A Symphony of Desires: Anthony Willis on Composing the Enigmatic 'Saltburn'

When it comes to Emerald Fennell’s 2023 blockbuster Saltburn, as the viewer you’re constantly questioning the motive and desires of each character. Whilst a lot of the discussion around the film has been centred around what it explicitly shows and tells you, I would argue the most captivating aspects of the film are most certainly what it doesn’t. In fact, the two most integral characters in Saltburn are not actors at all, it is Anthony Willis’ incredible, fluid, and genre-bending score alongside the grand eponymous Saltburn manor itself.

It’s fair to say that 2023 was an incredibly successful year for composer Anthony Willis. He started the year off composing the score for surprise slasher hit M3GAN and ended it with his name on the longlist for ‘Best Score’ at this year's forthcoming Oscars for his Saltburn score.

Saltburn sees Anthony Willis reunite with Fennell following his incredible work on her debut feature film Promising Young Woman, which earned him a BAFTA nomination for Best Score, and a Best Picture nomination for Fennell. It’s unsurprising then that the pair have reconvened, with Fennell full of praise for his work on their latest collaboration, describing his work as  “ beautiful, witty, surprising, and sexy - there are no limits to what [Anthony] can do. So much of the skeleton of a movie like Saltburn is made up of the score. It keeps it together, helps it stand up, makes it complete...and scratches us a little when it needs to.”

Willis told me that it was “really wonderful” to have that existing working relationship with Fennell going into the creation of Saltburn, describing how it inspired him to push the boundaries and try new things this time around. “There are lots of things that Emerald really liked about the Promising Young Woman score that gave me the confidence to really try things (…) I think the worst thing one can do is come in and go ‘Oh let’s do the same again’ because she certainly didn't do that with this film… even though obviously her voice is so present in both and her sense of fun and wickedness is very much there in both.”

Speaking with Willis helped me understand how through working closely with director Fennell, the pair have managed to craft a score that if you tune into and follow closely, the film manages to reveal each character's true intentions even more vividly than the excellent performances from Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi and Rosamund Pike.

Part 1: Setting the Stage - The World of Saltburn:

Saltburn sees the viewer transported to 2006 England. We witness Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) quickly show a keen interest in Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi). The first act of the film shows the pair striking up a seemingly strong bond at university, resulting in Felix inviting Oliver to spend the summer with his family at their manor, Saltburn.

It’s there where we witness Oliver slowly integrate himself into the family’s lives. Whether that’s through his controlling and erotic relationship with Felix’s sister Venetia (Alison Oliver), his ongoing feud with cousin Farleigh (Archie Madekwe), who has a similarly slippery position within the family,  or how he slowly gains favour by enamouring family matriarch Elspeth, played bewitchingly by Rosamund Pike.

The black-comedy / dark thriller has proven to be a surprisingly divisive work of art. Online discourse has seen people firmly split on their feelings about the film especially as families and film enthusiasts have sat down to watch it over the festive period, following its inclusion on Amazon Prime (of which it has yet to leave the Top 3 of their most watched list since).

There’s a sharp divide between those who’ve become deeply fascinated with the film, unpicking it and looking for further details upon repeat watches, and those who’ve found it lacking, believing it to offer a surface-level commentary on wealth, prestige, and those who are clawing to achieve it. Then there are those who simply focus on the film's most ‘shocking’ and explicit scenes, for example, much has been said about the infamous bathtub scene in which Oliver drinks from Felix’s used bathwater containing intimate fluids. 

Saltburn, however, is a film in which whilst much is shown, you’d be mistaken to take too much of it at face value. A lot about the characters’ true motives and desires can be best uncovered from a surprisingly integral character,  Anthony Willis’ spectacular score, which throughout the film acts as a guide for the viewer, presenting glimpses of each character's true desires, far more so than the scene they are witnessing may.

Part 2: Characters and Motives - The Score as a Narrative Tool:

A prime example of this is the lead character Oliver Quick, the person most intertwined with the film’s score. From his prime position on the soundtrack artwork through to the way the film follows his character from the first shot, there is no mistaking this is Oliver’s story, which Fennell and Willis were keen to correctly represent also with the score. 

It’s hard to pin down Oliver’s character. He’s clearly intelligent, made apparent through his arrival at Oxford University and his keenness to complete the pre-reading list. There’s also a clear social awkwardness to him, noticeable in the way he’s immediately paired with the strange maths enthusiast Michael (Ewen Mitchell) neither of whom are invited to the college party. 

You could be forgiven for seeing no menace in Oliver’s initial desires to integrate with the ‘cool kids’.  As we start to see Oliver voyeur on Felix’s life in increasingly unsettling ways, it's the score that is the first hint that things may not be as innocent as initially thought. 

His initial observations looking outside of his window to watch Felix and friends socialising around the college grounds during the day feature no score. It’s after Oliver overhears Felix’s friend Annabel (Sadie Soverall) harshly dismissing bringing him to an upcoming party that he begins to observe in a different way.  Romantic strings begin to stir as we watch Felix and Annabel begin to get passionate, suddenly the camera begins to pan away, past the bedroom, and through the darkness outside the window. It’s the first time we hear this signature motif in the score, a menacingly throbbing synth. It’s faint and is ultimately drowned out by a sombre and lonely orchestral swell as we see Oliver alone, watching on from the bushes, illuminated only by the light of his cigarette butt, the same cigarettes he claimed he doesn’t smoke only scenes earlier. 

“What Emerald wanted the audience to understand about Oliver, and what he was going through at any moment was the hardest thing,” Willis tells me about the score. He achieves this in the film through “really leaning into Oliver’s loneliness and his lust for Felix,” whilst managing to hold back the “actual nefarious aspects” of Oliver’s character, a  process Willis described as “a lot of fun to do.”

Whilst fun, the film’s secretive nature offered a potential challenge and dilemma for Willis. “The film has some amazing twists- so how do you then react to that piece of information with the score... that was really the big thing. Getting the audience to slightly lean to the right when something’s going on under their nose, and then ultimately the payoff for the climax of the movie is going ‘Oh my gosh,  it was there all along, I just wasn’t quite looking at it the right way’ and that was really a challenge.”

Oliver evolves as a character throughout the movie. The viewer slowly watches as he grows in confidence within the house, and his true motives slowly seep out. A brilliant way in which Willis' score reflects this, is through the repetition of Oliver’s signature motif. “It’s interesting, the notion of repeating things in films … The theme itself is sort of all over the score in different ways,” Willis tells me “One of the most direct reprisals is the shared bathroom cue, which you first hear when Oliver is watching Felix and Annabel from outside their window. At that moment it’s in its most lonely form, and he’s such an outsider.” 

As Willis explains, this grows throughout the film. “You get it again in a slightly different way when Felix is having a bath and Oliver is watching him, it’s more sensual in that moment, Felix is so close but no cigar. Oliver is right there next to him but he can’t quite get to him.” 

Ultimately the refrain takes its concluding form halfway through the film, an indication of Oliver fully forming. “When Oliver manages to get Venetia, you hear it again, and each time it’s slightly lower than the last, more fulsome, and more erotic. At that moment it’s important because Oliver is taking control of that piece of music. From then on, he doesn’t need it anymore. These kinds of things, hearing music again and having a different meaning each time is really important.”

The scene with Venetia is one of the ‘shocking’ moments in the film that has since caused worldwide media discourse. After spotting Venetia outside his bedroom window, in her night dress, for a second consecutive night, it’s hinted she’s trying to get Oliver’s attention, attempting to entice him, like a siren.

It’s a crucial point in the film. Up to now, the viewer has seen Oliver as timid, especially with his sexual desires. You could be mistaken for even thinking at this point Oliver is like a  lamb to the slaughter with the beautiful Venetia luring him down to her. It’s in this scene however where we get a glimpse of Oliver’s true motivations, wondering if he’s more than he seems. As if from nowhere he presents an incredibly assertive side, dominating Venetia, psychologically throwing her off guard with his blunt acknowledgment of her eating disorder which he unnervingly turns into an explicit sexual activity.

 As he watches her from the window, an unsettling synth slowly begins to pulsate, and the way it syncs up with Oliver’s devilishly sly grin gives the vibe of a predator sensing the heartbeat of its prey. We cut to Oliver approaching her in the dark, encased in the dark blue shadows. Now it’s suddenly silent. Through the conversation and the way Venetia’s voice begins to quiver and tremble, we sense how the power is shifting. The tension is ice-cold. Due to the absence of a score, a scene that was mere minutes feels like hours. As it becomes apparent the encounter is consensual, the score remerges. Romantic strings begin to swell before becoming entangled in that same pulsating synth, the couple battling for control within the character, as it becomes clear Oliver is the dominant of the pair.  Oliver moves through the scene like a shark, a comparison apt for the way he sexually devours her, and subsequently as he dips underwater in the very bath he has consumed Felix in only a few scenes before, her blood covering his chin. The pulsating synth takes pride of place, the shark has its prey.

I dived into the scene with Willis who breaks down the score’s relationship to that moment. “I think what the scene with Venetia is about, is two people. Oliver is manipulating Venetia in that he’s figured out what’s going to make her happy, so he goes for it. It’s a pretty out-there scene and so with the score we look for ways to subvert the normal romance that you might have and actually take it down into a sort of filthier, dirty, more primal place.” 

This ties perfectly into the idea that so many of the characters’ true desires throughout the film are not always what they present publicly. “There’s that side of us that we don’t share with other people. How we feel like we should do things and how we ultimately do them are two different things. So that’s what that scene was; not so much being anxious but kind of unbridled and unrestrained, so the chords are very romantic but they’re ascribed to a gritty, visceral timbre. Where it’s like ‘I don’t care how I look, I don’t care if blood gets on my dress, I don’t, because I’m in this moment right now.” This segues into the world Fennell has created.  “What I love about Emerald as a director and a filmmaker is she shows us things that we don’t normally see, about the way humans are,” Willis tells me before breaking this down. “What I love about Saltburn is that there’s this world that you’re supposed to fit into, where you have to be dressed correctly for dinner, and you have to be there on time, and you’re going to be woken up in the morning because it’s time for breakfast. There’s this sort of pomp and ceremony to it all.” As he further explains this is reflected in his work.  “There’s a kind of lightness and a classical elegance to it but then Emerald’s touching on that’s not actually how people want to behave when they’re on their own, or they’re just outside with one other person - the things that they say and do can actually be quite different, and they kind of want permission to just do whatever they want and give in to their urges.”

Part 3: Saltburn Manor - A Character of its Own:

The largest character both figuratively and literally in the film is the titular Saltburn manor. When Oliver sees it for the first time, the viewer is also greeted by a sweeping grandiose score. I mentioned to Willis it is reminiscent of the first Harry Potter film, when the children (and audience) witness Hogwarts for the first time. Both scores manage to encapsulate that foreboding awe combined with the gravitas such a location deserves.

“That’s a piece people have really enjoyed,” Willis tells me before recounting the direction he was given. “Emerald said, ‘Give me Jurassic Park, give me Batman… this sort of Gothic arrival’ and at this point, we want to show that Oliver’s a bit intimidated by this place. He’s never seen anything like it, but he’s also enchanted by it. It’s got a sense of foreboding about it. In that moment you want the audience to believe that Oliver’s probably bitten off more than he can chew. It was a really cool choice of Emerald’s not to show the house (in the distance) over the top of the hills… all the build happens in Oliver’s face and then you get the enormity of the organ in the score when you actually see it.”

Both Fennell and Willis worked closely together to establish the sound of Saltburn itself. “Emerald had this idea which was having had the organ be very large.  After not much time it dissolves and cascades down to a very soft sound as Oliver  walks in with his, as she would describe, pathetic suitcase rolling up to the front to really enhance that juxtaposition of him versus the house.”

Viewers can feel the friction between Oliver and the house throughout the film. Oliver never feels accepted inside the walls of Saltburn, despite his escalating and ultimately blatant desire to live within them. Even staff employed by the manor have a clear disdain for him, whether that’s Duncan (Paul Rhys) the chief butler of the manor who displays a silent authority and everlasting presence in the house, or other servants. When Oliver is ejected from the manor he receives an almost pitiful glare from the surrounding staff who have seemingly gathered to watch him exit.

Willis touches on how he expresses the gravitas and timelessness of the manor itself. “I think it’s like, ‘This is how we’ve always done it, so who are you to show up and after a few minutes say you’re going to do something different?’ It’s like ‘No, this is it, this is how we do things at Saltburn and you’re irrelevant compared to that.’ I think that was an important presence to establish for Saltburn in the score as well.”

Part 4: Crafting Nostalgia - A 2006 Period Piece:

An intriguing intersection between the score, soundtrack, and the manor is the time period. “I’ve had a lot of questions about the age of the score,” Willis tells me. “Obviously there are things about it that very much are important to put it in that 2006/07 era, but although the film is set that summer, the important thing about Saltburn and how it gets its power is from the fact that you feel like it’s always been there because that’s how people enforce power.” 

Fennell and Willis have taken a selection of fascinating decisions to help create both  ‘period piece romantic drama’ akin to an Austen romance tale and a setting that feels incredibly rooted in the early 00s. This combination gives the 2006 setting an eerie displacement. For example, there’s something fascinating about witnessing this eternal stately manor and its decadently dressed occupants fascinated and immersed by pop culture, whether that be frequent film nights in which particularly Richard E. Grant’s Patriarch finds folly in 00s culture staples The Ring and Superbad or how all of the kids seemingly share in the delight of Harry Potter, each pictured reading the book in increasingly regal and sexualised poses as if statues from a bygone era.

Visually, Fennell also achieves this through a surprising 4:3 cinematic ratio. Known as the ‘Academy ratio’, it was the standard when it came to 20th-century movies, but is used sparingly now. Compared to the standard widescreen ratio seen in modern day  cinema, films, and TV, with 4:3 you’re viewing a tall and narrow shot.  The effect of this squeezes characters closer together on the screen. It creates intimacy as well as giving the viewer a subconscious feeling of nostalgia and timelessness due to its history of being used with classic masterpieces. Saltburn’s score is another way the film blends classical references within a modern world. The film opens with the familiar grandiose coronation anthem ‘Zadok the Priest’... or does it? The anthem which declares the coronation of a new king certainly starts as expected, pay close attention however and where you’d expect a choir of voices to exclaim Zadok’s name, you instead hear them declare ‘Oliver Quick!’. From moment one, the score completely reveals the tale to come.

The score throughout the film continues to subvert expectations as it integrates itself within a very contemporary soundtrack. The next song you hear after the resplendent opening number is the surprising sound of The Cheeky Girls' festive hit ‘Have A Cheeky Christmas’. Perhaps the single largest musical juxtaposition in the film, a prestigious historical anthem followed by a failed festive throwaway track whose nostalgia is powered by its obscurity. 

Willis reveals this was a late addition to the soundtrack. “Emerald has obviously built an amazing playlist and she tries lots of things, and tries things in the edit as well. I know that The Cheeky Girls was kind of a later thing that they found for the Christmas track, which was the first kind of really fun song in the movie. They tried different things there but I mean ultimately the songs are really about establishing the nostalgia of that era.”

The soundtrack decisions are fascinating, frequently flickering between diegetically setting the scene at the frequent parties and social events throughout the film, alongside tongue-in-cheek reflections of various characters’ state of mind. For instance, the 2000s are known for a generation that embraced DIY indie rock that reverberated the walls of packed student houses, this is represented here with the sounds of Arcade Fire, Ladytron, Cold War Kids, and even Girls Aloud. 

Meanwhile, Oliver’s anguish at being discarded at university is perfectly reflected in ‘This Modern Love’ by Bloc Party as he stumbles down the street. Whilst ‘Time To Pretend’ feels like a wink at the incredibly fragile joy and camaraderie during the manor’s summer of love, one that could be whisked away from Oliver by the family at any point. Of course, we can’t forget the incredible use of Sophie Ellis Bextor’s ‘Murder on the Dancefloor’ which marks Oliver’s crowning dance routine through the rooms of Saltburn representing his euphoric glee at concluding a plot decades in the making. 

Finally, the electronic elements of the soundtrack are interpolated and combined with Willis's score marvellously. Organ strokes and string surges deliberately swoop into stabbing electronic synths. It’s another example of how the film blurs the lines between classic and contemporary.

Part 5: Instruments of Emotion - The Organ and Synth:

One of the first things Willis did when working with Fennell on the movie was blend the pop soundtrack and the instrumental score in crucial moments of the film. Willis describes the score as “more about Oliver’s psychology and journey”, specifically “his desire for Saltburn and for Felix”, which  “runs on a different track” to the contemporary soundtrack, however, there are moments where they cross.

A great example of this that Willis gives is during the Maze scene deep into the film's second act. Tomcraft’s track ‘Loneliness’ plays diegetically during the conclusion of Oliver’s birthday party and it takes us through the maze as Oliver stalks Felix through the hedges to confront him. It’s then here where Willis has weaved together the soundtrack and score, once again pulsing and unsettling, almost as if the two sounds fight for dominance. “Emerald wanted the score to take over there, and it becomes an immersive moment where he gets lost in the maze and the drugs are kicking in. That was a fun one,” Willis reveals.

The two key instruments within the score that are used to evoke emotion, as alluded to earlier, are the use of organs and synths. As Willis describes, their use was influenced by the intriguing way synths were used in the 00s. “Emerald really liked the idea of a throbbing synth in those amazing noughties tracks… it captures the sense of lust, fun, and desire.” An example of this is the way MGMT's ‘Time to Pretend’ becomes a centrepiece depicting the summer friendship that blooms within the house, over a montage of the golden summer spent together. “A lot of the music was actually happening in the movie, although it’s portrayed to us as a sort of nice music video moment. For example, the party scenes, those sorts of tracks they are actually experiencing within the party. So it’s really much like the wardrobe or the look of everyone, in the same way, that haircuts were such an important tool of establishing the period.”

It’s those sorts of tracks that influenced Fennell to replicate those feelings through the score. “She’s like ‘How can we have some sort of signature in the score to represent the lust?” Cue, the organ as Willis explains. “At that time we’d also been working on some of the Gothic, more traditional Saltburn music. Gothic organ for the big and grand moments or the more soulful and sad organ for Oliver. Organs are amazing because it’s such a soulful and human instrument. It’s based on breath, and that kind of exchange of air is such a human thing.”

Willis ran with the concept. “I was like, why don’t we do the throb with an organ?” he tells me. “It became symbolic of the lust within Saltburn … I used an LFO filter, so as it opens you hear the breathiness of the instrument. It fulfilled a lot of roles. It was soulful, human, creepy, lustful and gothic. It was able to do a lot of things for us which is really great. The idea being, that it’s like a distant synth at the party seeping through the ceiling. You’re kind of hearing it down below, which means everyone else is distracted having a good time, and you’re free to pursue whatever acts upstairs you’re hoping to.”

Viewers of the film will be able to immediately connect the dots in how that description translates to the character of Oliver. Frequently voyeuristic, throughout the film he’s always just outside of the main event or party, on the fringes of the distant synth. “That’s his hunting ground,” Willis tells me, “when everyone else is distracted, that’s when he does his thing.”

Part 6: The Art of Restraint - Epic Moments in the Score:

An aspect of Saltburn’s score that has seen little discussion is how Willis places its more explosive moments, making sure to utilise restraint to maximise each moment's impact. Talking with Willis showed that whilst for the most part, it was a conscious effort, there were still more flourishes he wished he could have implemented throughout. This makes the moments when the score ascends into a dramatic swell stand out, most notably during the conclusion of the maze scene, which signifies a dark third act for the film.  

“I think that is one of the most important moments in the score,” Willis declares. “It’s the moment when Elspeth, she’s the first one to find Felix in the maze and she lets out this harrowing scream. There needed to be, in the score at the moment, a huge sense of fracture.” 

The dramatic swell was something during production that director Fennell had penned as ‘the swoosh’. “It’s basically getting the string section to cascade from one chord to another much lower chord, and it was really fun to do that.” It’s here Willis touches on that restraint.  “Apart from the arrival at Saltburn, we were really trying to save that kind of vastness. Emerald really liked that (swoosh) when I played it for her, and we did think, where else could we do this? But it needed to be for that moment of fracture in the maze because there’s nothing else quite like it in the film.”

Willis points out that keen-eared listeners may have spotted it in slightly varied instances. “It happens in the end credits, but it also happens in a lower version when Oliver is talking to Elspeth about Felix and says the line ‘I loved him, I loved him, I loved him by god I loved him, sometimes I hated him’ and then there’s a low one, and so there are those moments as well which are good in a way.”

The idea of restraint versus reprisal seems to be one Willis tackled whilst composing the score. It’s interesting to ponder if some of those significant moments in the film would have felt less impactful if it was a continued music cue throughout. From our conversation, it certainly seemed as if it was something Willis grappled with slightly. “I do wish I managed to get it to do a more reprisal of the big one from the Elspeth scream because I think it would have been really fun for the audience because you hear something once and when you hear it again, you hear it in a different way,” Willis says before delving further into his thinking. “When you hear it again, there’s a difference to how our brains sort of receive that, because they understand ‘Oh I’m being told there’s a link here, and I’ve already experienced it once’, so on the second pass you’re connecting dots… so I would have loved to have figured out how to get that in a few more times but it was just so specific for the moment it’s used in.”

Conclusion:

Speaking with Willis was fascinating to delve into this complex, deeply layered, and emotional world created by Fennell and masterfully reflected in the score by himself. The score, like the film, demands repeat viewings for the audience to unpack and further connect the dots planted on that initial watch. It’s a testament to the score that I didn’t notice their slight marvellous tweaking of ‘Zadok the Priest’ to reflect the main character Oliver Quick until a third run-through.

As a duo, Emerald Fennell and Anthony Willis showcase the power of a strong collaborative partnership and bringing someone into the picture who can truly understand your vision. The result is a score that adds depth and nuance to the cinematic experience.

This brings me to one final message from Willis, which is to ensure people enjoy the film in its most intended form. If not the cinema, in front of a screen gathered with people, in one sitting, far away from the modern desire to post snippets all over social media. “Emerald is such a wonderful and imaginative filmmaker… I’m really glad people have been enjoying it and I’m trying to encourage people; don’t post the scenes, don’t post it on Twitter, go and see it and enjoy because you have to earn those experiences in context. You need to hear it with other people and get that shared experience of shock, joy, delight, and disgust. All the things, all intermingled.”

Saltburn is available now on Amazon Prime.