Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross: ‘Intriguing Possibilities’


Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross were last night awarded the 2011 Oscar for Best Original Score, for their work on David Fincher’s The Social Network.

The duo’s soundtrack – which is guided by pensive synthesizer work in the spirit of John Carpenter and Howard Shore but tempered by delicate, agreeably sentimental piano melodies and, at the other end of the scale, occasional lurches into pounding EBM/techno territory – feels like a deserving winner, beating off John Powell’s How To Train Your Dragon, Hans Zimmer’s Inception, Alexandre Desplat’s The King’s Speech and AR Rahman’s 127 Hours.

Though in it’s totality not what we’d call a masterpiece, The Social Network OST’s wonderfully blue main theme ‘Hand Covers Bruise’ and the aptly named ‘Intriguing Possibilities’ alone are worthy of lavish praise, and were crucial to the film’s peculiarly affecting mood.

Nine Inch Nails man wins Academy Award: it must be 2011.