In 2004, Jan Kaczmarek composed Oscar-winning music for the film “Finding Neverland”. His score, which combined full orchestra with voices and nearly mystical moments of solo piano, beautifully portrayed the film’s mix of fantasy and reality. Prior to “Finding Neverland”, Polish-born Kaczmarek’s intense passionate music had graced such powerful yet lesser-known (in the U.S.) films as the ethereal “The Third Miracle” (1999) and the Polish-made epic “Quo Vadis?” (2001). Not until 2002, when he scored director Adrian Lyne’s “Unfaithful”, did Kaczmarek receive widespread recognition in the United States. In his music for “Unfaithful”, the piano is the featured instrument, weaving the emotional strands of pain and sorrow and deceit through this story of love, lust, and betrayal. What kind of exposure to music did you have growing up? As a child I studied piano in a small local school. My mother was very serious about this and made sure I started at an early age and that I continued. Music as taught in Eastern Europe was based on extreme discipline. It was very hard labor with very few rewards. I somehow become completely discouraged. I felt that music would never be my profession. It took me two years to recover. In high school, I started writing music and I came back to music on my own terms, studying privately and also just writing from a newly discovered passion. How did your interest develop into film music? First, I was completely fascinated by theater. In Poland, theater is very strong. It was as strong as the movies at that time, and so was music. In Polish theater there was less dialogue and more visual information than in American theater. The scores became a driving force. I look at it as more of a movie of some kind with very little dialogue but with extremely powerful vision in terms of design and movement. It wasn’t until I came to America that I understood film better and I was able to form an idea of my passion toward it. So how did you get into the Hollywood scene? When I came to the United States in 1989, I started with theater. It was a natural place for me to look. But then I discovered there is a limited amount of satisfaction a composer can get in a dramatic theater, so I started looking into film. It was very difficult coming from Europe without major works in film. It is very difficult here to work on a meaningful picture because people ask if I am someone who comes from a different culture. So, basically, a level of risk is perceived. So I slowly built my reputation through small projects. A decisive moment happened in 1995, when I met Agnieszka Holland while she was doing the film “Total Eclipse”. We met a bit earlier when she was editing “Secret Garden”. I presented a demo because I really wanted to write music for “Total Eclipse”. She liked my approach very much and she wanted to do it. Where do you get your musical inspiration? Life. A composer almost needs to be a psychologist, which means I very carefully listen to and observe people, learning from their emotions and ways of thinking. When you enter the film, the music is a very sophisticated tool that defines emotion and meaning for the picture, and if you have a profound knowledge of psychology and emotion and the culture, and what things mean, you can influence the picture in a very strong way, just by applying this knowledge. Sometimes, if you are a sensitive man, intuition helps. But intuition is not enough. If you are not deeply into people and people’s emotions and motivations, sooner or later, if you do a dramatic film in which you deal with these things then you are in trouble, because you don’t understand what actually happens below the surface. On the surface, all is clear and able to be understood, but so much happens that is not on the surface, and music is supposed to support those emotions. That’s what creates a good movie. When you see something happen between, let’s say, two actors on the surface and the music plays about something else, which is hidden – hidden thoughts or hidden emotions – that music creates a much deeper and much more interesting film. Which current composers inspire you? You may not hear it in my music much, but Philip Glass is one of very few people who has heavily influenced me, but not directly, because I’m not a minimalist composer in the sense of style. But there is something in his way of thinking. How do you approach writing a score? Sometimes it starts when I get the script. Sometimes I am hired before the photography starts, and then I read the script and I have first ideas and first responses to the picture. So the script needs to be inspiring enough that I feel that I can contribute something of value, too. Sometimes I go to the set, and this is also part of the inspiration. It’s important. It’s on a human level. It’s important because you meet people. You feel connected to this group of people. But always the most important part comes when I see the first cut. I watch it and I have an emotional reaction. This is the first thing. I need to have an emotional connection to the picture. I don’t employ my intellect yet. I need to feel the essence of the picture. And this is very spontaneous: Sometimes I sit at the piano or my keyboard, and then, under the influence of the first emotion, I write a theme or two. Then comes the next stage, when usually the director, the music editor, and myself choose the places where the music will be in the picture. Sometimes this works out before because sometimes when I am coming to the picture late, they already have a temp track. Nevertheless, I then build a structure, I look at the film thematically, deciding where to place themes for different people or different aspects of the picture. You have two basic modes of thinking about scoring a movie: The first is thematic, and the second is when you depart from one point and you go with the picture, which can be very exciting. You have such a gorgeous style of writing for piano. The piano often warms up your scores with life and passion. Is this a favorite instrument to write for> I’m basically in a phase. Our lives are connected in cycles. And in my cycle, the piano is very important. Recently, I used it very much. At first, I was a bit afraid of using the piano because there is so much piano in the history of music that it always creates a danger of repeating things. I hope I have found a different way to think about the piano. I don’t know how long I will have this belief that I can bring interesting things from the piano. But if there’s a picture of a gentle kind of things happens happen between two people that require a gentle touch, then the piano seems to be very appropriate. In Poland, I did “Quo Vadis?”, which is a huge Roman Empire epic. There’s no place for piano there. It required a big epic score with some ethnic voices in it, so the piano would’ve been very inappropriate. What other instruments do you favor? In the big tradition of Eastern Europe, I love strings. If properly used, strings bring certain emotions that you cannot generate with anything else. They have passion and mystery and… I am in love with different things. Sometimes oboe seems to be a very bright moment and brings things kind of light. I’m interested in ethnic instruments very much, so if there’s an opportunity to use them, I use them. You have several top-notch scores, but I want to highlight a couple that stand out for me. First, tell me about your creative ethnic approach to “The Third Miracle”, which is a little different from your other scores. Well, the subject was very difficult. It was about a priest who was losing his faith. It was a journey to prove or disprove the miracle that happened in the life of the woman who was supposed to become a saint. A very spiritual topic. It was very inspiring. You don’t want to go into church music because it would not show the truth here. The truth was that he was at the edge, fighting with the doubt in himself. The music should be the spiritual aspect of this from a different perspective. So I wrote my own Ave Maria, which is very ethnic and which worked very well, carrying most of the emotions without being too obvious. I use a number of rare instruments, rare for film music. Do you still record in Poland? Yes, I record in three places: here in Los Angeles, in London, and in Poland. Where I record depends on the project. Each place has different qualities and different ways in which people work. I enjoy tremendously going to Warsaw because it is always an occasion to connect with my friends in my native country. I admire the quality of musicianship there. I’m very surprised that so few people record in Warsaw. Unfortunately, nobody has invested in or promoted the studios and the orchestras in Warsaw. I see Prague in the Czech Republic being such a popular place. In Warsaw, we have two orchestras. But there’s no real organization that promotes it and makes it comfortable for strangers who go there. When I go there, obviously, I know the place, the people, and I have my own organization, which is very efficient. I can have excellent quality – not just excellent musicianship but also excellent recording. I wish that there were somebody who could really put together this thing and create a stable environment for people from here or people from Europe to go and record in Warsaw. The food is great in Warsaw. It changed after socialism collapsed and very soon people opened incredible restaurants. Recently Adrian Lyne came with me to Poland for the opening of “Unfaithful”, and he was absolutely seduced by the food and the people and what happens there. How are you received in Poland? Do they follow your work? Are they able to follow it? It’s called Art Society of Film People that follows things. They are interested and really appreciate my work here. I have a strong following there. But it’s not easy to buy my albums. You can buy them in every Western European country with no effort, but find them Poland only recently, except “Quo Vadis?”, which was a big hit there. All my American works are very difficult to get. The most difficult is “Third Miracle”, about which I heard unpleasant news a week ago from my agent. The record company decided not to print it anymore, which bothers me. I don’t know why people do this, because it is such a minimum effort to print anything. I like this music so much, and it should be in distribution because I know people years from now will want to buy these things. This is music that should not get old easily. I hope. Although you use similar techniques in “Total Eclipse” and “Lost Souls”, you add some powerful and haunting synth textures in “Lost Souls”. Is this a comfortable change for you? Oh yes, very much. Again, this is my response to a different subject, a different kind of picture. “Lost Souls” is a film about dark forces at work. We deal with the idea of Satan and very dark emotions. Obviously, it is different from “Total Eclipse”. I like a combination of live orchestra and some electronic sounds because it creates a new quality. This is refreshing to me to jump into something different like this because I used a lot of electronics before I immigrated here. I was one of the pioneers in Poland of using this sort of sound. I feel very confident in the world of electronics. But there’s no need to use it when the picture doesn’t call for it. “Lost Souls” certainly called for it. By using electronics, you escape from this spirit of the historical score for a thriller or a horror movie. All big scores of the fifties have a certain character. Today we score horror films or thrillers in much more subtle ways. If you are going for a strong gesture, then you use electronics, which kind of send it into a different place. It has a fresh value. Through electronics, you can revise the sound of the orchestra. You can make it less defined, not so obvious. “Unfaithful” really gets inside the soul. You bring the story to life with such beautiful melodies. What made you use the piano as the focal instrument in this score? I compose in three places: at my piano, at my computer setup, with the keyboard where I have all possible sampled sounds and a stimulated orchestra, and also I just go outside with no instrument and I walk and disconnect myself. Quite often I start my work with the piano. When I write something or play something, it’s very natural for me to record emotions that I remember and, quite often, the first emotions are the most important. You work, you work, you work, and then you come back to your first original discovery, which is quite often at the piano. When I sit at the piano for too long I lose the emotions. Then I go to my synthesizers. I sit at the synthesizers and use the samples, which are very advanced and almost sound like the real thing. But that has limitations because you cannot escape certain sounds that you already have. Then I go to the piano, which is very refreshing. Then I go outside – and the best ideas always happen when I am disconnected from everything, and I don’t have a medium except my imagination. But then I need to come back. I don’t know if you’re familiar with “Fatal Attraction”, but Adrian Lyne went along the same path in his work with Maurice Jarre – using the piano as a heavy part of the movie. Did he have any say in that with you? He never defined anything. He was very active, very involved in the process, which was one of the most exciting and creative that I’ve been involved with, but he never set the conditions. He never said, “Jan, I want this to be a piano’s score,” or “Listen to this.” He never compared the music with Jarre’s or Morricone’s. He went with the bigger names in the profession in these earlier films, so I was very honored to be invited to score “Unfaithful”. Very few composers user a melodic approach to their music anymore. I feel yours is a breath of fresh air. Thank you so much. I am glad you pointed that out, because I hope it is being noticed. It is my deep belief that melody is neglected, and melody has such a great power. But also it’s a very risky business. When I write a melody, I am always asking myself, “When will I be accused of plagiarism?” You know, no matter how deeply you believe and how original you are in your own mind, you are always at risk for writing a melody that happened somewhere else on the planet without your knowing about it. No matter how pure you are in your intentions and your emotions, there’s always that mathematical risk. I ask myself why American composers or contemporary composers don’t write melodies. I think this may be a part of it. But this is only part of it, because the second part of it you have to remember is that there was an entire music education of the sixties, seventies, and eighties that was based on the no-melody approach – at least in contemporary music, melody was a big no. In the nineties, people rediscovered melodies. But you don’t have too many people who can write melodies, because, when you are limited in your mind, when you associate melody with something that is forbidden, it is very difficult to suddenly come back to it and to find the truth in it. I think there is tremendous truth in a good melody, and I look for it always. I give up on the melody only if it is really not possible. At certain scenes, you cannot go into melody because then it becomes too specific, and music tends to stand out too much. But, if I can use melody, I always go for it. I deeply believe in the tremendous spiritual power and emotional power of melody. Are you happy with where film music has progressed today? Yes. People complain, and I sometimes catch myself complaining, too, but let’s be realistic: Never in the history of music have you had only masterpieces being written. Most of the music is good or decent, but very rarely do you have things that are outstanding – and film music is no different. This is an interesting period for music. You know why? Because it opens up so much room for many things. Besides the synthesizers and electronics, you have a lot of ethnic instruments from around the globe, and this is great because it’s very refreshing to use elements that would never meet otherwise. You can combine instruments from different places around the globe without effort. You never meet Iranian singers with a symphony orchestra. The instruments would never geographically meet with the symphony orchestra. The world is divided into cultural zones. The beauty of today’s music is that it allows for this kind of collaboration, for this kind of creative encounter. I think this is the biggest trend of today’s film music. Who needs to be praised for the introduction of a lot of ethnic styles is Peter Gabriel, who brought a tremendous amount of ethnic music to “The Last Temptation of Christ”. This was actually the beginning. He was the father of this ethnic way. What about temp tracks? The temp track is a tremendous obstacle to creativity. But it is a tool that helps communication, which is the positive aspect of it. But when filmmakers use the temp track, sometimes they are extremely afraid to do the music differently when it comes time for the original score. They push composers quite often to copy the temp track, which results in a lack of creativity. People are presented with the same temp tracks, and they respond in very similar ways. So it requires courage to take a different approach and to take risks to present a different approach from the temp track and be able to carry it through and convince others that it is better. This is one of the biggest challenges of contemporary writing. You seem to produce one or two scores a year. Is this a choice that you have made or would you want more-frequent assignments? Sometimes I do three or maybe four. But when you do three or four, they can work only if those movies are different. That is why I really pay so much attention to writing different kinds of scores. It’s very important not to go in one direction and be perceived as a composer who writes only suspense or only period things. Because once you are in a category, it is very difficult to score anything else. What can we anticipate from you in the future? Will you be continuing to write for films or are there other musical places you’ll explore? I want to explore a little bit more, but I really enjoy film music. I am developing a place in Poland for the young artists to kind of help them in transition. I want to create an environment there in a very beautiful place, a big old park and a big nineteenth-century building. I will be bringing people from here, not just people linked to music, but also writers. Generally, the place is going to be devoted to music and film, including screenwriting and producing and directing seminars. I can have this experience of influencing young minds and helping both worlds to meet, because there is a tremendous amount of talent and passion in Eastern Europe, but there is a lack of understanding of how the business functions here, and also how you apply your talent. Here, you understand the terms of compromise better. It is a great art to combine the integrity of your talent with compromise, which the industry brings upon you. So it requires a certain kind of training. You must train your mind to keep writing interesting stuff, not only as a composer, but as a writer or anybody involved in the filmmaking process. You need to understand that film is a medium that needs to communicate to people because it’s such an expensive undertaking, and they neglect the part of being understood. Let’s take an example of screen-writing: People here go through a number of drafts, sometimes too many, but there is this absolute consensus that you need to improve it until it becomes strong enough to become a picture. In Eastern Europe, people just write one draft and they believe it is fine. So this is my passion, and I want to spend more time in Europe now. It’s also refreshing to keep traveling. Inspiration is the word. To be inspired we should be moving all the time mentally and physically as well. That is how it works.