For first-time composer Mark Bradshaw, the job of scoring Jane Campion’s ethereal period pic “Bright Star” began with words rather than notes on a page.
The film – which centers on famed British poet John Keats, played by Ben Whishaw, and his short-lived romance with a woman named Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish) – incorporates Keats’s poetry into its emotional core, as does the music, Bradhaw insists.
“I always wanted the music to come from within the story,” Bradshaw tells Variety. “Fortunately, I had Keats’ poetry and his letters to help me [access] the characters’ internal rhythms.”
Bradshaw describes the movie as a “domestic story” with “raw vulnerability” that lent itself to more intimate orchestration, featuring violin, cello, and harpsichord solos.
For the track ‘Human Orchestra’, Bradshaw adapted Mozart’s ‘Serenade No. 10 for Winds’ as a vocal arrangement where he, along with several actors from the film, sing a capella during a cozy parlor scene. Bradshaw says he chose the piece because it its “interweaving, syncopated accompaniment,” and compares the treatment to one of Keats’s poems.
“There’s a tenderness that reminds me of Keats and his poetry,” Bradshaw says. “I just find it very beautiful and elegant with a kind of other-worldly quality.” – Andrew Stewart.
The film score of “The Young Victoria” exudes a certain regal yet romantic air. You’d never expect that the same composer just completed the score to “Ninja Assassin” and is now working on a film called “Kick-Ass”.
“‘Ninja Assassin’ is a mix of songs and score and breaks all the rules, but with ‘Victoria’, I was much more focused on emotion,” says Ilan Eshkeri. “I would not look at the picture; I would just sit down and try to remind myself what it’s like to be that in love.”
With “Victoria”, Eshkeri felt he was straddling a thin line between contemporary and authentic, despite the pic’s period trappings.
“It needed to be lush and romantic, but also very English and reserved – almost pompous in a way,” he says. “I think that the spirit does match the theme and the period.”
The opening scenes feature a glass harmonica, which Eshkeri says provides a “dreamy and ghostly sound” to indicate the royal life Victoria wanted to escape.
Eshkeri’s mantra is that each piece of music should be character-driven, focusing on the emotional core of each character – hence Victoria is associated with the harp and Albert with his piano. – Jennifer Konerman
Despite its period time frame, when “Public Enemies” was first announced as Michael Mann’s next feature, many people thought to compare it to another Mann crime saga, “Heat”: Both chronicle bank robbers on a path of self-destruction.
“One thing that is very different between this score and ‘Heat’s’ is that this one is completely acoustic – no electric guitars or anything like that at all,” says Elliot Goldental, who scored both films.
With “Enemies”, Goldenthal tapped a mixture of strings, brass, and woodwinds to reveal the psychological layers of the character – a more important motivator for the composer than reflecting the story’s time period.
“The big thing for me when I was writing the score was to take Dillinger and create an iconic character that was bigger than the average figure,” he says.