One of the many brilliant elements of David Fincher’s
masterly The Social Network (2010) is
the soundtrack. Alec Wilkinson’s excellent “Music from the Machine,” a
profile of Trent Reznor, in this week’s issue, illuminates the process that
created the movie’s cerebrally beautiful score. Wilkinson says that when
Fincher asked Reznor to write the music for The Social Network, he told him he wanted “the sound of creativity.”
That request strikes me as dauntingly abstract. But I’m not possessed with
Reznor’s genius. Working in partnership with Atticus Ross, Reznor eventually
“sent Fincher about forty minutes of music.” Wilkinson quotes Fincher as
saying, “Of that forty minutes, I think we ended up using pretty much all of
it.” Wilkinson’s description of the opening track is fascinating:
“Hand Covers Bruise,” the theme of “The Social Network,” and
the first scored music in the movie, begins with a nervous drone that is Reznor
bowing a cello as fast as he can, but the sound has been manipulated, Nine Inch
Nails style – in such a way, that is, that it sounds like something else, in
this case a vibration from a loose piece of machinery. A halting and melancholy
piano line, twelve notes, in nearly identical phrases, descends just over an
octave, from an F-sharp to the tonic D.
Fincher’s initial response to this music, as reported by Wilkinson, is memorable: “‘I opened it on my computer, and I turned my speakers up loud, and it gave me chills,’ Fincher said. ‘How could something this simple be this profound?’” That’s my reaction, too. Like so many other aspects of The Social Network, its soundtrack is inspired.
Fincher’s initial response to this music, as reported by Wilkinson, is memorable: “‘I opened it on my computer, and I turned my speakers up loud, and it gave me chills,’ Fincher said. ‘How could something this simple be this profound?’” That’s my reaction, too. Like so many other aspects of The Social Network, its soundtrack is inspired.
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