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En Castellano
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Interview with Chris Young (Part Two) By Joaquín Ramentol, David Rodríguez Cerdán y Miguel Ángel Ordóñez |
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SM: Your score for “Swordfish” probably allowed you to explore new musical ways by having to share your music with the electronic work composed by Paul Oakenfold. How did you approach this score?... It is difficult to put music on a project in which two composers so different in styles are involved?
CY: Yes, I´ve never worked with someone else in scoring a movie. In this case Paul, which is sort into the trance-dj world, I was thrilled to work with him, however when push came to shove he was on the road touring and concertizing so we never really work together. He was gone. He gave me some sounds and some loops but then I had to cut up those loops. His loops were very exciting but he had no idea of what I was doing with the orchestra, we never talked. He showed up and hear the orchestra for the first time at the recording sessions. So, it was exciting but...
SM: Not an experience that you would repeat...
CY: I´d do it again, of course, but it wasn´t so wonderful I was hoping it would have been... I had so little time to write that score...
SM: You have scored very interesting, suggestive jazz-oriented scores (“Shade” or “Rounders”). This is a kind of style that directors tend to associate to a certain period of time, let’s say the 60´s or 70´s, in other words... retro. Don´t you think that movie music is constrained by too many clichés which prevents the composer from attaining a more musical freedom? Generally speaking...
CY: Movie music is certainly constrained by clichés, what is the most obvious cliché that movie music has today? Synthesizer drones (makes drone-pattern noises), that´s kind of stuff. Yes, that´s become very cliché. Synthesizer pulsing music: no melody, no...
SM: Only noise...
CY: Yes. That´s become a cliché. It´s heavily synthesized... drum stuff, that´s cliché, but they love it.
SM: You were nominated for an Emmy for “Norma Jean And Marilyn”. Your score is both dramatic and sensuous, a score of lights and shadows. what can you tell us about this movie and the challenge it represented for you by dealing with Marilyn´s myth?
CY: I didn´t know much about Marilyn Monroe´s life. I went out to read lots of books about her. It so happened that the house that she died at was like a mile away from my office. So I would go to her house and I picked flowers from the gate and I bring them home so I can put them in my piano. So I was always looking at these flowers while I was writing and thinking of her and the house where she died. I don´t remember the score but I remember it was my trying so hard to do justice to her.
SM: At this point of the interview, it seems quite evident that we have to ask you about this fantastic and much admired score for “Murder In The First”. How did you deal with the structure of this score?... Was it clear to you from the very beginning that the score had to reflect the thematic confrontation of tragedy and romanticism alike? Can you please tell us about this extraordinary score? Everybody loves this score...
CY: What I can tell you about this score is that when I was hired on that movie the director chose to hire me not because of any dramatic score I had written up to that moment, and I had worked on many dramas... It´s because he just happen to love the theme for “Jennifer 8”... He just loved the “main title” and he said: “okay, this theme has nothing to do with my movie but I like this composer´s thematic talents”... So I get hired on the movie... they were kind enough of hiring me on preproduction, which is unusual, specially for a director which I never worked with before. They hired me in preproduction and they decide to fly me up to Alcatraz... that is where they shot the movie...
SM: In fact this was the trial that closed down Alcatraz... it was a real a case, wasn´t it?
CY: This is very true, it was a real case. Actually was Bobby Kennedy who was responsible ultimately for closing it down. He was the one who decided: “enough, closed”. But I had the chance to go to Alcatraz and because I was part of the film crew I got to be able to take to the places who were not available to the general public. In particular they took me down below to solitary confinement, a place really awful, awful... It was like an underground prison. No light, they turned the lights off... complete darkness. This is where Henry Young, the character on that movie, spent over a year... So I got to go there, I got to go there to absorb the horrible feeling of what life might have been... I tried to imagine and I read a lot of books on Alcatraz.... so I felt I couldn´t score this until I had a sense of the history... So what happens is that I go back, they shoot the movie and then they show it to me and... We´ve talked about temp music, about how temp music becomes a big problem for the composer... In this instance, the one piece of music that they tempted in the movie was the “Intermezzo” from Cavalleria Rusticana, tough act to follow.... The only piece they put it there and they put at the “main title” and at one other place. So I go, “okay, you want ugly, terrible tragedy but triumph of the spirit”, that was the big word, the word they kept on repeating, you want the score to reflect this sense of the triumph of the spirit, man´s ability to overcome tragedy. So I spent a lot of time writing that theme, that main theme that as I recall took a looong time. You know, you´ve heard that John Williams wrote like 80-90 different signals for “Close Encounters”, the (hums the “conversation motif”) communication theme? Here the same thing. It took 80-90 false attempts and then finally I got it. So, what was going through my head when I wrote that score? Well, I had to say the influence on me other the “Cavalleria Rusticana” was Samuel Barber´s Adagio For Strings and Ralph Vaughan Williams music for...
SM: Fantasy on a Theme of Thomas Tallis, maybe?
CY: Yes. You have big string orchestra, in front of that an octet, in front of that a quarter, so I´d say: tentet, quarter, tentet, full strings that interplay between the different groups. So that´s what kept me going So, that sound, that triumph of the spirit, I wanted to be a melody that would be remembered. I think every film composer wants to write a melody that can be remembered and I´d only wished that score had been put against a better movie. I love the movie but the movie kind of... Did you like the movie?
SM: Very pessimistic, It was a bit depressing...
SM: “The Hurricane” is quite similar in musical concept to “Murder In The First”, with both a jazzy and spiritual touch. How was your experience of working with director Norman Jewison? Does such an experienced director as Norman allow you to be free with the thematic material or does he give specific instructions about the kind of music he would like for the movie?
CY: Well, I´d had to say that his directions were specific only about this: “okay, I do want a jazz score”. He likes jazz and he says: “and I want a jazz of a certain kind of quality”. He couldn´t quite describe what kind of jazz he wanted but I remember the first attempt I made at it and he said: “no, no... that´s wrong”. “I need something that is kind of like... blues”, I always wanted to have a voice but it was more blues, old blues...but he said “no no, I want sort of, like you know, sort of Chicago style”... so all I remember is that I had trouble getting the right vocabulary but all of a sudden I got this (hums de Hammond motif) in the organ that starts swinging...
SM: But also there is a thematic approach...
CY: Yes. The score is in two parts: half jazzy, half not jazzy at all... and he could have hired Terence Blanchard, the great black jazz trumpeter and composer. But he said: “you know, I don´t care all this movie is about an african-american and his culture, but the storyline is universal and jazz is not going to cover the whole needs of the story”. “So I want jazz and I want “Murder In The First” kind of music (laughs), you know? Kind of emotional music. White, black, I don´t care... just make it emotional”. And I was uncomfortable because I thought: ¿What is this white boy from New Jersey doing scoring this movie about Hurricane Carter, what do I know? He could had got Terence Blanchard... that was the real thing! But it worked out fine...
SM: “Bandits”, another great score of yours, is a work for very few instruments. How do you feel more at ease... to be confronted with a score in which you have in mind a soloist and how he or she plays it, or else with big symphonic scores?
CY: Which makes me more comfortable... The one thing about working with small groups is that you don´t have the anxiety of standing in front of sixty, seventy, eighty people and worrying about what they think. I think every composer that is in front of an orchestra want the orchestra to love their music and sure Harry [Gregson-Williams], and Trevor [Jones] would be thinking “could the orchestra like my music?” When you got eighty people out of the orchestra that´s eighty opinions you are worried about, you know?. Small groups, less anxiety. So, it´s a different kind of anxiety; both are anxieties, I can´t say. Working on “Bandits” with a small group makes it easier than working on any movie with a big orchestra. And it´s hard to say, almost equal anxieties, but if I was to go one or the other I´d say: big orchestra. More salaries, much more expensive, greater anxieties, if they are going to like it... Writing for... I just love writing for big orchestras, I really do. That´s my thing, you know?
SM: “The Shipping News” was your first work with the Swedish director Lasse Hallström. How was working with him and what memories or anecdotes does this movie bring to you and particularly, about the using of Irish music, something very different from your vast output?
CY: When I came on board on that movie [talking about the Irish influence] they all ask me to (not just him, but all of the producers) if I minded incorporating Irish music into this. And I said: “well no, but tell me why”. Well, the native or the authentic music of New Finland which where the movie was shot is Irish because the original settlers came from Ireland. And they said: “we´ll give you the music from some of the local musicians there”. All Irish; if you think you can do an Irish-flavoured score, we´d prefer that. And I said: “of course i´ll do it”. I´d never done it before, as you pointed out, but I can do this, and I can do that... Working with Lasse... Lasse is Swedish and he´s a gentleman and very soft spoken. I worked with him on two movies and I have to say that between the two movies he maybe said a total of thirty sentences about the music. He is very, very uncomfortable talking about music. Of all the directors I have worked with he is the worst only because he is so nervous. So I didn´t get much input from him. As a matter of fact, when I was at the recording session in London for “The Shipping News” he was so afraid that he didn´t even come. He was in New York and I was in London and we communicated ISPM. So I recorded a cue and then I picked up the phone and talked with him about it. Strange... I did it on “Bandits” too, but that was because he [Barry Levinson] was too busy working on his next movie. So it was... uncomfortable. But he is a genius and I love his movies and it was a great experience for me ultimately, but hard because his inability to communicate.
SM: For Lasse Hallström you also scored the drama movie “An Unfinished Life”, but your score was rejected. Can you please tell us what really happened? And what can you tell us about Robert Towne´s “Ask The Dust”?
CY: Well, I can´t tell you what really happened. All I can really tell you is that at the end my scores were thrown out. I am not there when the decisions are made, so I don´t know what they were really thinking. All I can tell you... Let me to tell you this: in the case of “An Unfinished Life” that movie had problems right from the beginning : it was the last of the three movie deal that Lasse had prepared with Miramax. And Harvey Weinstein, who was the head of Miramax at that time, was one hell of a character. He came to my office once: big guy, a chain-smoker. I was impressed that the head of the company would come to tell me what he didn´t like about my score. In that case it was “Rounders”; he hated the score for “Rounders”; the original version. I had to rewrite that but in this case he and Lasse have had a big falling out. For starters, Lasse never wanted Jennifer Lopez; it seems that he thought she was horrible but Miramax insisted that they would have Jennifer Lopez, so they hated each other. Harvey wanted the score to be “big opulent western”. He thought it was right for the movie. So actually I was in London, believe it or not, just to record different versions of scenes so they were closer to what Harvey wanted: “big opulent western”. So it was not good. But by the time I finished recording the score Lasse said: “great, I love it! It´s perfect! Great job Chris!”. It took forever to get there....[it was] painful... but he liked it!. Then the movie sits in a closet for two years and then finally they hear it is gonna be released. Unfortunately he pulls the film out, they listen to it and I wasn´t there but I guess they decided: “we need to change this score, we are not happy with it”. So they hired Deborah Lurie, who was a student of mine, and I have no idea what instructions she got and I never heard which she did really... because it is too painful. I´m sure she did a great job and she is very talented but she had to knock out a score in a very short order.
In the other movie, “Ask The Dust”, I was the third composer who was brought in. First: number one, James Horner. Fired. Then, Gustavo Santaolalla. fired. Chris Young. Fired (laughs).
SM: Who finally scored the movie then?
CY: You know, one of Hans´ guys. I don´t even know [Ramin Djawadi]. The film came in when and I don´t know, it was one of this situations when the film... the film only played for about a week in a handful of theatres in Los Angeles. It was a disaster. And I was sad because I wanna so badly to do a great job and I tried my best... Actually, believe it or not, I had a whole bunch of themes. [Because Salma Hayek], they wanted the music to be latin influenced, so I wrote a whole bunch of latin influenced music: two guitars, I had a trumpet player and two guitars combined with strings and I liked the music but... boom. Gone. I didn´t write much music, I didn´t never got that far. I was fired within like ten days.
SM: Let´s now talk about two projects in which you were requested a last minute collaboration. the first one is “Something´s Gotta Give” in which you scored additional music to that of Hans Zimmer... How did come up the opportunity of working on this movie?... Did you work on a totally independent way or you worked closely with Zimmer and his team?
CY: I had no interaction with Hans at all. I did two cues, he did a lot of score, these guys did a lot of score. Why I was hired? I was hired because the director on that movie was unhappy with Alan´s work (Silvestri) for the movie... and the only reason I was hired on that is because the music editor tempted one of my cues for “Wonder Boys” and she loved it. She said: “this is what we need for this movie. Get the composer”. So I was called in and asked to sort of imitate “Wonder Boys”. And that´s what I did.
SM: The other one is “Spiderman 2”, where your style is clearly evident in the Dr. Octopus´s creation scene, with a theme that reminds us of “Hellraiser II” which, as far as we know, was there as temp track. Any comments about your experience in this movie?
CY: My experience on this movie was absolutely fabulous, of course! I got “Spiderman 3” (laughs). I am so lucky that Danny had a falling out with Sam Raimi!. His disaster turned into my gift! His hell, my heaven!. So yes, indeed, I was brought in because Sam loves the “Hellbound” score and they put that in the Dr. Octopus´s and he says: “Chris, listen to this! Get it made. That’s what I want. Danny won´t do it. You wrote it, you do it!”. And I said: “Sure, great!”. (laughs) So I imitated that and he was extremely happy. You know, you have to do these things, right?.
SM: What can you tell us about “The Exorcism of Emily Rose”?
CY: Scott Derrickson was the director. I went into the interview on that movie and he said to me: “You know what? For the very beginning I started working on this movie you were the only person I wanted to score this”. I was the only composer he interviewed. So when you go on a movie where the director is saying “I only want you” it does something to you, I think. I mean, for me, cause you know that this person really wants you, that he really loves your music. And so on, we had a great time; he´s is a very intelligent man, very articulate. So very few directors really know how to direct composers and he wouldn´t get angry if he dislikes what you are doing. He goes: “Good effort! But let me tell you what I am really kind of hoping for”. He expresses himself in such a way that he would inspire you to want do the best you can possibly do. So I did a lot of rewriting in that before the scoring stage but ultimately I think he was very happy. I don´t remember a lot about that score. but I do remember that I was uncomfortable at first with the “main title” being really non-thematic. It is no real melody in that movie, there are several motives you can hear in the “main title”, little motives, and it is not until the “end title” when you find a real melody and so, the motives are developed over the course of the movie and finally realized in their fullest expression in the “end credits”. Normally it´s all the way around, isn´t it? you have the big theme in the “main title” and then you start breaking it down, right? Didn´t happen on this, where I had to broke it down to its minimum in the “main title” and then work upwards. It was a great experience.
SM: Of all the scores you have written can you tell us which is your favourite one and why?
CY: I do not have a favourite one. Thank the Lord I don´t have a favourite one. if I did it would probably haunt me and make me feel like “why can you do this as good as you did in that one”. I would say that if I listen the people who listen to my music then “Murder In The First” is one of my best scores because everyone seems to respond to that. I would put that on top of my list? Not necessarily. But everyone is responding to it and it´s okay, you win (laughs), it is my best! So that on one end: melody/emotion that´s probably my best. Non melody, when I got into the wacky, weird, imaginative, unusual stuff, probably “The Vagrant” or the electronic music for “Invaders From Mars” which you probably never heard, it´s available on CD... It is weird, not easy to listen to... It is a weird composition. If you like it or not you´ll agree with me in saying it´s different. And that´s not a bad thing.
SM: You have scored films with a variety of styles, from jazz to Americana... Is there any style of music that you would still like to explore?
CY: Believe it or not, I have not done many comedies. And I would love to work on a movie that allow me to do that sort of oddball-quirky kind of music... that was probably more in the sort of twisted pop world than the orchestra world. There are certain movies that are sort of black comedies or very strange comedies like...
SM: “The Man Who Knew Too Little”?
CY: No, well, it´s a comedy but when I was hired on that they kept on telling me: “could you give us “The Pink Panther”?” And I said: “Yes I can do that, but I have an idea. I have a new idea, I´d rather to try this nickle!..”. And they went “Oh, that´s a nice idea! But gives us “The Pink Panther” (laughs)”. And I kept on hearing Pink Panther, Pink Panther, Pink Panther... They adored the score but it was “The Pink Panther” all the time.
No, I mean, what was the name of that movie with Adam Sandler, some weird movie...
SM: “Punch-Drunk Love”?
CY: “Punch-Drunk Love”. These kinds of movies. Weird comedy movies where you can do tiny, quick kind of scores...
SM: I love the Jon Brion´s score for that...
CY: I love so too. Excellent. Very imaginative. These are the kind of movies and kind of scores that I know are sitting inside me that have been inside me for before “Punch-Drunk Love”. You know, it is like “Murder In The First”... no one thought I could do that score, “it is our movie” they said, “do action movies, or sci fi movies, not this!”... But you do it and they go... “Uhmmm”. Well, you know this quirky comedy twisted light fun things are also Chris´ fun... (laughs)
SM: Mr. Young, we know how fond you are movie music of which we understand you are a great collector... Which have been the works that have more strongly influenced you, and which are your favourite composers?
CY: I think you know the answer for that question, do you?
SM: Jerry Goldsmith, Bernard Herrmann, David Raksin?
CY: David Raksin... not so much as imitating him but by just absorbing his approach to music. Herrmann... his technique, his concepts... Herrmann definitely. I can´t sit at the piano, working on a thriller film, less now but when I started... I´d be working on a scene and I felt like if Herrmann had jumped up on my shoulder like a jiminy cricket and said to me: “Chris you can´t do that, that stinks!” (laughs) Then jumps Jerry and goes “Listen to me!”. So it was like Jerry-Benny, Benny-Jerry.... “Please get away from me!!” (laughs) So yes, definitely Goldsmith stuff on my early days influenced me. They had influenced my thinking and I adore their music, I truly do... And as a matter of fact it got to the point I was obsessed with listening to their music. I knew every score of Goldsmith and Herrmann and finally I said: “You know what? I can´t listen to this anymore. If I try to find my own voice I have to stop listening”... So I don´t listen. I have Goldsmith´s CDs you know, you are like me, sure, you have 200 hundred, they never end... I have got ´em all but I don´t listen to them anymore. I had to stop.
SM: As a movie composer do you feel your aspirations as an artist really are really fully fulfilled?
CY: No, no. I´d like to believe that... a wonderful thing about film music, well, I don´t have to believe... this is a fact: that a lot of film composers do their best work when they get older, is that correct? Those who work in orchestral music in the classical world they generally keep getting better, they improve and their minds grow and their brains keep blossoming... so I might believe that still there are really great scores that are yet to come out of me. I know that there are times when I don´t sleep for long periods of time and all of a sudden because of total exhaustion I open my eyes and bum!, I get this flash, it´s my subconscious vomiting and I have these sounds that come to my head and I go: “What is that?” You know, amazing stuff and I go: “Who did this, where did this come from?” And I made aware of the fact that there is still much more yet to be caught of dramatic in the suspension hard world. I know I had a ton of other material that needs to be... and I still write more tunes, I still write themes, and I want to have the opportunity like Max Steiner, like Trevor [Jones] on “The Last Of The Mohicans”, to have a great movie to write a theme so I would have that theme remembered, you know? “Murder In The First” might have been the one who was better thought of, do you agree with me?
SM: I agree with you.
CY: The main theme is maybe good but it´s for the wrong movie. The movie no one remembers, no one had seen... In America is not a popular movie and, ultimately, for film scores it´s the right theme with the right movie... So yeah, it is not over. I have to find the right movie.
SM: As a special guest, you have attended the 1st Madrid Film Music Festival (SONCINEMAD) in which you gave a Masterclass. Can you please tell us your impressions about the Festival?
CY: Yes. Yes. I was so impressed with the professionalism of it, to think this is your first time doing this and basically you are a bunch of fans, you are not, I guess, not schooled in organising things like this. I mean, it´s a new territory for you and... it´s obvious because ultimately you are just like me; I write the score and I want the people love what I do; you have a Festival, you want those people that attend to love what you´ve done and you know that everyone adored this. I had a chance to meet so many of the attendees and unanimously they said: “this has been fantastic”. Better than they imagined it just gonna be. Better! That´s a compliment! So for me my favourite experience obviously has been, the concerts, the lectures, yeah , great! but more important it´s the meeting with you, and be able to interact with people who just like me love movie music.
SM: SCOREMAGACINE has been a privileged witness of the marvellous, incredible communication that has been established between yourself and hundreds of your fans. Can you resume in a few words your feeling about such an overwhelming reception?
CY: Well, you had been around me all day long, every day here, so you´ve seen what it´s done to me. It transformed me. I mean you would have noticed how the fans loved the moment and that I opened myself up... there have been so many times where I had been in tears or just about to break in tears because it´s been such a miraculous, such a wonderful feeling of collective love... So for me it has been one of these very, very, very special moments that probably would come once in a lifetime and I have been able to experience it here with you, what more can a human being ask for? So for me it has been a tremendous gift to have the opportunity, for the first time ever in my life, to be in the presence of so many people who love film music and like my music too.
SM: The Festival has just finished and it´s time to recall feelings and emotions. Chris, you have been a human superstar, you have left everlasting memories to all of us. Chris, any specific moments where your emotions and excitement were at its peak?
CY: I´ll tell you, last night out in the lobby of the concert hall, after the concert [Trevor Jones] I was once again on my way out and I couldn´t get but four feet to the doors into the lobby before I was crowded again with people who wanted to get my autograph or have a picture and I was in the midst of it and i said: “Chris, you’ve never ever experienced anything like this before and you probably won´t never ever experience it again” and I felt that in my mind, when I was a kid, and I was looking at The Beatles and I said: “those lucky guys, beatlemania, girls screaming!” They wanted to get their coats, their hair, their clothes. This is as about as close I´ll ever get to it. So I went: “God, thank you for allow this to happen to me”. Did you believe that I almost didn´t come here? The people, the movie that I am working on at the moment [referring to Curtis Hanson´s “Lucky You”], they didn´t want me to come. The said to me: “Chris, you have to cancel this. You have to work on this movie, you are not going” And I said “no, no I´m going...”. It changed my life. I can pick different moments, like today when twenty people were in tears or yesterday at the dinner...
SM: Thank you Chris for a wonderful interview. The SCOREMAGACINE team is very appreciative of your thoughtfulness toward us. We most sincerely wish you lots of continuous success in your scoring career.
Read the First Part
12-september-2006
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