'Anatomy of a Fall': How a 50 Cent cover song became the 'earworm' of Oscar movie season

Spoiler alert! The following post contains mild spoilers about the plot of "Anatomy of a Fall" (in theaters now).

Talk about a killer needle drop.

In the opening scene of “Anatomy of a Fall”, a German writer named Sandra (Sandra Hüller) is having a wine-fueled interview with an attractive graduate student (Camille Rutherford) at her cozy chalet in the French Alps. But within minutes, Sandra’s husband, Samuel (Samuel Theis), starts blasting a Caribbean-style song on loop in the attic, flustering Sandra and prompting her to cut their chat short.

The song in question is “P.I.M.P.,” an instrumental cover of rapper 50 Cent’s 2003 hit, which is performed by German funk group Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band. The hypnotic track is still blaring when Sandra’s young son (Milo Machado Graner) returns home from walking his dog, only to find Samuel’s body face down in the snow. Sandra insists that he jumped from the roof while she was napping, but police suspect he was pushed.

“P.I.M.P.” becomes a key part of the investigation and subsequent trial. Prosecutors interrogate Sandra about the song’s maddeningly loud volume and famously misogynist lyrics, and whether those could have provoked her to murder Samuel, who may have been jealous of her seemingly flirtatious interaction with the student.

“It’s a little exotic. It’s a serious earworm,” French director Justine Triet says of the steelpan cover, which has been singled out by critics and journalists ever since Cannes Film Festival, where “Anatomy of a Fall” won the top prize in May.

Here’s how the song landed in the acclaimed courtroom drama, which is widely predicted by Oscar pundits to score nominations for best picture and actress (Hüller).

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Before 50 Cent, Justine Triet wanted Dolly Parton for 'Anatomy of a Fall'

When Triet and her husband, Arthur Harari, started writing the script, they wanted soft classical music to be playing when Sandra’s son discovered the body. But they worried that would be too similar to Stanley Kubrick’s movies, which often used classical music to darkly comedic effect.

“I was in love with ‘Jolene’ by Dolly Parton, and it was that song all during the writing process,” Triet says. “And then just one month before shooting, they said, ‘OK, we don’t want to sell the music to you,’ and we switched to 50 Cent.”

Triet had Bacao Rhythm’s cover on a YouTube playlist for a long time, and felt it’d be an effective way to underscore the tension between Samuel and Sandra. As the film goes on, we learn that Samuel feels emasculated by his wife: Not only is she more successful than he is, but she’s also had flings with other women. In that regard, it’s very pointed that he chooses to play “P.I.M.P.,” a braggadocious ode to male dominance.

“The fact that there are no lyrics is better,” Triet says. “(The original song) is very famous, so you know the significance of the lyrics, but you don’t have to overplay them in the scene.”

“It’s a very cynical act that he’s choosing this song and this version,” Hüller adds. “I’ve been listening to it for a while, and it’s a very annoying thing to listen to over and over again. It’s very well-chosen.”

After selecting the song, the challenge then became how to shoot the opening sequence. Although Sandra appears to be struggling to speak over the deafening music, it was never actually playing on the set. Rather, Triet added “P.I.M.P.” into the scene during postproduction.

“The sound would have killed us,” Hüller says. “So we heard it when we rehearsed, and then we had to imagine the effect it would have on us while we were acting.”

Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band is 'amazed' by use of their 'P.I.M.P.' cover

Based in Hamburg, Germany, Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band released “P.I.M.P.” as a single in 2008 and later included it on 2016 album “55.” The cover is a fan favorite at their live shows, thanks to its dynamic steel-drum chorus and woozy trumpet on the verses.

“I have to tip my hat to 50 Cent and his producer (Mr. Porter),” says bandleader Björn Wagner. “It’s a very memorable hook line on its own.”

Daily Spotify streams of the cover jumped 70% in late September, Wagner says, when “Anatomy of a Fall” played major film festivals in Toronto and New York. It now has 11.5 million streams on Spotify, while the song’s YouTube comments are flooded with cinephiles making cheeky references to the film.

Bacao Rhythm has had their music featured in TV shows “Silicon Valley” and “Better Call Saul,” but they’ve never had a song used as prominently as “P.I.M.P.,” which plays repeatedly throughout the movie. “One of the earliest articles about the film said it’s a character of its own,” Wagner recalls. “I was just amazed.”

“Anatomy of a Fall” has not yet been released in Germany, meaning Wagner has yet to see it for himself.

“But my friends who have watched it at film festivals are really impressed,” Wagner says. “They all think I’m rich now because it’s used so often in the film. I wish that would be true!”