Towards the end of last year, writer/director Rian Johnson and Netflix released the third entry in the Benoit Blanc mystery series. As expected, it was thrilling, engaging, taught, layered, and chock full of the Kentucky-fried wit that makes the series and character so enjoyable. It was also the most complex head-scratcher in the saga.
If you weren’t busy enough asking who? why? and how the hell? in this gothic whodunit, you were likely asking the same thing about elements of the score. And who is the culprit behind this soundtrack? That would be Nathan Johnson – series regular and usual suspect in the Johnson-verse. Their collaboration has spanned decades and numerous projects (they are cousins, fyi) but something else magical happens whenever they work together: the score tends to get a gorgeous physical release.*
We caught up with this marvelous music man about the palette and experimentation in Wake Up Dead Man. You’d be surprised at just how much work and tweaking Nathan had done just to craft the simplest sounding tunes and sounds coming through your speakers. Among the many unique and boutique elements, the track “False Priest” is where one such machination is prevalent in the film. And, like clues, there are others just waiting to be found.
Enjoy our chat with Nathan on this episode of The GoSeeTalk Podcast Experience!
*Mutant, in partnership with Cut Narrative and Netflix, are proud to present Nathan Johnson’s incredible score to Rian Johnson’s third Benoit Blanc Mystery Wake Up Dead Man which you can get at the Mutant website.
The darkest of the series to date, Nathan Johnson pivots nimbly from the brighter globe-trotting previous entry Glass Onion to a gothic and beautifully haunted score. Nathan’s signature strings launch you into the heart of darkness of Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude, a troubled church in upstate New York due for a reckoning.
Emotionally powerful but never dour, Nathan’s score is a brilliant continuation of one of the most tonally distinct and unique murder mystery series of all time.
