There's a new superhero in Gotham: Elliot Goldenthal. And he has Batman, the Riddler and Two-Face moving to a different tune – his tune. Goldenthal, a very boyish-looking 40, scored the “Batman Forever” soundtrack.
“I think that people like to hear large orchestral music with their action heroes,'' the composer explains as he sips a soft drink in his Manhattan triplex. “Wagnerian-style music transforms you out of the mundane, takes you away and brings you to this Gothic world of seduction and heightened reality.”
Goldenthal's score is brooding, as were the “Batman” and “Batman Returns” soundtracks composed by Danny Elfman. But Goldenthal's has a comic twist.
“Jim Carrey's performance [as the Riddler] creates a maniacal child to the 10th power, a mad scientist performance, that colors the music in a different way,” Goldenthal says.
Like any self-respecting superhero, Goldenthal works around the clock, writing music for films, musicals, operas and symphonies. He typically puts in about six hours in the afternoon, then goes at it from midnight until dawn. And, on occasion, he says, he works overtime in his dreams and claims he once scored an entire concerto in his sleep.
“I spent the whole day and rewrote the entire piece based on what was in my dream,'' he says. Goldenthal is best known for his film soundtracks: “Interview with the Vampire”, “Drugstore Cowboy”, and “Alien 3”.
Sugar-coated movies do not meet with his approval.
“I'm looking for something that's not a romantic comedy,” he says. “I would rather die than do these baby movies. I don't like sweetness or cuteness.”
Goldenthal recently wrote ‘Fire Water Paper: A Vietnam Oratorio’, in observance of the 20th anniversary of the end of the war. The Pacific Symphony Orchestra performed the world premiere of the piece in Los Angeles two months ago.
He has a number of other projects on the burner. There are two films to score – “A Time to Kill”, based on the John Grisham novel, and a Neil Jordan movie about the IRA. He's also collaborating with his wife, director Julie Taymore, on Grendel, an opera based on Beowulf, told from the point of view of the monster. A new musical and a concerto are also in the works. Goldenthal says he loves hearing all kinds of music – anything from symphonies to polkas. But sometimes he finds it too distracting. “I can't make love while I'm listening to music,” he says. “It has to be incredibly nonspecific music, and if it is specific, like an incredible Mahler symphony, the person has to know that they're also part of the symphony.”