Jeff Russo is no stranger to Noah Hawley and the world of FX’s Fargo.
The critically acclaimed and 15-time Emmy-nominated fifth season masterpiece brought Russo back to the fold and helped him earn another Emmy nomination after he won for season three in 2017. While Russo’s treatment of Hawley and the way he approaches the material don’t change from season to season, the characters, their environments and their stories dramatically influence Russo’s approach to the material.
Case in point: an early piece written for Juno Temple’s Dot/Nadine eventually evolved into a theme for Jennifer Jason Leigh’s Lorraine. Whether intentional or not, this made a lot of thematic sense, as the two characters are thematically similar by the end of the series.
This thematic connection often emerges happily by the end of the season.
“I think moments and themes, character themes, somehow go hand in hand. It’s like they’re all based on the thematic material. “I really try to connect everything together,” Russo explained.It just meant working out the character themes and weaving them into the score for each of those moments. This is a bit of a complicated thing because I don’t just take a piece of music that I wrote and re-articulate it. I’m actually trying to figure out how I can create something musically that’s maybe a little different from the background, but still contains some of that thematic material.”
Sometimes thematic content allows artists to explore fun and unique ways to express characters. Case in point is Russo’s Emmy-nominated episode “Blanket,” which features a much-discussed moment of musical thematic representation for Jon Hamm’s Sheriff Roy Tillman. As he leaves a controversial debate about his upcoming re-election, he stomps through his farm, seething with rage and trying to take his anger out on prisoner Dot/Nadine.
As the camera follows Hamm’s menacing movements, Russo’s orchestral version of Brittney Spears’ “Toxic” (sung by Lisa Hannigan) eerily dominates the scene. It’s a perfect way to underscore Tillman’s toxic and often deadly relationship with women.
“This allowed us to really express the blackness and darkness in John’s character during his walk. Noah called me and said the walk would take about two minutes. He’s just going to go and do whatever we come up with for ‘Toxic,'” Russo revealed. “We could have easily put a dark score to it, but that might have been too obvious if you knew where he was going, where he was going to end up, and how angry he was at that moment.” It had to be something that would brighten it up a little, but still make it clear how dark it really was. I think this song and this version of it really did that.”
Click the link below to hear more about my conversation with 2024 Emmy nominee Jeff Russo, including his instrument choices and use of a drum line throughout the series!
Jeff Russo (Fargo)
Fargo streams in its entirety on FX on Hulu.
Podcast music from https://filmmusic.io
