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| Nathan Larson Interview |
| Posted By: Jeff Bond on April 19, 2005 - 10:00 PM |
Nathan Larson Interview
By Jeff Bond
Excerpted from FSM Vol. 10, No. 2, On
Sale Now...
Independent filmmakers don't come more independent than Todd Solondz,
the man who made twisted heroes out of a socially challenged teenaged
girl in Welcome to the Dollhouse and
a Ward Cleaver-like child molester in Happiness.
And filmmakers don't come much more commercial than Joel Schumacher,
who's spent the past decade or so trying to make up for foisting Batman and Robin on the world.
Somehow musician Nathan Larson, sometimes known in his guise as head of
the band Shudder to Think, has found a way to work with both of these
polar opposites in the world of film. Beginning with Lisa Cholodenko's
low-key lesbian drama High Art
in 1998, Larson has applied music to some of the most high profile
independent art films of the past few years, including Boys Don't Cry, Tigerland, Prozac Nation, Dirty Pretty Things, Storytelling and The Woodsman. In our conversation
with the composer, Larson traces his connections back to a group of
young filmmakers working out of New York.
Nathan Larson: I was living in
New York and I was in a rock band and came from that world and it was
sort of a fluke to get into the film stuff, but it happened that a lot
of my friends and a lot of fans of my band were filmmakers or film
students, and it was a pretty small scene going back 10 or 15 years and
it's still kind of a small group with the Killer Films people and Todd
Haynes and Todd Solondz, all these folks working and making great,
challenging stuff. I did something for a movie called First Love, Last Rights that nobody
saw with Giovanni Ribisi and from then on in took off in a weird way.
My band did a movie called High Art,
which was just myself and this singer, and then I went on my own with Boys Don't Cry and it became my
primary source of income and my full-time job, which was a real
lifestyle shift.
FSM: Other than working in
your band, what kind of musical training did you have when you got
started scoring films?
NL: Exactly none. I came from
the punk rock school of just picking up an instrument and banging on
it, and as you start to get more and more proficient, it's funny I feel
like I should have gone to school sometimes especially when I'm working
with string players where you really need to have everything notated.
It leads to funny situations with me standing in the room giving them
complete nonsense where they don't know what I'm talking about, which I
guess is why we have orchestrators. As these things came up I just
learned how to deal with it and I'm still learning as the technology
changes everything gets a lot simpler for everybody. Right now I'm
doing a film called Little Fish with
Cate Blanchett, which is an Australian film and they're posting in
Sydney, so none of us are really in the same place at the same time and
I have an FTP site and I post the music and they post the film and we
never have to even meet.
FSM: I can't imagine two people
further apart on the artistic spectrum than Todd Solondz and Joel
Schumacher. You did Tigerland
for Schumacher quite early in your career, and Schumacher was such a
big name.
NL: Joel's great because Boys Don't Cry had just played and
we had no idea that was going to turn into what it did, and when I came
on the project it hadn't been sold and their budget was miniscule. Then
I suddenly had an agent, which was strange in itself, and he was
calling me saying you have to go meet this guy Joel Schumacher. All I'd
heard of that he had done was Falling
Down, which I really loved, it was the only movie I had really
liked Michael Douglas in. I met Joel and he was this wonderful guy but
a real blockbuster creator. He's a hilarious guy because he really
plays the studios off of each other and he has four projects going at
once and nobody knows what he's doing at these studios, and he'll be
like 'Oh, I'm tired of this one, I'm going to go to Ireland and work on
the other one.' Nobody knows where he is -- it's amazing that these
guys can get into that position, but once you start generating that
kind of money you get a lot of freedom.
FSM: You did manage to get a
lot of atmosphere and a real authentic sound in the Tigerland score on what must have
been a small budget.
NL: It has a small feeling to
it but it was the biggest budgeted thing even though you wouldn't know
that by looking into it. That was my big trial by fire, that project. I
had to get over the hurdle and I had no sense of professionalism or
protocol or what it meant to be a composer and when he said 'when we
get to this stage' I didn't know what that meant. What I delivered to
Joel initially was to my mind the finished score, and that did wind up
in the movie eventually but it was basically me hitting a drum and this
Chinese guy I found in the subway playing this ehru thing, all recorded
in a rehearsal space in Brooklyn. There was a moment with Joel where he
said 'Well, this is fantastic and I love it -- it'll really be great
when you get to the scoring stage and record it.' I had to say 'Well,
this is it, actually -- this is what I had in mind.' There was a moment
where it could have gone either way and then he just goes 'Great!' In
the middle of that project -- I was working on this really crappy
eight-track thing and it was digital -- and in the middle of that I
realized it was not happening to synch it with the movie and there were
some slightly action-oriented sequences and I had to do stuff I hadn't
had to do in Boys Don't Cry,
so I realized I had to get Pro Tools, which was the big thing everyone
was talking about. I spent my whole advance from Tigerland on this equipment and I
had to kind of learn it; I don't think I recorded anything for Tigerland on that system, but I
had to learn it in the midst of that project. I still do all my own
engineering generally and try to play as many of the instruments as I
can barring strings and orchestral stuff, which I haven't really gotten
into at this point in my career other than small ensembles. I think the
most players I've had in a room is about 12.
FSM: You've done two projects
now with Todd Solondz, who must be one of the most uncompromising
filmmakers working right now. What's your relationship like with him?
NL: I think when we have to we
can schmooze, but I think both of us are fundamentally sort of
antisocial, and we understand the need for solitude and respect and
giving people space to do their thing and that's the key component of
our relationship. He drives me nuts sometimes and it's like any other
relationship where we get into this cycle where nothing I'm doing is
good enough and we change it and change it and then we wind up right
back at the first thing I tried. But I think we also come from similar
backgrounds and we have a lot of the same cultural references and come
from the same part of the country. In thinking about it, what really
made me want to pursue and love independent film was when I saw Welcome to the Dollhouse for the
first time and I thought it was a new kind of moviemaking. There was
tremendous independent filmmaking in the '60s and '70s, but in the '80s
with my limited knowledge of film history I was blown away by it, so to
be working with a guy like him is a fantastic thing.
FSM: How does he want music
applied in his films?
NL: I think initially, and I
don't know to what degree I've affected this, but I think his
conception of music in the film was truly to be another element with
which you can be sarcastic. Instead of exploring the idea of doing a
kind of counterpoint thing where you do something warm and emotional
musically, it runs counter to what's going on onscreen -- it's just
incredibly cynical. That was sort of my goal with him when we worked
together at first; I didn't work with him on Happiness but one thing about Happiness that really bugged me is
here's this incredibly harsh movie, it's like give people a break --
give people some space to breathe. Even though he didn't really want to
I wanted to inject some warmth into this sort of cold universe that he
operates in. Because I know him and I know he is actually a very
emotional guy and he wants people to be moved by these stories as well,
so I hoped that I helped with that.
For the full story, including info on
Larson's latest work, Palindromes, check out FSM Vol. 10, No. 2...
MailBag@filmscoremonthly.com
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Today in Film Score History:
April 25 |
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| Alec Puro born (1975) |
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| Brian May died (1997) |
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| David A. Hughes born (1960) |
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| Franz Waxman records his score for Stalag 17 (1952) |
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| Gary Hughes died (1978) |
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| Georges Delerue records his score for L’Homme Qui Revient De Loin (1972) |
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| Heinz Roemheld's score for Union Station is recorded (1950) |
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| John Williams begins recording his score for How to Steal a Million (1966) |
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