Dario Marianelli

December 5, 2007

Film scoring is one of the final pieces of the moviemaking puzzle, a process that typically begins when a rough cut is in place, but for "Atonement," director Joe Wright got composer Dario Marianelli involved even before there was a screenplay.

"Joe asked me to read the novel by Ian McEwan so I could start throwing ideas at him," said the Italian-born, London-based Marianelli, who earned an Oscar nomination for "Pride & Prejudice," his previous collaboration with Wright.

Marianelli, whose other credits include "The Brothers Grimm" and "V for Vendetta," focused on the character of Briony, the precocious writer who both sets the plot in motion and serves as the questionably reliable narrator. "I saw her as a kind of machine, a car with faulty brakes," he said. "She couldn't stop using her imagination." With Briony in mind, he wrote a piano-based theme with "a momentum that doesn't want to stop."

In keeping with the film's theme of storytelling, Wright suggested incorporating the sounds of a typewriter. Using a 1930s model, Marianelli sampled "every key stroke, the carriage return, all the dings and dongs." He came up with a few "pieces for typewriter" ("There's not much range," he said, laughing) and found that the percussive motifs worked well in tandem with his urgent, Briony-inspired compositions.

Despite the story and the score's self-reflexive touches, Wright and Marianelli were mindful that "Atonement" had to function above all as a grand, old-fashioned romance. The vintage David Lean weepie "Brief Encounter," which deploys Rachmaninoff to memorable effect, was a reference point.

"It's the idea of a love that's not lived out," Marianelli said. "That allows the music to be more passionate. The frustrated love is fulfilled in the music."

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