Upon hearing the name Basil Poledouris, what often first comes to mind is his muscular, forceful, pulsating scores for such films as John Milius’s epic “Conan the Barbarian” (1982) and Paul Verhoeven’s “RoboCop” (1987) and “Starship Troopers” (1997). But Poledouris’s talents must not be pigeonholed. He has repeatedly proven himself to be highly adept at composing to the emotional pulse of any film, regardless of its genre. A good example of his more intimate musical persona can be heard in his score for the highly emotional “It’s My Party” (1996); his lighter musical persona can be heard in his music for the family classic “Lassie” (1994); and his lush, expansive musical persona can be heard in his score for the celebrated western “Lonesome Dove” (1989), a television miniseries for which he received an Emmy. Coming to film-scoring with a great understanding of all areas of filmmaking, a field he studied while attending USC with John Milius and George Lucas, Poledouris has used his broad knowledge of the medium to help him create some of the most prodigious moments in the history of film music. What was music to you when you were growing up, and how did you come to film music? Music had always been part of our family. I started formal piano studies when I was seven and had been pretty convinced that I was going to be a concert pianist. I followed that track until I got to college. I went to USC, where I decided that I really wasn’t interested in being a concert pianist, but was interested in conducting and the orchestra. The sounds of the orchestra just totally intrigued me because of the power and the textures. Then lots of things opened up. I wandered into the cinema department at USC at a particularly volatile time, you know, the mid-sixties, when everything seemed to be changing and in flux. It just seemed that the movie camera and the art of cinema itself had a little more to say to my generation than classical music. So that’s how I got interested in film, which my degrees are in. When it came time to look for music for the movies that I was making, I really couldn’t find anything that I thought was appropriate, so I started writing it. That’s basically how I started. I guess I wrote my first real film score in 1966. Then I started scoring movies for fellow classmates – most notably for John Milius. He and I became good friends while we were at USC. We were both surfers, so we would ditch class and go surfing and then talk about movies. I think I was the first person who turned a John Milius script into a movie. That’s where that association stated. Once John got out into the real world, he wrote scripts for AIP, American International Pictures. And from that, he started his directing career and invited me to do “Big Wednesday”, which was my first large feature film. Prior to that time, I had done a lot of educational industrial documentary kinds of movies. Then I decided that I didn’t really want to be a film director and went back into music. I studied composition privately and took some classes at a state university in Los Angeles. Coming from composing and directing, what are your views on temp tracks? I think it’s a crutch. I think it’s an unnecessary tool that’s used too early in the making of the motion picture. It doesn’t allow the film to develop its own life. It imposes something that has come from the outside world. Usually it’s a film score because there are serious differences between film composition and just pure musical composition. For the most part, it has nothing to do with the internal organism, or the organization and the rhythm, of what the film could be. Previewing a film before it’s finished has become the standard process. But when I did “Big Wednesday”, we would finish the film first and then preview it. Then, based on the reaction of the audience, we’d go back and re-edit the film. I would re-score the film and we would do it again. And that was sort of the way it was done. Most films were done like that. I mean, the filmmaker go to make the film that he or she wanted to present to an audience, and then, based upon that audience’s reaction and the way the studio assessed the reaction, they’d make changes. What also happens with temp music is that the directors sometimes fall in love with a particular melodic notion or the way the orchestra builds. There are so many elements that make up a musical composition and its execution that it’s very difficult even for a musician to discern what exactly it is that somebody might find intriguing about a piece of temp music. Is it the fact that the melody is played on a trumpet or is it the melody’s construction itself? You know what I mean? So, although you’re not quite sure what it is they like about a piece of temp music in the first place, particularly if it’s completely inappropriate music, you kind of end up trying to parody it. I was just working recently on a picture that was a period piece in which it seemed like every action scene had temp music that sounded to me like it was science-fiction. It didn’t seem that anybody else picked up on the fact that, even though the film was set in the 1800s, there were these incredibly modernistic harmonies and orchestration devices that would be more appropriate for “Star Wars” or “Matrix”. My feeling about the temp track is that it’s hideous. It’s a hideous imposition upon somebody who really is interested in bringing a creative vitality to the film for the film’s sake. It really is. I just went to see “The Hours”, which is a beautifully done movie all around, but I have one criticism, and I am curious to know your thoughts about it. We’ve talked about temp scores and music placement. In this case, I felt the music placement might have been over-abundant. The music, by Philip Glass, was beautifully composed, with movement and emotion, but it was a bit overwhelming at times. Who ultimately makes these placement choices? That’s interesting that you say that. I watched “The Hours” a couple of weeks ago and I thought the music was very appropriate and king of wove everything together quite nicely for those three time periods and all. But I had this funny feeling that if I were to watch it again, the music would exhaust me. There were a couple of times when I felt, “Damn, do we really need this?” There was this constant churning and this agitation going on within the characters. I think that may have been the request that they made. But it was also very strongly Philip’s style. I think it worked. I’m not putting the score down at all. He probably has a strong influence over what ends up in the film because of who he is. Same with John Williams, who has a strong influence on the way the music ends up in the picture. Maybe not. I don’t know anymore. In answer to your question, it’s really hard to know what is the composer’s choice these days. When I first started out, there was no question: The composer was the musical director of the film and made all of the musical choices in concert with the director, of course, and sometimes the producer. Directors didn’t assume that they had either the expertise or the knowledge, and some of them frankly didn’t have the concern. They hired Elmer Bernstein because they wanted Elmer Bernstein to score their movie. They hired us for our expertise and our dramatic sense and our familiarity with film. These days it’s really hard to know. Is it the editor’s choice because that’s where the temp track was? Is it the director’s choice because he or she took the cue from the first reel and stuck it in ten times throughout the rest of the movie? You are one of the most versatile composers in the industry. Talk about your approaches to, and the influences on, your various styles. I’m not going to say that I’m schizophrenic or have multiple personalities, but when people ask me what I listen to, I tell them, “Well, in the morning, I like to listen to Bach or Leonard Cohen, and in the afternoon I like to listen to Ministry of Sound and Nine Inch Nails. It just depends.” I think the answer to your question, in terms of film scores, is whatever is appropriate for the movie itself. I don’t have the need to impose my style on a movie. The style should grow from the formal requirements of the film. It’s like we were talking earlier about the period piece set in the 1800s. I don’t think that should sound like the latest DJ music. That’s a little inappropriate to me, so I try to find out what it is about the film – in the film’s writing or direction or color or style of the film itself – that dictates the musical style. I don’t know how this happens with me – that’s the magic part – and I don’t really want to know, because I think if I ever figure it out, then I probably wouldn’t be interested in doing it anymore. I want to touch quickly on “Conan the Barbarian”. What sort of research took place for this broad and powerful landscape of different sounds? “Conan” had a temp track, and it was an amazing one. It was mostly classical music because it was of a different era. It was kind of like what Rózsa used to do with the Roman epics. He created “the sound of Rome”. We don’t know what Rome sounded like. They had long trumpets and lutes, but no one really knows any more about it than they know the sound of music of ancient Greece. Well, “Conan” was supposed to be ten thousand years before history, and John Milius always had the notion that the score should play like an opera in that there are motifs. He likes a very strong emphasis on melodic lines. That’s always been John’s request and requirement for film scores. So, okay, the simplest melodic form seems to be the folk song. Since the earlier folk songs were before history, no one wrote them down. So I went to Celtic songs and drew in thoughts, not that I did a whole lot of research. If you look at Celtic music, it had to have been an outgrowth of Druid influences. So I read a little bit about what they thought the music of the Druids was. And, since the number three is very strong in all mythologies and religions, I thought, “Well, I’ll repeat the thing three times.” I also had the idea that it should be sung, because they transmitted their history to future generations through song. I used very primitive kinds of harmonies – open fifths and octaves, which were the beginnings of harmony. I kind of tried to deconstruct something like a modern folk song and put it back into time. The orchestra was big because of the operatic style and the size of the movie. Arnold’s big, for Christ’s sake! I couldn’t do it with a lute and drum. I mean, I guess you could have, but all those factors kind of come into it. What does the Latin choir represent? I think it gives it an antiquity. John originally wanted it in German. I resisted that notion only because it seems like German is kind of a modern language. I guess, ideally, if I were really going to pump that concept, I would have created my own language and have them sing in it, but they don’t speak that language, they speak English. Latin seemed to work, and choirs know how to sing in Latin. You’ve added amazing color to Paul Verhoeven’s science-fiction movies. I’m curious why you didn’t go on to score any of his others, such as “Basic Instinct”. I was unavailable after we did “RoboCop”. Paul has said in the past that, if he’s got a movie with a tremendous amount of heart or emotion, he likes to work with me, and if it’s more of an intellectually based kind of idea, he likes to work with Jerry. I think “Basic Instinct” was a really terrific score. Jerry did a great job! Once you develop a relationship with a director, how does this affect you or in general? Oh, I think it would have bothered me ten or fifteen years ago, but it’s no problem. You know, it’s really easy to pigeonhole people in Hollywood no matter what their discipline is. If a costume designer does a really contemporary, outrageous, punk kind of thing, you’re not going to consider them to be the costume designer for “Les Misérables”, when, in fact, they might be totally right for it. I think we all suffer from pigeonholing. That’s one reason why I have always embraced doing films with different styles. For a long time I was the action guy. Even though I had done “The Blue Lagoon” and several very delicate films, I was the blood-and-guts and thunder-and-glory guy. It’s tough to be pigeonholed, but on the other hand, if it’s done by somebody you admire and respect the way I do Paul, then fine. He knows what he wants. I’m not going to content him. He’s much too strong or a director. He has a vision. If more people made movies like Paul Verhoeven, we’d have a hell of a lot better movies going on out there. So if Paul Verhoeven wants to use whomever, then he should. I respect directors. You have to understand that, after studying to become one, I realized that I really didn’t have that kind of discipline and dedication. They’re amazing people. I mean, there are thousands and thousands of little details to have to deal with and keep under control and keep from being overwhelmed by. It’s like a big circus. Milius always compared directing to being a general in an army. I think he’s absolutely right. You have to have leadership qualities to pull sixty or seventy people together to a single vision and then go fight with the studio and the money people. What was your approach to scoring “Les Misérables”? It certainly was far away from the Broadway musical based on the same story. I hate to admit this, but I think I am one of the few people on this planet who never saw the show. I’ve never been a fan of musicals, or opera for that matter. I think that was one reason why they hired me. It was a replacement score, so I didn’t have the kind of lead-time that I usually get. Knowing that I’m going to be scoring a film, I do research, particularly when the movie’s based on a book that is so well-known. I think the time from I was set to do the movie until I finished it was maybe eight weeks. I read the book – which is a big, brilliant, wonderful book – as I was writing. Billy August is an amazing director, and he understands what he wants. I knew the period, and the style was basically Berlioz. So that was the kind of harmonic setting that I knew the film should stay in. Billy agreed with that. The main thing I think that he was after was a sense of movement. I know the studio wanted that. Then he wanted an idea that represented the repression that the characters felt. I mean, the character Jean is put in jail for nineteen years, I think, for stealing a loaf of bread. That’s outrageous. It’s kind of a hard concept to follow today, when people can kill and get out in thirty days or not go to jail at all. So, musically, I tried to create the sense that there’s this kind of darkness. There’s a lid on the music that never really opens up until the last shot of the movie. There’s this muted quality to the score itself. It never really becomes free. What was the reason for presenting it in movements, like a symphony, on the CD? They wanted to have a simultaneous release of the album and the film, which is smart marketing. The score hadn’t been written yet. I probably still had three weeks of writing and recording left to do, but the record had to be compiled for the artwork. It was a marketing demand that I had to meet. So instead of giving track titles and that sort of thing, I said, “Screw it. The film basically moves in four acts, so I’ll find some music and throw it together.” That’s not the way I would have liked to have done it, frankly, because I think it plays way too long in certain sections. Without being boxed into making decisions before I really knew what this score was, I said, “Hell, I’ll just do about ten minutes here and about twenty minutes there and maybe this will be fifteen.” So I basically cut it into those sweeps. It was a way of my hanging on to a little bit of control over what goes on the album without having to be so specific: What if I hated a cue that I thought I was going to put on the album? “For Love of the Game” is a departure from most of your other scores. There is the Americana side and the dramatic emotions in which you hit every nail on the head. What kind of spirit did you gain from the story? I loved it. First of all, I really like Kevin Costner’s stuff. I think he’s really a strong actor and a good guy. I think he represents a lot of things about America, Gary Cooper things, particularly in “For Love of the Game”, where there’s that silent-man kind of strength. He’s an old-fashioned guy. He doesn’t believed in trading. His commitment to – and love of – the game is strong. It’s not that he’s on the cover of Sports Illustrated and can make millions of dollars just by jumping from one team to the next. It was a particularly intriguing script because I was sort of in the same place in my career, not that I was trying to figure out if I wanted to marry somebody, but just in terms of summing it up in a way. It had lots of really interesting themes going for me. It was highly romantic. Baseball brought in all of the Americana. It was something that Sam Raimi and I talked about a lot. What is baseball? It’s an American institution. So the score should have almost a folk feel. That’s what the acoustic guitars are about. And then you also have the process of what it really is like to be a pitcher, when he starts doing that breathing through his mouth. Can you imagine how exhausted that pitcher must be? And the fact is that it’s based in reality. I mean, there are guys who pitch no-hitter games, and they do have to zone out like that. They shut out the crowds. I think that’s the thing that’s really cool. We all have to do that at certain points when we’re under incredible stress. I think it really is one of your greater works. Thank you. I’m very fond of it. I got to do a lot of things in it, too. There are some hints at rock-‘n’-roll. There’s some big orchestra stuff when he’s pitching that last game. Sam wanted the choir. He said, “Let’s kick this last cue way over the top.” I said, “Gee, we’ve already got a hundred-piece orchestra sawing away. What else do you want?” He goes, “What about a choir?” I never would have thought of sticking a choir in that film. Sam’s cool. I loved working with Sam. Also, I’ve got to tell you, “Evil Dead 2” is one of my favorite movies. It’s so funny and really well done. It’s very stylish. Sam’s going to be a terrific director. You have great variation from project to project. Is this your choice or does this just happen? It’s a choice in that I always tend to refuse certain kinds of projects. And if it’s the kind of thing I’ve done before, then I’m not that passionate or excited about doing it again unless I can bring something new and different to it. What kinds of projects don’t appeal to you? Slasher films. That’s probably it. They scare the hell out of me. I know full well there’s pyrotechnics and blood, prosthetics and stuff like that, but it messes with me. I don’t like it. On the other hand, in “Conan”, we chop off people’s heads, so… But that was history. Yeah, exactly. And it’s stylized. How else are you going to kill somebody? Sneaking around in the dark, scaring women and doing hideous things? In “Conan” they’re up-front warriors. That I can deal with. What about “Flesh & Blood”? What aspects of your career or certain films’ moments have impacted you most? They’re all representations of where I was at the time I wrote them. It’s very difficult for me to separate them from what’s going on in my life when I wrote. What I’m trying to say is that I try to plug into my film scores the emotions that are going on in my life at the time. A lot of the stuff in “Lassie” and in “Jungle Book” is from experiences with my own children. What is it that they would find interesting about the piece of music that I would write for the particular scene? Would it be charming, would it be enchanting, would it be magical for them? “Lonesome Dove” and “Lassie” are just gorgeous, openly expressive scores. “Lonesome Dove” was a joy to write. They are two films that were absolutely easy. They were almost effortless to write. What is the happiest thing about pursuing a career as a film composer? There are many positive things. You get to explore yourself when you’re given an assignment. It’s a challenge, and you have to wrestle with yourself and your insecurities and your fears. It gives you the opportunity to overcome them in the production of something. That’s a very personal thing. The other great thing about being a film composer is that you get to work with some of the most wonderful musicians in the world. I don’t think if I’d have gone through the concert route that I would ever have been able to work with the London Symphony Orchestra or the London Philharmonic or the Beijing Symphony. It gives you a kind of musical legitimacy because it’s a commercial medium. You have access to the finest studios. There’s usually the money to finance that sort of thing. It’s work that has been accomplished. It’s real stuff. It doesn’t just exist in my head or on a piece of paper. It’s produced and it’s out there. That’s pretty amazing to me. Something that I’ve written has been heard by so many people! And people respond to it. It has a vision that can be tangible to people versus a classical piece that doesn’t have a vision with it. Are there other places you want to take your music to? Yes, I’m very interested in doing that. But I’m certainly not going to refuse films that I’m attracted to. What I’ve done is I’ve sort of cut back on going after the typical Hollywood film, whatever that is. It’s a mentality more than it is a specific thing. I’m not really interested in working with people just because they’ve got something they think is going to make a fortune, which is not a bad thing for some people who want to do it, but it doesn’t attract me particularly. I draw on the material. If the material interests me, and it provides the opportunity for me to expand my musical vocabulary and my dramatic vocabulary, then I’m very interested. From what I’ve seen, because I think I’ve scored seventy pictures, or something like that, there’s a lot of repeating. These days we tend to make the same film over and over and over again. I’m constantly looking for the new film that provides me with the opportunity to do new things and, yes, I’m expanding my musical interests. I’ve never written for the concert stage before. I’m kind of interested in doing that, working with various ethnic instruments in conjunction with the orchestra. I think the state of the orchestra in the United States is in pretty bad shape. I was recently looking at a list of the concerts offered by the Seattle Symphony. It was boring stuff for the most part. They need some new material – a little combination of commercial Hollywood music and with the traditional classical music, some kind of a synthesis of those two things. I’m not going to save the orchestra single-handedly, but I think some new material wouldn’t hurt it. I have seen credits for the animated film “Paul Bunyon”. What is the story with this project? I am certainly going to be involved in writing the thematic material for it. I don’t think I am actually going to be scoring it myself, just because with animation it’s a huge commitment or time and energy, and I’m frankly not sure if I want to be involved with a film for that long. My longest involvement on a film was “Conan”. I spent twelve months on it. “Starship Troopers” was the second longest. I spent nine months. I tend to like long involvements, but an animated film can go into two years sometimes, and I never write two films at once. I don’t have that kind of multi-track mind where I can multi-task. I like to stay in the world that I am writing for. To stay in an animated world for two years might be a little more than I am willing to do.
I’ve been lucky with the science-fiction stuff that I’ve done as well as the mythological films. You’re creating a world. You’re creating an environment that the audience is invited to participate in. That’s why I feel my primary responsibility is being true to a style or true to a period or being true to a vision that the director has.
The filmmakers have to want me to be involved in the first place. The only thing I can affect is that I can turn down things that I don’t want to do.
I loved doing that movie. That movie’s got balls. And it was a rare thing. It was the first time I’d seen a Hollywood film, with the exception of Milius’s stuff, that wasn’t timid. It was really strong stuff. It had strong and ambiguous characters. There wasn’t a good guy and a bad guy. Those guys are both good and both bad. It’s all gray stuff. I like that. There’s a complication to it that appeals to me a great deal. Also, I’d never done a medieval thing.