A Conversation with David Shire

Diamond in the Rough, Part III

Interview and Commentary by Jason Foster

Though this is the third installment in my 'Diamond in the Rough' series, I have chosen to break away from the article-style format used in the other two and go with a straight interview. I debated adapting it into an "article" format, but David Shire had so many good things to say during our interview that to simply choose a half-dozen pertinent quotes wouldn't do our conversation justice.

Shire's musical talents have been obvious to film score fans for years. His wide range of scores boasts great diversity and his music always enhances the various films he scores. In the 1970s Shire's name was listed on several high-profile films, such as THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123, THE CONVERSATION, ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN, and NORMA RAE. During this time, Shire's music was rewarded with an Academy Award (1979 Best Song for NORMA RAE) and multiple Grammy awards. It would seem that such accolades would ensure a composer a fruitful future in Hollywood.

However, in the early 1980s Shire's name began to seemingly disappear from the credits of mainstream feature films, with only a few exceptions-most notably, films such as SHORT CIRCUIT (1986), MONKEY SHINES (1988), and what is arguably his most popular score, RETURN TO OZ (1985). Most of his work was for television projects, as it still is today. The fact that Shire is rarely allowed to showcase his talents in the feature film arena is both surprising and sad.

Originally, this series of columns was going to be called "Underused Composers" and spotlight composers who, despite their talents, seemed to seldom get to score feature films. Later the title was changed to "Diamonds in the Rough." The idea behind this was that though many of the composers actually were working on two or three features a year, their body of work as a whole seemed to go unnoticed and under-appreciated. However, David Shire is one case where the original title is a perfect fit.

It really was interesting and informative to hear his thoughts about his work, his experiences, and the state of film music in general.

Some of the questions from the interview arose from a letter I had written to Shire informing him about this column. It contained brief questions, which acted as a sort of preliminary interview. Any reference to "the letter" is referring to that.

JASON FOSTER: In your letter, you mentioned that you do feel underused as far as feature films go. I find it strange that you don't work more in features, especially since so many fans adore your work. Do you have a theory as to why this is?

DAVID SHIRE: Well, I've often wished that some of the fans were producers (laughs). But, unfortunately, the fans don't produce movies--and it's kind of frustrating to have a lot of people think so much of my work, but not the people doing the hiring. I think part of it is age. I think unless you reach legendary status like John (Williams) or Jerry (Goldsmith) or Mancini when he was alive--you pass a certain age and you're not the flavor of the month anymore and you're not a legend and they go with younger people--who, I think rightly in some cases--composers who are more contemporary, and wrongly in other cases. And it's not just in music, either. I remember reading something by Larry Gelbart the other day saying that writers who worked on M*A*S*H, which is one of the best written shows in the history of television, take it off their resume now because when younger executives see that credit they think, "Well this guy must be an old fart. We don't want him, or her."

I think it's partly that and I think it's partly that I'm now located in New York, although that never hurt before. I did most of my writing in New York, so I'm not sure if that's a factor or not-probably not a big one. Because if it were, I would be getting, you know, New York pictures. And also, I think that several times in my career I've kind of lost my momentum in features because I have this dual career where I do musical theater back here. And I took off most of two years to do BABY in 1982 or '83 and after that I noticed it was harder to get stuff-and I took off most of a couple of years to do BIG recently in 1994 and '95. But by then I had almost stopped getting features anyway, so I don't think it was that. I don't remember turning down any features to do BIG--I turned down mostly television offers. So I lost some momentum there. I went fifteen months without doing television, and then suddenly two in a row and then three in row. So those jobs seem like they'll come, although they come more and more from producers and directors I've worked with before-my steady employers.

JF: Do you feel that your promotional CD you put out a while back has helped any in attracting offers?

DS: I don't know. Because, you know, I'm still sending them out. When I'm up for a job my agent sends it out--and it's a very nice thing to have. The feedback I've gotten from people who've heard it and appreciate that kind of music has been stupendous. Some people tell me they're wearing it out. Somebody else said it was the best movie compilation they'd ever heard. So I just hope that eventually it winds up in the right hands. Sometimes, my agent tells me, it's better to send out a bunch of second-rate television cues for a television job because they hear that (the promo CD) and think, "Oh, he just writes that big symphonic stuff and this is too little for him (laughs)." So it can backfire. What we normally do is send out that and then we try to make up a specific CD or tape for the particular job--if they want to hear a more specialized type of music.

JF: You mentioned in your letter that there were certain qualities that you look for when choosing the films you score. I was wondering if you could elaborate on a couple of those. First, you mentioned that you look for films that present a fresh challenge. Can you expand on that a bit?

DS: Well, like when THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123 came along I'd never really done a full-blown jazz score--and I'd never done a twelve-tone score. The picture forced me to find a solution that would work in that style and it was wonderful to write something I hadn't written before. It's the same with any project I get. You hate to just be hired to repeat yourself, so I like it when the picture is a dramatic challenge or a new musical challenge. Usually when it's dramatic challenge, it's automatically a musical challenge because the musical solutions are dramatic solutions. You know, the worst thing in the world was when I used to do a lot of westerns-for me to get a western and then get another one right after it (laughs). I find that when I'm hired to write something that I'm not sure that I know how to write, most of the time I surprise myself because the picture challenges me to do something I haven't done before-and often those are the best scores.

JF: The other quality you said that you looked for is an opportunity for the music to be more than just redundant to what's happening on the screen. I know what you mean by that, but could you go a little more into it?

DS: Yeah. Often, especially in television, you're hired to underline rather than to counterpoint-to underline the emotion. In a sad scene they want the music to make it sad, or sadder, and in a happy scene they want it happy. But, you know, in good features those emotions are strongly enough expressed on the screen, so that the music can be a counterpoint to it--telling you something that isn't on the screen-another subtle shade to the scene or even a counterpoint to the emotion. Those are the ones that are the most gratifying to do because the music really becomes a major player in delivering the drama rather than something that's just superfluous...

JF: So if you were offered a feature now, would you look for those qualities or would you take the offer just because it was a feature?

DS: (laughs) I was just going to say that at this point I would do just about any feature just to try to get back in the loop. Because the sad thing about not doing features in a long time is that when you're up for one the first thing they ask is, "What's the last feature you've done?" So you need features to get features. It's ironically like it was at the beginning of my career-when I needed to land those first few features to get more features. But then I didn't have a compilation reel and a resume with a lot of features on it. Now I have that, but they're not recent.

JF: Regarding RETURN TO OZ... In the liner notes to that album you mentioned that it was the opposite of the "brain surgery" scores you'd done in the past. Is it safe to assume that OZ is the kind of score you would jump at the chance to write again?

DS: Absolutely. You know, when I was in my feature hay day it seemed if they could pinpoint me for any specialty it was doing pictures like ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN and THE CONVERSATION, which were relatively low key, subtle scores. And I always wanted to do the big, fat, multi-themed, big-orchestra scores-and OZ was the answer to my prayers. I could just let loose all of that stuff. I would certainly like to get pictures like that. They're a lot of fun to do, especially because I haven't done many of them. But I think I proved with OZ that I could do that. But I don't seem to be typecast in that role, and you know how composers are typecast in Hollywood-they hire you to repeat yourself. So I always hope that someone will listen to that promo album someday and say, "Wow! We didn't know he could do that!"

JF: Would you be interested in doing another non-traditional score like PELHAM 123 where you can experiment with something?

DS: Oh, absolutely. I mean, I'm really open to almost anything. In a way my strength is that I can do so many styles, and, I think, do them well if my past work shows. But it's also, I think, hurt me because I haven't become known for any one kind of thing--you know, like how James Horner specializes in the pictures he specializes in. John Williams, who can write anything in the world, for a while was so typecast doing the same kind of score that people and critics were starting to grumble. I have to laugh sometimes when--well not laugh, but I chuckle a little when I read reviews in film score magazines that say, "Well so and so repeated himself again and so and so is writing the same score over and over again." I would make a bet that there's no composer out there who wants to write the same score over and over again. But you get hired, because they temp it with one of your previous scores, and say, "Well, we want this again." I think it's usually not the composer's fault. I think it's that the director and/or the producers are, in many cases, not willing to let somebody experiment or provide them with a possible solution that they haven't though of. They want something that they know is going to work and be safe. It's the curse of the temp score.

JF: But do you think a director today would allow a composer to experiment like with PELHAM 123?

DS: Oh many, many of them do--I mean, the real filmmakers do. The Francis Coppolas and the Scorseses and people on that level. And I'm sure there are young directors out there who, if they have the clout and where the composer isn't forced on them, can work with them--because I've heard some really good scores--and I know the way you arrive at them is by collaboration. And directors who have the time and the clout and the inclination to work with a composer that way, I think, are often rewarded with a good fresh score. But it's risky in a sense because, you know, it's become such a big money thing and there are so many scores thrown out, and I think a lot of people are gun shy--that if they let a composer experiment and it doesn't work, then they've blown a million dollars. On the other hand, with synthesizer mockups and everything that we've all gotten used to doing, it doesn't have to be that risky. When I do collaborate with a director, often we throw stuff away early on. We did on REAR WINDOW. I was in the right ballpark, but the director said, "Well, it isn't quite right yet--but I like the direction it's going." So I did something else on my synth and sent it to him and he said, "That one's great." But you don't always get a chance to work that way, especially in television. With a score I used to get a month for, I now get ten days or two weeks for because the post-production is so sped up with that digital editing thing and the composer just has to go along.

JF: I want to talk about a theme of yours that I've always liked, which is the theme to ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN. In the notes to your promo CD you mentioned how it could be argued that the film didn't even need music, but it was ultimately decided to use some to remind people of the human emotions in the film. But since the theme is somewhat ambiguous as to a specific emotion, I was wondering what emotions you were looking to capture with the music.

DS: Well, the remark was originally made by Alan Pakula, who when I said that I'm not quite sure what music could do for the picture because it's so much all there on the screen, said, "Well, I just want to remind everybody once in a while that there are human hearts inside these two cold-surfaced, hard young reporters." So it's kind of the rhythmic element--by that pulse that's always there. It really meant kind of like the hearts beating--we want to remind them that the guys have hearts and they're beating faster and faster as they're on this trail of the story of the century.

JF: Regarding 2010, I was wondering what went into the decision to use a mostly electronic score, especially since 2001 had all of those big orchestra classical pieces.

DS: It was the decision of the director. He wanted a synth score. I would've chosen to do many more things orchestrally, but he thought it would be a fresh approach-and I thought that wasn't that bad of an idea. The idea I liked was that it would be electronic and then at the very end it opens up into the Los Angeles Philharmonic for 'Zarathustra' and the last cue in the picture is a huge orchestral version of the theme, which we've only heard electronically. I think that's the one on the (promo) CD.

JF: Yeah.

DS: But that was a very unsatisfying experience because the director wanted the score delivered in sixteen tracks without being mixed--and on the mixing stage he would sometimes just use a bass line or just a couple of the parts, and I thought it sounded crappy. The album of the score was much better (chuckles), but very little of what was on that wound up in that form in the picture.

JF: I want to talk about something I came across on the Internet Movie Database. It said that you had an unused score to the movie HOMEWARD BOUND. Is that true?

DS: Yeah.

JF: What didn't they like about it?

DS: They didn't like it. Katzenberg didn't like it. I worked with the director on that picture for three months like I did with Walter Murch on RETURN TO OZ. I came up with all the themes, one by one--he loved them all and as we got to work on them I met with him every Monday for week after week. I went to Germany to record the score, but the orchestra there was not good enough, so we scrapped those sessions and then I re-recorded them in LA. Then Katzenberg wanted to hear a cut of the picture with the score on it and the voices for the animals--and I remember going over to his house and we sat there while he watched it. He smiled and shook my hand and said, "Fine, fine," and by the time I got home there was a call from my agent saying he scrapped my score and wanted a new one. He also fired the three people who were the principal voices of the animals and he almost fired the director. But he brought someone else in to work with him. So it was just a totally disappointing experience because that was the last score I thought was going to get me back in the loop. It was a big, romantic, fun picture with the Disney stamp on it and that was a huge disappointment. Since then I've hardly gotten called for a picture.

JF: Have you ever considered making that music available in some way--as a promo maybe?

DS: No, I haven't thought about it much. Frankly, it was so painful I never went back and even listened to it. But we'd have to get the master tapes and mix it because we never finished it. I have a tape of it somewhere. If somebody wanted to put it out and thought it was good enough to put out, I'd have no objections.

JF: What are your upcoming assignments?

DS: I have a TV movie called DOUBLE PLATINUM and another one that's a mystery TV movie starring Joe Mantegna. And I might be doing another one before those two. I'm waiting for the director to make up his mind. He sent me the script and he's sending me a tape, but he hasn't called me about the job yet. That about it--and I'm working on other musical, New York stuff.

JF: Just out of curiosity, have you heard any scores by other composers lately that you found interesting or entertaining?

DS: Well, I'm starting to listen to all the Academy movies to figure out what to nominate and vote for. The other night I listened to ELIZABETH and thought that score was very nice. Nothing else pops to mind right now. But I've seen very few movies over the last couple of months, so I'm really catching up on that.

MailBag@filmscoremonthly.com