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Sunday, January 27, 2008

'Once' not enough in Oscar race?

David Carr at his always entertaining Carpetbagger blog at The New York Times tells us that the song from the wonderful indie film "Once" that is up for an Oscar may be ruled ineligible. A big meeting about it on Monday. He doesn't know why there is a dispute.

Well, here's the likely cause: The song, "Falling Slowly," appeared on two albums before the movie came out -- a big no-no for the Academy -- but the question is, was it written for the movie specifically and then ended up on the CDs as the film made its slow way to release? It appears on two excellent 2006-2007 CDs by the co-writer and male star in the film, Glen Hansard: One is from his band, The Frames, called The Cost, and the other is the duet album he made with his co-star in the flick, Marketa Irglova, The Swell Season. You can see The Frames do it via YouTube. He was definitely asked to write original songs for the movie (he wasn't supposed to appear in it himself at first) but whether "Falling Slowly" was one of them, I don't know. Damn shame if it's axed. When I saw the pair at a NYC concert a few months ago, Hansard was bubbling over the Oscar buzz.

Update: A commenter at Carr's blog writes that "Falling Slowly" was previously featured in a Czech movie called “Kráska v nesnázích” released in September 2006 in the Czech Republic. He includes a YouTube link to the trailer which includes the tune.

Here's the key scene in "Once" when Glen teaches Marketa the song:

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