Director Paul Thomas Anderson and Jonny Greenwood, the Radiohead guitarist who wrote the score for Anderson’s film Phantom Thread, are demanding their music be removed from the new Melania documentary.
According to a statement from Anderson and Greenwood, a segment of music from Phantom Thread is featured in Brett Ratner’s controversial documentary.
In a statement obtained by Variety, Anderson and Greenwood said:
It has come to our attention that a piece of music from Phantom Thread has been used in the Melania documentary. While Jonny Greenwood does not own the copyright in the score, Universal failed to consult Jonny on this third-party use which is a breach of his composer agreement. As a result Jonny and Paul Thomas Anderson have asked for it to be removed from the documentary.
As of publishing, Amazon MGM Studios, which distributed the critically maligned documentary, has not yet responded publicly to the allegations of breach of agreement.
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Anderson is clearly no fan of the Melania Trump documentary. While accepting the award for Screenwriter of the Year for One Battle After Another at the London Critics’ Circle Film Awards on February 1, the film director said he wanted to share the trophy with Guardian journalist Xan Brooks for his scathing review of Melania. “It was one of the best pieces of writing. Pretty damn good,” Anderson said.
In his review, Brooks called Melania “a gilded trash remake of Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest in which a button-eyed Cinderella points at gold baubles and designer dresses, cunningly distracting us while her husband and his cronies prepare to dismantle the constitution and asset-strip the federal government.”
Greenwood, the renowned English musician best known for his work as the lead guitarist of the rock band Radiohead, has composed 12 film scores, including his work on Phantom Thread, There Will Be Blood, Spencer, and, most recently, One Battle After Another. He is nominated for Best Original Score for the latter at the upcoming 98th Academy Awards.
Released in 2017 and starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Phantom Thread is a period drama film that follows a couture dressmaker and his muse in 1950s London. The film was nominated for six Oscars at the 2018 Academy Awards, where it took home the statue for Best Costume Design. The movie was also nominated for Best Original Score.
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