The writers' strike may still be in full swing, but the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is operating like it's business as usual. The shortlist for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar was unveiled last week, the nominations are set to announce tomorrow, and even now the Academy powers that be are making disqualifications on questionable grounds.

The latest victim of an Academy ruling is perhaps the most feted score of 2007: Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood's work on There Will Be Blood. According to Variety's Awards Central, the Academy's music branch has ruled Greenwood ineligible for an Oscar under a rule that excludes "scores diluted by the use of tracked themes or other pre-existing music." In addition to 35 minutes of wholly original music, the score to There Will Be Blood featured 46 minutes of pre-existing music (Brahms, Arvo Part, sacred music) and roughly 15 minutes of Greenwood's 2006 composition "Popcorn Superhet Receiver."

While the producers of There Will Be Blood accept the Academy's decision, fans of the film are outraged, citing Gustavo Santaolalla's somewhat less-than-original score to Babel which took home the Oscar just last year. But I think the bigger issue is that the art of the original score just wasn't what it used to be.

In the early years of the Oscars, practically every Hollywood film had an original score, with only the occasional use of pre-existing music. But in the intervening years, especially since the rise of rock'n'roll, more filmmakers have peppered their soundtracks with pre-existing tracks, which when they're effectively used can provide a different flavor you can't get from an old-fashioned orchestral score. Think of it this way- can you imagine a young John Travolta strutting down the street swinging a paint can while sweeping strings play behind him? Not the same.

Of course, the purpose of the Academy Awards is to honor people, not to single out intangible cinematic contributions. In other words, if there was an award for "best combination score," who'd take home a prize? The composer? The director? The soundtrack producer? If nothing else, the ruling over Greenwood's score underlines the limits of giving awards for individual work. In the end, a single person's contribution to a movie is less important than the collective effort made by everyone involved. It takes more than one person to make great cinema, and to honor movies strictly for their component parts is to lose sight of the bigger picture.