of danger that never stops, propelling both the characters and the story, which is what I tried to convey in the score". He composed the minimalist score with the use of ney, oud, kemenche, and Persian percussions.[4]

Desplat's likeness for Middle Eastern and Egyptian music, led him to blend indigenous instruments into the orchestral score.[4] He also roped various musicians from Turkey and France to work on the score, as well as Persian pop singer, Sussan Deyhim, whom Desplat had admired. Deyhim provided backing vocals to the instrumental track "Scent of Death" when Mendez arrives in Iran.[4] Desplat wrote a rhythmic motif for her, which consists of jazz scatting, but in a Persian way, and a lamenting melody. He blended her voice with the Middle Eastern and symphonic orchestras, but created a distinctive sound with Deyhim's voice being combined the sounds of oud and kemenche. Desplat provided melancholic cues for the album, which were The main theme, "The Mission" and "Missing Home", while for "Cleared Iranian Airspace", he used traditional and classical sound.[4]

Desplat mentioned of a strange and "otherwordly sound" created during the brief moments, with the use of melodies are played by the instruments and the singers at the same time, which gives an "alien texture" as the singers play the sound in unison. He recalled "I remember in the 70s, especially, people were not listening to this kind of music, from Pakistan or India, especially in America. That was the idea—Ben has tried to immerse us with all of the visuals of the 1970s. In the same way, the music is also trying to capture this gap between the American ear and the Middle Eastern ear."[5]

In an interview for Vanity Fair, he explained about the need for a gentle score, rather than relying heavily on suspenseful music, saying "There are plateaus and then you go up another notch and another notch and another notch until the finale. That was the main structural issue we had to discuss with Ben. When that was done, I suggested that when we hit the Iranian territory, we change the color of the music. It was a bit suspenseful but gently suspenseful, then light and gentle in the comedic moments because there is no way to be comedic with music."[5] He felt that the film would be very "chessy and unreal" if he opted to use a melody throughout the film, like The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), and the "beginning of the film was almost like cinema verité".[5]

The soundtrack was critically acclaimed. Nathan Cone of Texas Public Radio had stated the score "would be especially appealing to fans of world music, and once again illustrates the musical and dramatic range of Desplat" after the score for Zero Dark Thirty and Rise of the Guardians.[6]

James Southall of Movie Wave wrote "Desplat – renowned as a precise, sometimes even clinical, composer – has so successfully written music which conveys a genuine sense of chaos.  You never know quite what's round the corner and are constantly compelled to find out.  The dramatic drive that runs through it all is very powerful, as carefully-crafted as music by this composer always is, but with an unusual edge to it."[7] Jonathan Broxton wrote "no amount of beautiful patriotic orchestral music or intelligent application of electronic and vocal effects will counterbalance the wailing women and traditional instrumentation that pervades almost the entire score".[8]

Filmtracks.com wrote "Argo is far from revolutionary, but it intelligently tackles tired stereotypes with fresh new ideas, translating into a surprisingly smooth listening experience on album. This is the type of work that could easily garner awards consideration given its strengths and the nature of the film, and the score would deserve such recognition."[9]

Argo's score was shortlisted along with 104 other film scores for Best Original Score category at the 85th Academy Awards.[10] These included Desplat's other musical works such as Moonrise Kingdom, Rise of the Guardians and Zero Dark Thirty,[10] which was surpassed by Argo, to receive final nomination but lost to Mychael Danna's score for Life of Pi.[11]

• Argo (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) on AllMusic