Silvestri enjoyed working with Raimi for this film, since the director has high trust in his composer. Silvestri doesn't concern himself with the minutiae of a picture and instead wants to capture the broad, human strokes -- equating cowboys with gladiators. This gives him interest in scoring all types of pictures. | Alan Silvestri again? That’s right, despite the fact that the hot composer was our Oct. ’94 cover story, Daniel Schweiger did this interview with him on 1/22/95. Silvestri’s latest score is for Sam Raimi’s “The Quick and the Dead”, a rousing mix of action, suspense, and Morricone spaghetti-western homage (Joe LoDuca, Raimi’s regular composer, didn’t score it because the decision was out of Raimi’s hands; the first composer, Trevor Jones, departed before writing a note.) – Lukas Kendall People who were familiar with your work on action films like “Predator” and “Romancing the Stone” were surprised by the melodic quality of “Forrest Gump”. It almost seemed like your style had come out of nowhere. That’s my sound, and there’s my style. People can say I use strong rhythms after hearing scores like “The Abyss” and “Shattered”. Very often in a heavy action film, you’re writing music for the body as much as anything else, very high, kinetic rhythms which my percussive approach lends itself to. Whatever the case, I would say that my music isn’t shy. But “Forrest Gump’s” score wasn’t percussive, because the film didn’t call for it. And when I wrote a score, I take my marching orders from the movie. So it’s not surprising that the scores for “Predator” and “Forrest Gump” came out the way they did. I’d done melodic work in previous scores, but none requiring the sheet amount that “Gump” did. It was a very quiet, poignant and emotional film. My interaction with a film is very conversational. I’ll listen to what the movie has to say, then I’ll write a score that helps the picture communicate to an audience. That music reflects my voice, world view, and life experiences as well as my interest in the film’s story areas. That’s why I can appear to have a “sound” from score to score. “The Quick and the Dead” returns you to action, but now it’s following “Forrest Gump”. Your score seems to be more melodic because of that. I’m further down the road, so I’ve responded to “The Quick and the Dead” differently than my last western score, for “Young Guns II”. One would always hope that you learn throughout life. It’s been about 25 years since I’ve done my first film, and I think I’m always looking for a more precise and effective way to express my music. I hope that I continue to respond to films differently as my emotional life expands. What was it like to work with Sam Raimi? Sam has Bob Zemeckis’s gift for inspiring people. You really feel that he makes choices and stands behind them. Sam had to go through a lot of pain and agony to pick me, because like any big budget filmmaker, he’s in a desperate situation. There’s a tremendous investment in him from the studio, and Sam only does one movie every couple of years. “The Quick and the Dead” was a big part of his life, and it was a remarkable event for Sam to hand it over to a composer he didn’t know. You’ve got to remember that directors don’t really hear the full score until they’ve bought it and are at the scoring stage. So it’s like an arranged marriage. You’re meeting your bride on the altar. The husband and wife have never really seen each other, and now they’re getting married! Sam really impressed me because he didn’t make me feel like I had to second-guess him. There’s almost no director who does that, and it was the unique characteristic that made it great to work with him. Sam’s trust in me never wavered, and that lets a composer take risks for the better. Sam’s confidence helped me to find music for “The Quick and the Dead” that was a little less ordinary and a little less sage. I think he did a fantastic job with a very difficult picture; I don’t think anyone else could have made “The Quick and the Dead”. How did you discuss what direction the score would go in? Sam and I agreed that although the movie had some funny and stylistic stretches in it, the last thing “The Quick and the Dead” needed was to be looked upon as a spoof. If the score made fun of the movie, then it would lose credibility during its serious second half. There would be no justification for inviting the audience to feel anything for the characters. So instead of apologizing for the film’s stylism, Sam and I needed to develop a level of trust and emotional integrity with the audience. I saw “The Quick and the Dead” as an American samurai movie. The story wasn’t just about revenge, it was also about atonement. Sharon Stone didn’t have to kill the bad guy strictly out of revenge, as much as she needed to correct a balance in the world that Herod’s evil had upset. Then you look at the town she rides into. Redemption is a small, dusty place in nowheresville. And in this little town, a Greek tragedy unfolds. There’s a father pitted against his son, and people who are suppressed by this evil despot. Then all of these would-be heroes come to Redemption to demonstrate their superior abilities, and test which one of them will be judged as the finest specimen. So there are all these great archetypes inherent to “The Quick and the Dead”, and they needed to be approached seriously with music. That isn’t to say I didn’t pay homage to any number of different musical styles, and it was always because the film could carry them. Those thematic homages gave the film a relaxed confidence. Like a human being, the music can be very funny at one moment, and then tragic in the next breath. Tell me about those homages. We’ve got an associate history as a film-going and television-watching society, and music can conjure those visual elements. We know what horror movie and detective scores are supposed to sound like. “Roger Rabbit” had a ‘40s film noir feel, which called for a “Maltese Falcon” type of soundtrack to spice up the film’s ambiance. You’ve also got a different melodic approach for each film genre. Westerns can use “Spaghetti” music, or a style that’s appropriate for John Ford’s “High Country” westerns. For “The Quick and the Dead”, I used a couple of funny flute whistles to portray an Indian gunfighter, and had a guitar that could have come from “Bonanza”. Some of “The Quick and the Dead’s” rhythmic and driving themes play like music from a gladiator movie. But that’s what’s really happening in this picture. I saw the outlaws as gladiators. Guns are their armor, and they’re fighting to the death in an arena called Redemption. Film music is fun to address with those kind of archetypes. There’s very little method involved in composing for them. Your main “gladiator” opponent for the Best Score Oscar is “The Lion King”. The Academy voters often confuse a film’s memorable songs with its score, which is often only adequate. But do you think that might work to your favor with “Forrest Gump”, since its song album did so well? I don’t understand the Oscar dynamics well enough to ‘fight’ for one. You’re talking about sheet awards instead of putting food on the table, and I don’t consider myself a ‘gladiator’ in that case. I don’t know what my weapons’ or opponents’ strengths are. And I’ve been on all sides of the scenario where people become confused between a film’s songs and its score. I’ve been nominated at the Golden Globes tonight, which tells me that I’m one of five entities out there who’s being brought to this event. But I’m at a complete loss as to how the voters decide which one of us is the best. If I were to win, it would be fantastic. And if I don’t, it means I won’t have to get up and talk. So I’m a winner no matter what happens, and that’s the kind of fight I like! You’re at a point where you can pick and choose your films. Do you want to go back to scoring action pictures like “Ricochet”, or continue to compose melodic scores like “Forrest Gump”? If you’re around long enough and continue to grow and work, then it makes sense that my professional life will continue to expand. I’ve been around for 25 years, and I guess this is how it works. But my life isn’t about film scoring. It’s just something I do as part of my life. Everyone has to develop their own equation to find out what’s meaningful to them, and my collaborative process isn’t about scoring the best films in the world. I’m more interested in doing movies with good people, because my threshold for spending time with people I don’t like is almost down to zero. I’ll just spark to someone I want to work with, and that plays a big part in my decisions to do a film. I get ‘asked out’ by directors who are attracted to my work, and that’s really important. I will not dismiss any film as out of hand. I’ll just have to see where I am that day, what’s going on with the movie, and who’s doing it. Then I’ll make the decision at that point. Would you like all of your soundtracks to be popular outside of their films like “Forrest Gump”? I’m a film composer, and the last thing I’d want to be guilty of is inflicting a style of music on a film that conflicts with what it really needs. So I’m not interested in only doing films that have big melodies and themes that can live outside of the film. What I like is writing music that helps a picture work. If I had to look at movies in terms of a chain, then filmgoers are the director’s audience, and I’m playing for the director. That’s the person who sits in the studio when I first conduct my score, and they’re questioning if my music will help their movie. If it does, I’ve given a good performance. If it doesn’t, then that score will never be heard by a theatrical audience. So I have no illusions about Hollywood’s food chain. I need to continue to write effective music for every kind of film. In some cases, it might be a big thematic soundtrack like “Forrest Gump”, or it might be this gnashing ‘music with muscles’ for a movie like “The Quick and the Dead”. That’s a lot of fun too, because it’s the music’s dialogue with a film that’s exciting to me. |