No one can accuse composer Elliot Goldenthal of being stagnant. The New Yorker jokingly calls himself a "33⅓ guy", referring to the fact that he splits his time between writing classical pieces, film scores, and music for theatrical productions. As his ballet "Othello" makes its way to major cities across the country, Goldenthal will also shwocase his movie mettle this month. His score ot Barry Levinson's "Sphere" is due Tuesday (24) on Varése Sarabande; the score album to Neil Jordan's "Butcher Boy" is due March 24. "Butcher Boy" is the third Jordan for Goldenthal, following "Interview with the Vampire" and "Michael Collins". He is at work ont he music for Jordan's upcoming film "In Dreams".
Although both the "Sphere" and "Butcher Boy" projects fall under the film umbrella, they provided compeltely different experiences for Goldenthal. He says he spent more than a month trying to nail down the tone of the music for "Butcher Boy" before finally deciding it should be in the spirit of the film's protagonist, an adolescent boy. "He has his own special way of looking at the world," Goldenthal says. "It required a complex naiveté, if that makes sense." For "Sphere", a sci-fi thriller that takes place primarily underwater, Goldenthal worked to provide a dramatic and somewhat uplifting backdrop. "This is a movie about your greatest fears becoming manifested, so orchestrationally it's like giving the audience kind of an LSD trip," he says. "But because verything in the movie is so scary and murky, I wanted to come up with themes that were beautiful."
Of working in the film medium in general, Goldenthal says the greatest challenge is balancing all the hands in the pot. "The variables shift. Sometimes you work with a difficult director; sometimes the subject matter presents a conceptual challenge; sometimes you have to deal with fighting to be heard through sound effects," he says.