Why the ‘Knives Out’ Soundtrack Perfectly Matched Rian Johnson’s Murder Mystery

The soundtrack for Rian Johnson’s 2019 murder mystery, Knives Out, is just as tense as the film’s plot. The film’s music had to perfectly match the twists and turns that plague Harlan Thrombey’s family as they uncover his killer.

There are so many complex characters, and any of them could be the killer. Composer Nathan Johnson, Rian’s cousin, successfully matched musical motifs to their personalities. He also made the score for Knives Out just as biting and sharp as the film’s title. The result was an often jarring film that kept you on your toes.

How Rian Johnson pitched ‘Knives Out’ to Nathan Johnson

In an interview with Collider, Nathan explained how the Star Wars: The Last Jedi director initially pitched Knives Out.

“Well, he told me about it a long time ago,” Nathan said. “It was just sort of the germ of an idea, and he basically described the opening scene to me. He was like, ‘We’re going to start the movie like this.’

“It’s just going to be music, and it’ll be like this three-minute opening sequence as we set up the whole chessboard and then proceed to knock it all down. This was years and years ago, and so it was one of those ideas where I just couldn’t wait for this movie to happen.”

Nathan said that he started thinking about certain pieces of the soundtrack for Knives Out.

“Over the years, I would occasionally be writing something and think like, ‘Oh, this could be good for Knives Out.’ I spent years imagining that opening scene, so when we finally got to shoot it, I went out to Boston, where they were filming, and got to be on set, and every day was spent in this gothic mansion that we had been imagining for all these years.”

“I ended up writing a string quartet piece for that opening sequence and then expanding that into a full orchestra for the score.”

The ‘Knives Out’ soundtrack had to be just as sharp as the title

According to Collider, Nathan wanted to use a full orchestra, but “in a unique way.”

When Rian and Nathan first sat down to talk about the Knives Out soundtrack, they talked a lot about some of their favorite melodic and motif-heavy themes from the late 1950s and early 1960s.

“We were listening to the score from Lawrence of Arabia and listening to a lot of Bernard Herrmann’s stuff,” Nathan said. “Rian kept saying he wanted it to be sharp and cutting and precise. We knew we wanted to use a full orchestra, but we didn’t want it to be just a blurry wash of sound.

“The script is just phenomenal, and it’s this huge ensemble cast, and so there’s a lot of verbal activity. Rian, I think, wanted the score to play off of all of that. Every decision we made flowed from this idea of let’s do a classic orchestral score, but we really want to hear every single voice.

“We ended up recording in Abbey Road Studio One, which is this beautiful, big room. But it doesn’t have a crazy long reverb tail. It could be really precise. Yeah, so all of that was flowing out of his desire for the score to really be in your face and sharp and cutting.”

Motifs were also important for the music used in ‘Knives Out’

Collider said the soundtrack for Knives Out is in a “perfect marriage with the script.”

That marriage works out because of Nathan’s use of motifs. Composers like John Williams are famous for using motifs. They describe characters musically.

“Yeah, I mean, it’s not so granular, so it’s not as granular as every single character has a theme,” Nathan explained. “For Knives Out, there’s definitely a family theme that flows from Christopher Plummer’s character, Harlan Thrombey.

“He was the patriarch, and then there are, obviously, all of his adult children, who are drowning in his wake. Then there’s a theme for Marta, which is Ana de Armas’s character, and then Daniel Craig’s detective has a couple different themes that are sort of these slightly playful, exploratory pieces.

“The great thing about his character is you’re kind of never sure whether he’s one step ahead of everybody or two steps behind. It was really fun to play with his theme, to definitely go into that detective-y searching thing, but also to keep it a little bit lighthearted, as well.

Whatever Nathan and Rian did to make Knives Out, they made a cohesive film. The scenes, characters, plot, and score perfectly match.