Yes, hello, Mr. Goldenthal! Thank you so much for joining us here on ScoreNotes. How is everything going for you?
Excellent. It's a beautiful day, and there's Shakespeare out there somewhere, and that's good to know.
Indeed, indeed, and just to start off: From a composer's perspective, what do you enjoy most about composing music for the cinematic interpretations of Shakespeare, as you did with this film?
Well, it's a double challenge. One thing, you know, Shakespeare, already, in a way, wrote music, in the sense that his words are acted in verse. That means it's organized in a rhythmic, musical way, so it's almost like being a dance partner, or a composing partner in the sense that one has to stay out of the way of – not interfering with his meter; also not interfering with the quality of performances of the actors. So you have to sort of dance between the raindrops of the dialogue and monologue, and also establish a very very strong character of the music, and also create a atmosphere for the whole movie to sort of sit upon or live with you.
Along those lines – so, what were some of the unique musical directions you were able to bring together for “The Tempest”?
Well, mainly orchestration-wise. I was thinking about plucked instruments, you know? And in Africa and west Africa, for example Senegal and Guinea and Benin, those places; they have an instrument called the kora, which is a plucked instrument, and that's – the griots there, they call the sacred storytellers there – the greatest tales of their culture is sung over this plucked instrument. And I thought – I call it the string theory in this case – if you bring it to England during Shakespeare's day, a string instrument they call the lute – very common – was a vehicle, for much of Shakespeare's poems. John Dowland, for example, Robert Johnson – composers in his day. As well, if you skip ahead to our culture in the United States, the storytellers – the great storytellers on the guitar was – first thing that comes to mind is Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie, for example. So I thought, maybe in this, “Tempest” should be scored mainly with amplified guitars and guitar, without being rock and roll, per sé. But have that vehicle in the same tradition of storytelling, and plucked instruments, you know? So that was the body of the sonority that it was going for. Of course, there's different characters, like Caliban, and Caliban I stuck to earth-bound instruments, like drums and skin instruments, and very crudely but soulfully played flutes. And Ariel, it was nothing but flutes and air, as his name suggests.
And is that part of the fun for you, to be able to lock in on the type of instruments that would represent a certain character?
Yeah, it's fun until you try it, and then most of the time you fail, but in this case, the fun lasted, you know?
The results are striking. I thoroughly enjoyed what you were able to do for “The Tempest”. It's –
Thank you.
It really whisks you away into this dark, you know, enjoyable world; to just dive into musically, so it's fantastic stuff, and to be able to deliver something on par with what you did – can you describe the comfort level you have when collaborating with colleagues that you're familiar with? Does that lend itself a bit more to a creative freedom in a sense?
Yes, it does; generally it does because you have the luxury of trust. If the director, for example, knows you can deliver, and you have a certain way of going about it, the idea of being nervous about your collaborator is lifted. So doing five movies with Neil Jordan, for example – Neil, you know, understands my creative process, and doesn't get nervous, for example, over – he's quirky, he's different, he's approaching it not from the – he's thinking out of the box, so to speak. And doing so many theater works and so many movies with Julie Taymor, it's the same feeling. It's a great deal of trust there that doesn't make it any easier when it's actually – composing for it, but it helps personal atmosphere.
And does the selection process of the movies you decide to work on – is that related to who the director is of a particular project? Is that – I would assume that plays a big role in your commitment to it.
Director, yeah, plays a huge huge – if a particular daring director, or someone you really respect has – chooses a subject, you say, “Hmm, maybe I should go along with this, because we don't – it'll be a creative ride, you know?”
Sure, sure, and some of the movies that you've worked on are theatrical, in a sense, but when it comes it comes to composing for film versus theater, does one – do you enjoy one more than the other? Are they about on par with with each other?
No, they're – I think they're very very very very different animals. I think the theater – it changes every day, you know? If you compose, for example, for a theatrical situation, you have – for example, my opera Grendel: the singer's voice is changing every day; their capacity for dynamics is changing; the tempos change. One thing about a film is, because of extreme close-ups and editing, you can make a statement with five seconds, ten seconds of music. That's enormous, you know? In the theater, you tend to develop things over a longer period of time.
Yeah. This is interesting, and compelling differences really in the approach.
I'm not talking about quality, you know? A length of something – that doesn't make it better, and, you know, it's just a whole different set of variables.
You had mentioned your collaboration with Neil Jordan, and one of the films that I've quite enjoyed over the years is “Michael Collins”, and I've always wanted to ask you, you know, as you look back on that particular picture, you know, and not to go too far back, how do you recall your time spent on that project? How proud are you of that outcome for that film
Well, I'm very proud of – one thing that I remember is I – when Neil gave me the script, I was noticing that there wasn't really a significant female part until the middle. And – Julia Roberts, I recall – I wanted a female presence from the beginning of the movie, during the Bloody Sunday insurgent scene, where people are getting blown up, and the military environment is taking place, and people on firing squads and stuff like that. And I wanted to be scored with a female chorus, and with singing in the Irish language; the Celtic language. And I wanted to establish that now to frame the whole picture. Sinéad O'Connor was singing solos over a chorus, and had a really raw sort of weather beaten sound of a female presence. And that's my, you know, strongest conceptual remembrance of that, as well as working with Uillean pipes, Irish pipes, and on different click tracks to produce one area of music. So it's almost like, you know, two, three Irish pipers playing in a, you know – John Coltrane, like John Coltrane manner, you know, for some of the chase scenes, and it was very very very thrilling to experiment that way. And there goes the, you know, the idea of trust! You know Neil Jordan, that – you know, that's the crazy way of approaching something, but he was really open to it.
And do you think in today's filmmaking industry, a lot of directors – perhaps the up and coming ones – lack that type of trust in a composer? Because there's a lot of formula that's being developed these days.
I think it was always prevalent, and there was always, you know, you know, a few maverick type directors – directors with strong personalities that trust their composer. For example, there was a 19-year-old composer, a Bernard Herrmann, you know, composing “Citizen Kane”, you know? You know, Orson Welles said, I trust this kid. He's gonna come up with something, right? And then after what Bernard Herrmann composed, all those Hitchcock scores, and, you know, you can imagine the strong personalities of Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock, how they let their composer have a great deal of freedom and permission.
Yeah, that says a lot. And, you know, I'm from the perhaps naïve mindset that you bring a composer on that you're familiar with, that you're comfortable with; just turn the keys over to him or her, and see what they could come up with.
Well you know, when I composed that “Alien 3”, David Fincher was like that; he quite a few times said, You know, I hired you as a composer, so, you know, I trust what you're gonna give me, you know? I'm just gonna ask you what, you know, what I prefer or what I'm after, and that was a very very very special project for me.