The rule about songs or scores written "directly for the screen" is actually less strict than you think.
The material can't have been "published" previously for anything not associated with that film.
And "publishing" can mean literal sheet music, a public performance (including broadcasts), or a release on recorded media. Any of those NOT associated with the film.
But songs can (and have) been written decades before they were published and used for a film. They're called "trunk" songs, so figuratively speaking, they've been lying around in a trunk (hopefully at least copyrighted), but have otherwise never seen the light of day.
Marvin Hamlisch wrote the melody for The Way We Were when he was 13 years old. He never did anything with it until he began working on the film. Then he pulled the melody out of his "trunk" and worked it into the song with lyrics by the Bergmans. And he won the Oscar for both the song and the score, using that melody.
There have been other musical disqualifications in the past. At least one big one I know of: Carmine Coppola's score to the first Godfather movie, with that haunting main theme. He had used it previously, however, (I seem to remember it was in a documentary, but I'm foggy on that), and once the Academy became aware of it, his Oscar nomination was revoked. And to answer the other question: I don't believe it was replaced with another in the category.
He did win the award the next time around for a "wholly original" score in The Godfather Part II.
EDIT: Roscoe's post mentioned this, but I'm now remembering more... Nino Rota wrote the "original music" for the Godfather, BUT Carmine Coppola wrote the famous theme used throughout the movie... AND the theme had been used previously... which disqualified the entire score and its Oscar nomination.
"Jaws is the Citizen Kane of movies."
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
Updated On: 1/27/08 at 11:32 AM
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