‘American Fiction’ Composer Laura Karpman on Why Jazz Music Was Always Going to Anchor Cord Jefferson’s Directorial Debut

It’s hard to believe that Laura Karpman, a five-time Emmy-winning composer and Juilliard graduate who has scored narrative features (The Marvels) as well as documentaries (Pray Away) in a career spanning more than 30 years, has only now received her first Oscar nomination. 

Karpman is nominated for her score for Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction, a jazz soundtrack that comes alive with the use of multiple pianos and saxophones, as well as clarinets, trumpets, bass, drums and a string orchestra. The film, nominated for five Oscars including best picture, was always going to sing to a jazz tune, says Karpman. After all, the film’s main character is named Thelonius “Monk” Ellison. 

“When you have a character that’s named Thelonius Monk, you can’t ignore jazz,” Karpman says, referencing the influential American jazz pianist and composer. “I mean, it’s got to be the language of the film. That was never a question.” A temp score of classic jazz was used initially, which Karpman says “worked for a vibe” but not as a completed score. “I think there was this : How are we going to do this and still make it feel like a film score and do all the things that it needs to do, but also have the feeling of classic jazz?” she adds. 

Karpman explains that she received the cut of the film and only then started working on the score, which took six to eight weeks. Her process on American Fiction differed a little from her previous work (for example, she had just finished a jazz score for the documentary Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed), because the script required the score to be woven into the dialogue more than in past projects.

“This score needed to feel like classic jazz in places, but also needed to function like a film score, which means it had to be very responsive to dialogue, very responsive to the huge range of emotions that occur within the course of the film. Because of the way that the lines are spoken, because it’s crisp and angular, almost like jazz, it worked in this context,” explains Karpman. “It’s just this really almost choreographed dance with [the actors]. It’s very much a film score that hews tight to picture.”

But the jazz score also works in tandem with the constantly changing pace of the film, says Karpman. “You’ll be in a comedy scene or a tragedy scene and then you’re back in a comedy scene, and then you’re in a frustration scene, then it’s funny again, but you want to be laughing with him and not laughing at him,” she explains. “So there are all these kinds of modulations that have to consistently happen. The [scene in which Monk writes his pseudonymous novel] My Pafology is a perfect example. You’re in reality and then you’re in surreality. These people suddenly appear and are his characters coming to life. The film is playing with that notion of reality and surreality a lot, and the music has to ride along with it.”

A unique aspect of the score is Karpman’s frequent use of two instruments playing the same notes but not at the same time, a method used to express the convoluted and complicated relationships in families that sometimes are not in sync. This was the first time she’s employed that method on a film score — she’d layered pianos before, but that method wasn’t used as thematically as it is on American Fiction. 

“It’s a very, very moving and beautiful piece of music — they’re playing the same music but not playing it in sync,” says Karpman. “For me, that’s very much the way families often interact. You come from the same place musically, the same harmonic structure, the same melody … but you’re not doing it at the same time, sometimes not in the same place or in the same headspace,” she says. “It’s really organic to what’s going on in the music, and it also happens all the time with different instruments. It happens with the flute. It happens with multiple pianos, it happens with the guitar, which is associated with Sterling K. Brown’s character. It’s really part of the DNA of the score.”

To be recognized by her peers in receiving this Oscar nomination is a dream come true for the musician and composer.

“I can’t even articulate how it feels. I mean, there are so many feelings that go with it,” Karpman says. “There is something about an Oscar that is very, very special. It’s a symbol of a lot of things for a lot of people. And I think it is a symbol of dreams, really. It’s a combination of a lot of people’s dreams: my grandparents, their grandparents, people who came from Russia with a teapot or her grandmother, who escaped the Holocaust. It’s my mother who wanted me to be a composer, you know? It’s one of those profound things, and I feel it very deeply.” 

This story first appeared in a February stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.