The Postman (Il Postino) (1995): Luis Enriquez Bacalov’s Oscar-Winning Score, Arranged and Played by Giovanni Mascellaro

 

 
[Check out, as well: “James Horner’s Suite for Apollo 13 (1995).”]

I haven’t seen The Postman. It’s a romantic tale—or so I’ve read—of a handsome but shy youngish mailman, the beautiful girl he longs for, and the old poet who gives the younger man the words he lacks, with a heartbreaking backstory, in which the male lead, Massimo Troisi, forewent desperately needed heart treatment, in order to play a career-making role, and paid with his life.

The picture was nominated for five Oscars, including two posthumous nods for Troisi as Best Actor and as a collaborator on the screenplay, and won for Best Original Score. But I wouldn’t say that Bacalov “beat” the other nominees. Rather, as I noted yesterday, Apollo 13’s James Horner beat Braveheart’s James Horner. Bacalov’s score doesn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Horner’s.

Then again, this is the same Motion Picture Academy whose members five years ago voted to give the Oscar for Best Song to “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp.”

Thanks—I guess—to winter43.