Description
Indie Store Exclusive
Tracklisting:
Side A:
A1. Hoyt’s Office
A2. Defeated Clown
A3. Following Sophie
A4. Penny in the Hospital
A5. Young Penny
A6. Meeting Bruce Wayne
A7. Hiding in the Fridge
A8. A Bad Comedian
A9. Arthur Comes to Sophie
Side B:
B1. Looking for Answers
B2. Penny Taken to the Hospital
B3. Subway
B4. Bathroom Dance
B5. Learning How to Act Normal
B6. Confession
B7. Escape from the Train
B8. Call Me Joker
Emmy Award-winning Hildur Guðnadóttir (Chernobyl, Sicario: Day of the Soldado) composed the 17-track soundtrack to director Todd Phillips’ original, standalone origin story Joker which explores the world of – and according to – Arthur Fleck. Indelibly portrayed by three-time Oscar nominee Joaquin Phoenix (The Master, Walk the Line, Gladiator), Arthur is a man facing the cruelty and outright scorn of society, along with the indifference of a system that allows him to spiral from vulnerability into depravity. Caught in a cyclical existence teetering on the precipice of reality and madness, one bad decision brings about a chain reaction of escalating, ultimately deadly, events. Phoenix stars in the titular role alongside Oscar winner Robert De Niro (Raging Bull, The Godfather: Part II) as Franklin.
The Joker soundtrack features the cello as the centerpiece of the score, leading string-based melodies played by a symphony orchestra of 90 musicians. To interpret the many themes explored throughout the film, director Todd Phillips very early on turned to the composer. “Hildur was writing music as far back as pre-production. I was sending her script pages and she was writing music before we even shot, and what she did for the film is so unique,” says Phillips.
Guðnadóttir remarks, “Todd asked me to write some music based on my feelings from reading the script, which I was inspired to do because it truly resonated with me.” She sent him a sample and recalls, “The film is a gritty character study, which to me translated to melodies that are very simple and monotonic, because that’s kind of the way Joaquin’s character Arthur is seeing things. Then I tried to expand within that simplicity the orchestration around Joker’s evolution not with chords or any complicated music, but with texture that I felt resonated with the melancholia of this character.”
