Goldsmith Masterclass in London
by James Southall
On Sunday 16 November, Jerry Goldsmith gave a "Film Music Masterclass"
lecture at the National Film Theatre, London. Also present was Lee Tamahori,
director of The Edge. Goldsmith and Tamahori discussed--at length--the
relationship between composer and director, how different directors have
different approaches, and the evolution of music used in the film before
the final version as we see in cinemas.
Tamahori showed three versions of the opening titles sequence from The
Edge--the first with no sound at all, just as Goldsmith would have
seen it for the first time. Then, interestingly, we saw the version with
the temp track added--it was Trevor Jones's main title from Last of
the Mohicans, and I thought the piece worked very well indeed (for
those not knowledgeable with the film, The Edge opening titles are accompanied
by visuals of a small plane flying up into the mountains). Tamahori, though,
seemed almost embarrassed by his choice of temp-track for that sequence,
for some reason. (The rest of the film was temp-tracked with a variety
of Goldsmith works.) Finally, we were shown the final cut of the film.
Goldsmith and Tamahori both agreed that the temp-track can be one-part
bonus, but one-part hindrance to the composer. Goldsmith cited the famous
example from Alien when Ridley Scott thought his temp-track of Freud
worked much better than the original music Goldsmith composed, and
Scott ended up buying the music from Freud in order to use it in
his picture. On the other hand, Goldsmith said that he was totally inspired
for Under Fire--one of his most-respected scores, and rightly so--by
the temp-track, which entirely consisted of ethnic Cuban instruments.
The dangers of the temp-track were highlighted: because the director
goes through post-production with the temp-track in place, he sometimes
becomes so used to it that anything else--regardless of quality--just isn't
going to sound right to him. Some directors are not too keen on temp-tracks
at all--Tamahori himself expressed doubts, and Goldsmith said that Fred
Schepisi--with whom he has worked on five occasions, the first being The
Russia House and the latest, earlier this year, Fierce Creatures--tried
to resist the temp-track until the very last moment possible.
Goldsmith said that the composer-director relationship varies wildly
depending on the director. For example, his first meeting with Tamahori
was over breakfast, and they spent three minutes discussing musical ideas
for The Edge, and then an hour talking about just about everything
else--and it was that that made Jerry decide to score the film. He always
knows when he's going to get on with a director because they find things
other than films and music to talk about at their first meeting. (And he
had an excellent relationship with Tamahori, who maintains that his favourite
experience of making The Edge was watching Jerry Goldsmith conduct
the orchestra--and he made a home video of all three days' sessions! We
even got to see a video of Goldsmith conducting the main theme). Conversely,
he would spend hours and hours discussing music on his collaborations with
Paul Verhoeven (Total Recall, Basic Instinct)--and Howard Hawks
only ever spoke two words to him after their first meeting on Rio Lobo.
I remember when the CD from The Edge was released, there was
a lot of fuss about the End Title (the lounge jazz arrangement of the main
theme)--the mystery has finally been resolved, though. At the time of release,
several people thought that Goldsmith's jazz piece was a real piece of
film music innovation that delved deep into Anthony Hopkins's character
and reflected the changes that he had gone through throughout the film--the
truth is rather different from this! In fact, the music for the movie was
all recorded several hours ahead of schedule, and there was still half
a day left. Goldsmith had already started sending the orchestra home--and
half had left--when the director asked him if he'd compose something for
the end credits (they'd previously been planning on using an edited-together
suite of music from the rest of the score, like Goldsmith does all the
time these days). So Goldsmith quickly wrote that jazz piece, which ended
up being used in the film.
Goldsmith was very, very enthusiastic throughout, and spoke with a great
passion about the history of film music through the 1960s and 70s, sharing
(as you'd expect) an anecdote or two along the way. After the lecture had
finished, there was a Q&A session; one person asked Goldsmith to name
his most challenging, and his most rewarding projects. He immediately cited
Basic Instinct as the most difficult thing he's ever done; much
of the difficulty stemmed from--wouldn't you know?--the temp-track, because
Paul Verhoeven just couldn't get it out of his mind, and he kept rejecting
everything that Jerry did (although the composer did admit that he wasn't
happy with what he was coming up with himself). Goldsmith said that the
most rewarding films to work on are the intimate "little pictures"
like Rudy--"the ones without grizzly bears" he added,
and cast a wry grin towards Lee Tamahori.
The surprises weren't over yet--somebody asked something about Star
Trek: The Motion Picture, and Goldsmith said how much he enjoys scoring
the Star Trek films, and confirmed that he will definitely be doing
the next one. "But after Total Recall you said you'd never
do another action film!" "Did I? Oh... I need the money!"
Jerry also had time to fit in a damning put-down of synthesized scores,
dismissing the current trend to go with electronic music as nothing more
than a passing phase. And he signed my copy of Powder, thus sending
me into an immeasurable high for the rest of the day...
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