Soundtracking with Edith Bowman

Our latest guest on Soundtracking is truly born into cinematic royalty. Writer / director Edoardo Ponti is the son of Sophia Loren and Carlo Ponti, who produced Dr Zhivago among many, many other films.  Edoardo's latest project is The Life Ahead, which stars his mother as a former prostitute who forms an unlikely bond with a Senegalese street kid. You can watch it on Netflix now, and we highly recommend you take the time. Edoardo brims with enthusiasm, and has a mischievous sense of humour, making this a jolly entertaining listen indeed.

Our latest guest on Soundtracking is American playwright and film and theatre director, George C Wolfe. Now it's with a certain sadness we welcome George to the show, as his latest offering Ma Rainey's Black Bottom also happens to be Chadwick's last performance before his passing. But what a performance it is, as he and Viola Davis put on a virtuoso show as the eponymous blues singer and the trumpeter in her band.  It's available to watch on Netflix now - so you can see for yourself why it landed numerous award nominations and received widespread critical acclaim.

Our latest guest on Soundtracking is a composer whose name has been mentioned on countless occasions on this podcast, such has been his productivity across the diverse world of screen music Ilan Eshkeri has worked on numerous films, TV shows and video games - the latest of which is the quite simply breathtaking Ghost Of Tsushima for the PS4. He's also scored four documentaries for David Attenborough, including A Perfect Planet, which you can watch on the BBC iPlayer right now.  He's also built up several strong creative partnerships over the years with the likes of Matthew Vaughn, Ralph Fiennes and Mat Whitecross.

Our latest guests on Soundtracking are a husband and wife duo responsible for some of the most memorable original tracks to feature on our screens in recent times. For Bobby Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez are the couple who wrote the songs in Frozen and Coco, winning Oscars for standouts Let It Go And Remember Mer respectively.  Now they have contributed theme tunes to episodes of the quite extraordinary WandaVision, which is streaming now on Disney +. Set in the Marvel Comic Universe, WandaVision takes place after the events in Avengers: Endgame, and sees Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany reprise their roles from the film series.  Beyond that, it's quite hard to explain what's going on, so you'll just have to investigate for yourselves! 

Our latest guests on Soundtracking are a duo who've combined to great effect on the haunting drama and character study, Luxor.As we'll hear, writer / director Zeina Durra contacted Venezuelan composer Nascuy Linares somewhat out of the blue to score her film, which tells the story of an aid worker who heads to Egypt to escape the horrors of the civil war in Syria, and runs into an old flame while she's there. Andrea Riseborough's performance in the lead role is something to behold, as are the locations and cinematography, so do check all of the above out on home entertainment formats as and when you get a second.Originally, Zeina didn't want any incidental music at all, which perhaps informed the ambient, stripped-back aesthetic of Nascuy's score. But he's done a beautiful job from beginning to end - capturing both a mood and a sense of place.

Our latest guests on Soundtracking are a duo Edith's been chasing since we started this podcast, so it's an absolute thrill to finally lure them on. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross burst onto the film-composing scene with their score for David Fincher's The Social Network, for which they won an Oscar in 2010. The trio have since joined forces on The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and Gone Girl. Trent and Atticus's most recent work can be heard on Fincher's Mank and Pete Docter's Soul, which you can watch right now on Netflix and Disney + respectively. The two films couldn't be more different and had wildly contrasting musical requirements - which is testimony to the range of their talents. 

Our latest guest on Soundtracking is a composer who's been nominated for a BAFTA on no fewer than five occasions for his sterling output for television. Murray Gold is perhaps best-known for his work on Doctor Who, which saw him continue a long-time partnership with top screenwriter, Russell T Davies. The pair first joined forces on Queer as Folk, and have since collaborated on numerous critically celebrated shows such as Years And Years and A Very English Scandal. Their latest project is It's A Sin, which premiers on Channel 4 here in the UK on January 22nd. A tale of extreme highs and ghastly lows, it recounts the story of five 18-year-olds who move to London in the early 80s and have their lives turned upside down by the AIDS crisis. The legend that is Frank Oz also gets a more than honorary mention!

Our latest guest on Soundtracking is a first time film composer who's smashed his debut score right out of the park.Adam Janota Bzowski has a background in both music and sound design, and has expertly married the two arts with his work on Rose Glass's Saint Maud. Garnering widespread critical acclaim, Saint Maud defies categorization, but broadly tells the story of a hospice nurse who becomes obsessed with a former patient in her care, believing she must save her soul. It's available on home entertainment formats from 1st February, and we suggest you pop a note in your diary for that - as it really is that good.Adam's score compliments the unsettling atmosphere of the narrative, script and visuals perfectly - and is an incredibly accomplished first foray into the business.

Merry New Year, everybody! To see it in, it's another double-header for you.First up, a true legend of recent cinema. Pete Docter is the Chief Creative Officer at Pixar. As well as winning Oscars as the director of Inside Out and Up, he was one of the main reasons we have Toy Story and has played some sort of hand in pretty much every movie to have come out of the studio.His latest project is the hugely ambitious Soul, which he both wrote and directed. Streaming now on Disney +, the story follows a music teacher voiced by Jamie Foxx, who seeks to reunite his soul and his body after they are accidentally separated, just before his big break as a jazz musician.Then we have Tessa Thompson talking about Sylvie's Love, another film to have jazz at its very core. Set in 50s Harlem, it's a classic romance between Tess's character, with ambitions of her own, and a saxophonist that beautifully evokes the spirit of the age. It's available to watch now on Amazon Prime.

We have one of Edith's dear old friends on this festive episode of Soundtracking - the one and only Andy BurrowsAs well as teaming up with Edith's fella Tom in their Smith & Burrows guise, Andy drummed with Razorlight, is Ricky Gervais's go-to guy, and scored Snowman & The Snowdog with Ilan Eshkeri. He and Edith discuss all of this and more.Hope you enjoy, merry Christmas everybody!