It may not be the week’s biggest bit of Radiohead news, but the band’s Jonny Greenwood has been announced as the composer for a new film starring Tilda Swinton. Greenwood will score We Need to Talk About Kevin, the third feature by Scottish director Lynne Ramsay.
This is not Greenwood’s first time writing music for the big screen. His debut soundtrack, for Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood, won an Ivor Novello award. This was a minimalist work featuring tense, dissonant strings and tribal drumming. Greenwood also scored a Japanese adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood, which is due for release in the UK on 11 March.
We Need to Talk About Kevin is based on a novel by Lionel Shriver. It follows the story of a mother, played by Swinton, and her troubled son, who goes on a murderous rampage at his school. Ramsay, who made the acclaimed films Ratcatcher and Morvern Callar, has assembled a cast including John C Reilly and newcomer Ezra Miller. The film is in postproduction, according to the Hollywood Reporter, with a release planned for 2 September.
Ramsay has already demonstrated her good taste in film music by having Rachel Portman score Ratcatcher, and featuring songs by Boards of Canada, Aphex Twin and Broadcast in Morvern Callar. This is her first collaboration with Greenwood.
Radiohead announced yesterday that their eighth LP, The King of Limbs, will be released on Saturday.
(from the Guardian)