Hello everybody, it's Michael Hollands once again for Sound of the Movies. Today I have the pleasure to once again be joined by the brilliant Elliot Goldenthal. Over the course of his long career, Elliot has written fantastic music for film, theatre, opera and ballet.His impressive body of work includes the scores for “Pet Sematary”, “Alien 3”, “Demolition Man”, “Interview with the Vampire”, “Batman Forever”, “Batman and Robin”, “Michael Collins”, “Heat”, “Final Fantasy”, “Public Enemies”, “Titus”, “Frida”, “The Tempest” and many more. On this episode we will discuss his tremendous work with director Julie Taymor and his latest score for “The Glorias”. It is my pleasure to welcome Elliot Goldenthal; it's great to have you back on my show. Thank you very much for taking the time out of your schedule for me again.
Elliot, at first I would like to talk a bit about the beginnings of your collaboration with Julie Taymor. You have scored all seven of her movies including “Fool's Fire”, “Titus,” “Frida”, “Across the Universe”, “The Tempest”, “A Midsummer Night's Dream”, and now “The Glorias”. How would you describe Julie Taymor's style as a director, her language of cinema, and the interplay between your music and her directing?
Well, the interplay with my music and her directing always change. Every project we start from a clean slate because it's impossible to use an old formula for a new set of variables. But her style of working usually includes – I would say her style is a magical realist, where the realist part is really real and the magical part was really in the world of the fantastical, and both of them sometimes interact. But in this particular case, “The Glorias” is a realist film about depicting the incidents in the life of Gloria Steinem, and then it has magical-realist aspects weaved in throughout. So as well the movie “Titus” for example had this device where you feel like it's contemporary to Shakespeare's time – not exactly Shakespeare's time, but what Shakespeare was writing about, which was about 200 A.D. and the Goths and the Romans interacting; and it also had the contemporary feeling of the 1990s when it was written. And the language of course is Elizabethan.
In this particular case, in “The Glorias” movie, it shuttles back between the 1940s and 2017, where it allows all the Glorias of different ages to correspond and have a dialogue and also series of monologues in different ages at the same time, the vehicle being a Greyhound bus on a long highway. They were depicting Gloria’s life on the road.
Thanks for elaborating on that, Elliot. Before we talk more about “The Glorias” I would like to talk just a little bit about “The Tempest”, “Titus” which you just mentioned, and also “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. These are adaptations of William Shakespeare's work and, Elliot, if you were to reminisce about these particular projects and how you managed to write music which matches the Shakespearean scale, if you will, which fond memories come to mind about this musical journey?
The fondest memory of all is the fact that you spend a lot of time with Shakespeare, and it's not disposable culture, so therefore you unravel the many layers of language that Shakespeare has to offer. Sometimes it takes four or five times, four, ten times when you finally understand the intricacies and the beauty of the poetry of Shakespeare. So every time you approach the project as a composer, for example, it's a learning experience and enriching experience with humanity and poetry and drama simultaneously. So, that's the overall feeling of working with Shakespeare.
Working with Julie, she has a very, very intimate strong relationships with the actor and so much of these projects, “Titus”, “Midsummer”, “Tempest”: all of these projects we performed on the stage before it was filmed. So I had two manifestations of composing music to these media. One the first time in theater where you take your time working out things, composing things for these long, long, long monologues and interactions of language with Shakespeare. It's a wonderful enriching learning experience because the dialogue is so rich that the music can't cover the actor's performance.
So the big difference between theater and film: in film you have reaction shots, and in a movie you can see the reaction of the actor listening to those words. That is a big thing in terms of how you approach composing. And, of course, in cinema you have the ability to change locations, and the locations is a big component of the musical contribution because it takes in the atmosphere, takes in a sense of – you're composing sometimes not to dialogue or character but to location. You create a mysterious location, a grand location, a funky location, whatever. It has so many more aspects of a composer reacting to something in cinema. So each one of those projects are really rich and multifaceted.
Thank you very much for elaborating on that too, Elliot. And I would like to mention “Across the Universe” as well, which was another very interesting film and project. And this time you rearranged and produced many Beatles songs. What was it like to use these great songs and present them in a different way with many actors performing these? Do you have any favorite anecdotes about working with actors and the whole process this time for “Across the Universe”?
Well, I arranged 30 different Beatles songs and that was a challenge; the biggest challenge, as a matter of fact. The first song is ‘Girl’, and it takes place on a beach where the actor Jim Sturgess is singing into the camera. And the original song was kind of up-tempo [hums]. It's a strange song because it sounds like some musical theater song; it even sounds like Kurt Weill to me, coming out of John Lennon. But I decided to take all the rhythm out of the song, completely obliterate the rhythm and have it as an inner monologue. So he's singing and looking into the camera and instead of guitars, bass, and drum, the accompaniment for this song is cello playing harmonics, a glass harmonica, which is basically champagne glasses, which creates a pitch. And between the harmonics and the glass sound, I had a wonderful feeling of going back into his subconscious, into his memory of this girl who he was singing about. So, in that case, it set the whole tone for the movie being not-expected Beatles arrangements.
In the movie I treated the composers of the Beatles as composers, not as a band, because as a band, they're great, amazing, probably the most amazing band in history. But as composers, they created such beautiful, beautiful, well worked-out little compositions and little art songs. So in treating them as composers, not as a band, I was able to try to coax out other visions of the song that you are not ordinarily used to.
Plus every Beatles song that the band played – you're used to the arrangements. Even if you don't play the arrangements, you hear the former arrangements in your head like a ghost in the room. So that ghost is always there. So if I take out a accompaniment figure, you still hear it subconsciously anyway.
Last question before we talk extensively about “The Glorias” – I need to mention “Frida” because it was a special project and he also won the Academy Award for it. It's a biographical drama, which deals with the life of Frida Kahlo, a surrealist Mexican artist and intriguing and inspiring figure. Elliot, what fascinated you the most from a cinematic and musical standpoint about Frida Carlo?
Very similar to “The Glorias”, Frida Kahlo was a feminist. She was an artist. The feminist aspect of Frida is well-documented, but it's a really important aspect of her life, both politically and involving women's issues. There's a similarity between these two films. However, she lived in Mexico and, although it's the neighbor for the United States, culturally is extremely different and it has its own voice. Very Mexican; doesn't sound like El Salvador or Brazil or any of the countries below the border of the United States. It has a very strong nationalistic style.
So instead of taking these styles and trying to exactly compose in that world, I just did it as a visitor, as my first impressions of the great multi-faceted music of Mexico. Just like Italian cooking, for example, is so many regions, like hundreds of regions of styles of Italian cooking. That's the way it is in a place like Mexico, where it had so many indigenous people creating music for the last 10,000 years in one or another places, informed by European music, particularly from Spain and Portugal. And the multifarious styles of Mexican music is way beyond what we're used to, for example, in Mariachi. So for me, just as seeing through my own eyes, the way in a sense Frida saw the United States through her own eyes when she was painting pictures in New York, et cetera. It's an exchange of culture through a subjective point of view.
Thank you, Elliot. Now let's talk about “The Glorias” in detail. On September 30th, Julie Taymor’s new film “The Glorias” was released on Amazon Prime Video, and it is based on the novel My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem, a well-known writer and also activist. And Elliot, I would like to talk about this historically-relevant film, which deals with a strong personality and also an inspiring personality. And when did Julie Taymor and you start speaking about the music? Were you involved also, or even in pre-production, or did you get involved when the first cut was assembled?
The whole time. And before that, Gloria was kind of a friend, somewhere between an acquaintance and a friend through the years. My association with Julie and Gloria goes way back, so I kind of know her in a friendly way. But my first introduction to this particular work was through her book called My Life on the Road, which is a semi-biographical book about her. Just almost a stream of consciousness of her life on the road; her experiences both politically, personally, and introspectively on her life. So this book was a big influence on the script.
So I realized I knew what the content of the film was way before the film. However, I did see every daily that came in and I was slowly reacting to it, trying to create a subconscious well of material that I can pull out and that I can extract when I'm composing, when the film was completely assembled. But I waited until it was assembled.
The difference between “The Glorias” and “Frida” – for example, “Frida” had three or four pre-records that I had to compose before the film was in production because Lila Downs, who sang the tango I wrote for “Frida” – that had to be composed way in advance so she can rehearse, learn the song, and the choreographer, the dancing sequence could be worked out before the filming of the movie. As well as “Titus”, the big opening scene in “Titus” had to be composed way before the movie. So the actors, the Roman soldiers depicted in the movie had to learn the choreographer's choices in that movie.
But in “Glorias”, I started completely – basically, I didn't compose anything until I had an assembled cut.
Which scene would you describe as the heart of the movie, a scene which was so pivotal that made it easier for you to determine what the score should sound like?
Well, the opening scene. The opening scene has Gloria, mature Gloria, on a Greyhound bus traveling through a long, iconic, western United States highway. And you see the yellow line in the middle of the highway and you see this endless road, the big sky. You realize that you see a mature Gloria and then she's looking at the window at the motorcycles and people, endless planes. And then you see a young college-age Gloria looking out the same window and she's in the middle of the crowded street in India. So you realize that this bus is very magical because it can travel through time, time of different ages of Gloria.
So at one point, this bus can house conversations between a nine-year-old Gloria, a 14-year-old Gloria, 20-year-old Gloria and an 80-year-old Gloria, all on the same bus at the same time. So in composing it, without being specific to any period in the United States, the history of chronological history of music, I decided an amplified guitar in a simple, simple chords, almost hymnal like chords, one, four, five, three – very simple chord changes. The sonority is long, sustained, amplified chords with a sound of maybe feedback, a little wobble, a little vibrato. And these sustained chords to me sound like isolated American open road that's filled with possibilities. And that's what I was looking for and I was lucky to find, so I can go back to those sonority of that amplified guitar playing long sustained notes throughout the movie in very important parts of the movie, including the very end.
Thank you, Elliot. And I think the tone of the score is very innovative. You combined orchestra, electric guitars, and also some funk elements in there.
The funk aspect is just, you know, I grew up in New York City through the 1960s, ’70s, ’80s, et cetera. So in the late ’60s, which is a very politically charged time, the black power movement, which was a very, very strong influence on American music. James Brown, for example, James Brown or Aretha Franklin – that sound was very, very strong in terms of the zeitgeist of music. It was in the air. That was the sound. So in feeling New York like 1968 to 1972, the funk aspect was very, very strong representation of that time sonically.
One of the film's most impressive and original scenes for me personally was the witch and tornado sequence, which starts as an interview segment and then it turns into a rather wild scene involving all four Glorias. Could you please explain this scene to our audience and share your feelings about this moment and how you tackled it musically?
Well, explaining the scene is almost difficult, explaining the music. Because Gloria’s having an interview with a slightly misogynistic interviewer. He asked her – and Gloria’s sitting there wearing a basic black outfit, long shirt, long pants. The interviewer, he says to her, Are you a sex object, and are you a dressing like a sex object?
And, you know, Gloria is very cool. But the fantasy of the movie, Julie's elaboration of that one little second, less than a second, is all the Glorias appearing in different outfits, ecclesiastic outfits, like a nun, a Playboy bunny a little girl. And each time asking the audience to say, Is this a sex object? Am I a sex object? Am I dressing in a sex object manner? But it evolves with all these Glorias.
At one point, the one Gloria, about 14-year-old Gloria has a broom and she's stamping the broom at this point. She says, Am I dressed like a sex object? And the broom turns into a witch's broom and she spins up this giant tornado in the style of “Wizard of Oz” and sucks up this television announcer into the storm, into this maelstrom of wind and rain and, and all the Glorias are there stirring a cauldron and reciting from Macbeth, you know, bubble bubble, toil and trouble. And, and all this, all these clichés of, of women being witches and antagonistic objects, all these things create a living hell for this interviewer.
At the same time, it's all supposed to be funny, fun, a kind of sardonic menace and, and fun at the same time. And all of this, Michael, takes place in a split second of Gloria’s imagination. So in composing for this, I created a, a very, very – I used amplified guitar and full orchestra, and the brass section on the orchestra is playing things that are very typical to me in terms of low, low brass growls and snarls and trumpet and horn trills and dissonances in the harmony. And the strings are playing a very, very fast tarantella-like figure that goes into a 4/4, it changes time and goes into a super-fast tempo and almost a circus-like, circus/plasma-type of madness that spins around, spins around until they're back into the studio and, and all the magic and all the storm is completely [snaps fingers] turned off. And that was one second; one second of Gloria’s imagination.
Don't ask me to say that again. It's a lot going on in that scene!
Absolutely true. And thank you very much for it, for your explanation. One of the film's characters says, change comes from within. If I recall correctly, it was Bette Midler. How do you, as a composer change or amplify the story of the movie?
Well, I think I'm in the reaction business in movie-making. I see the performers create a reality that I want to amplify. Sometimes behind the eyes, when I look at the characters, they relay so much information in their visualization and their storytelling through their eyes. Sometimes it doesn't even take words. And then, of course, this kind of artistic negotiation that happens with myself and Julie Taymor, the director. She has a vision; it's her movie, after all. So we have to see through a series of back and forths with what she wants, what she's trying to achieve in the scene, because there's many ways you can achieve different reactions also while being successful composing to a scene But you have to choose one. So that's where the collaboration work with Julie comes in to create the final aspiration of composing. The change comes within; change comes with also seeing what's within the characters you're looking at, with whom you're reacting to.
Elliot, is there anything else you would like to add regarding your career or future plans in terms of film scoring? Do you wish to return to the action or sci-fi genre, for instance, anything else that comes to mind?
I'm waiting for the inspiration to chase me. I don't – I think of every project as being a very fresh one. The project is something that teaches me, informs me. I don't want to go back and do something I already did. So I'm always looking for projects that puts me in a fresh new territory. And it usually happens because the variables change often. And in a classical stage, in a more personal concert music, I am writing a song cycle based on poetry of a Polish poet named Barbara Sadowska, who wrote poems based on her experience under domination of the Soviet Union at the time and her son's imprisonment and her own imprisonment, and telling us to beware of totalitarian and non-liberal forms of government. It can be really scary. It can really inhibit the work of a free thinking mind of an artist.
Thank you very much for doing one more interview with me. I'm looking forward to chatting again, again in the future, and I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation and I hope you did too.
Of course. Okay. Bye.
Bye.