Wszystko co trzeba wiedzieć o filmie (oficjalny link do pobrania pdf).
https://press.searchlightpictures.com/a ... d?id=42099
9 kompozytorów, ale żeby nie jeden, Alexandre Desplat to ten film pewnie nigdy by nie powstał
Pomysł na produkcję zrodził się, podczas sesji nagraniowych "Rogue One" Giacchino, gdzie skala i presja towarzysząca nagraniom zaintrygowała Gilroya by dalej zagłębiać się w ten twórczy proces, który przepracował później dokładnie przy dwóch sezonach Andora.
“BEHEMOTH! is a love letter to the movie music of Southern California, the tradition and value and
beauty of it,” says Gilroy. “I want audiences to lean in and say, Is that how they create a film score? We’re
taking you someplace you’ve never been, but that’s always been part of your life. No one’s ever really gone
into an appreciation for where the music comes from in cinema — really looked at it or the people who
make that music.”
A tu więcej o wkładzie kompozytorów z ich wypowiedziami, co dobrze będzie sobie przyczytać już po samym filmie, gdyż jest tu wypunktowane w których momentach filmu gra jaki kawałek.
HENRY JACKMAN (Captain Phillips)
wrote Spies Don’t Run, the first LA scoring session, which plays over the full Chicago flashback, which is
supposed to be the latest in the fictional Spies Don’t action-comedy franchise.
Says Jackman, ”Normally, when you record a film’s music cue, there’s a wonderful scoring stage,
but the audience doesn’t see the musicians, of course. The entire Spies Don’t Run cue is filmed such that
the viewer literally is watching a scoring session. There are four cues, including a massive chase sequence
in the second cue and a more mournful reappraisal of the theme in the third cue. I was so ready to score
this pretend movie!”
“Obviously, if you think about kineticism, you think about percussion,” continues Jackman. “That
second cue has a lot of hybrid electronica production sounds, and we see shots of Alex playing that. I knew
this had to be cello-leaning but also sound modern. If there really were a Spies Don’t Run movie, it would
have some of that stuff. This is also very much the way Tony and his brother John — the picture artists —
handle it. It’s very seamless and doesn’t draw attention to itself. It’s a very interesting way of using score
literally, then intercut between the viewer seeing the players play a cue. And then the cue becomes the
score cue for other intercut Chicago scenes.”
MICHAEL GIACCHINO (Up, Inside Out)
created the fictional Happy & Slappy tune that Peter Serian wrote for a cartoon, which plays on Andy
Serian’s podcast. We hear this tune when Alex is outside Andy’s house in LA for the first time,
underscored by him observing a fight between Andy and his partner.
Says Giacchino, “Tony is always a joy to work with. When I scored Rogue One, I saw right away that
he is an artist who will fight to put story first. If the words or the music don’t feel true to what needs to be
said, we try again. I love that about him. For Behemoth!, I feel very lucky to have been given the “role” of
Peter Serian’s music. Alex Serian’s father was an old-school composer who spent the end of his career
scoring knockoff Tom and Jerry shorts. I can understand an artist feeling that kind of work is beneath him,
spending their time on “junk art,” but the truth is there is always someone out there listening and
appreciating what they do. The music in those shorts, and so many others like them, is a big part of why I
started writing music in the first place.”
ALAN SILVESTRI (Back to the Future, Forrest Gump)
wrote the scoring session for the big blockbuster movie Open World, which has a decoy title for a fictional
production called Behemoth!, and which then becomes the score that plays over a sequence in which
Alex has stolen something crucial from a mansion.
“The unique idea of the film allowed me to play a little more boldly in certain places, because once
the audience understands how it works, they’re going to feel the presence of it,” says Silvestri. “That
colored some choices I made, because things then become a music-driven moment as much as a narrative-
driven moment. I’ve never had a situation like that.”
“For this score, which starts in the scene that starts on the Behemoth! scoring session and goes
into Alex in a mansion, I’m playing it like a giant Panavision caper,” adds Silvestri. “But here, the caper is
our hero is trying to steal a toothbrush! It’s great when you can have some fun with how you address things
in terms of scale. I’m not playing it like a little rascally thing — this is a big deal! There’s a lot at stake.
Everything in the score is expanded, dramatic, bigger than life. What’s happening in the film is not that, yet
the consequences are equally important.”
“For a few years now, I’ve been doing ‘in-concert concerts’ with Back To The Future, where we
project a beautiful print of the film, with dialogue, and a symphony plays the score live,” says Silvestri.
“Audiences love that because it’s pulling the curtain back — they’re like, ‘Is that what happens?’ And
BEHEMOTH! is going to reveal that to an audience as well in a smart, lovely way. It’s a part of filmmaking
they never get a chance to see. It’s exciting.”
BRANDON ROBERTS (A Quiet Place, Free Solo)
wrote the theme to Look Away Jones, a piece of music Peter Serian wrote for a fictional TV detective
show from the 1980s. Gilroy gave Brandon the entire backstory of the show.
“I was working with Tony on ‘Andor’ at the time he was writing BEHEMOTH!,” says Roberts, “and
he’d come in for the recording sessions and tell me about this script he was working on. I had the benefit
of hearing the growth of it. For Look Away Jones, we talked about the Rockford Files theme by Mike Post
and Pete Carpenter, and we talked about old Sinatra songs. Tony’s script mentions that a 30-piece big band
was supposed to have been involved in the Look Away Jones series theme. I have a background in jazz and
was a jazz guitarist before segueing into film composition. This is kind of full circle for me.”
Of the power of hearing music performed, Roberts says that “I heard one time a quote that said,
‘Sampled music can make you sad, but live musicians can make you cry.’ I think there’s a huge truth to that.
There’s a reason we still have live musicians and big orchestras playing on big films.”
“There was no communication between the nine BEHEMOTH! composers before shooting the film,
but that’s intentional,” says Roberts. “Tony didn’t want us to hear each other’s pieces — he wanted the
music to all feel like separate entities. That way it’d be a different approach and a different take for each.”
EMILY BEAR (Our Little Secret, End of the Cycle)
wrote the score for Seasons of Glass, a love theme for a romantic drama played in BEHEMOTH!’s second
scoring session which covers the Dallas flashback. Bear also co-wrote, with Tony Gilroy, a 1950s-style
song, “Make Mine Salty,” heard at the end of the film and notable for its importance in the career of Alex
Serian’s grandfather.
“Tony has such a clear filmmaking vision and is so musically adept — he understands music in a
way that I haven’t experienced with many other directors that I’ve worked with,” says Bear. “He told me
how he was envisioning Seasons of Glass. He knew he wanted a waltz for the longer cue; it keeps you
yearning and wanting more. In the waltz, the strings have fun textures. Knowing this was a fake period
piece movie, we could lean into that kind of vintage Italian or French film-score feel. Tony told me it’s about
a widow helping a young soldier about to go off to war confessing his love to a girl he’s pining for, and she’s
teaching him how to dance, which is what the waltz cue was. And then she ends up falling in love with him!
It’s heartbreaking! We wanted the music to be over the top.”
“The moment when I was in the Sony scoring room is why I fell in love with writing for orchestra
and then more specifically for TV and film,” reveals Bear. “I think there is truly no better place than on a
scoring stage hearing your own music come to life with a room of like 85 of the best musicians in the world.”
MICHAEL ABELS (Get Out, Nope)
wrote the cello practice session etudes Alex is seen practicing, which run into a Bach piece, heard
primarily before the Boston sequence.
“The piece I wrote shows Alex as a cellist in his personal life,” says Abels. “As much as we see him
out in the world performing and recording, most of what makes a musician a great musician is practicing
at home in isolation. So in the scene that I wrote the music for, we see him practicing.”
“I’ve never seen a film where so much attention — and intention — was put into making the music
feel as authentic as it can be,” says Abels. “Tony was very intentional and specific about every piece of
music from pre-production and how it was to be used in the storytelling. With the solo pieces, Alex is playing
not to please a conductor or to be part of an ensemble, but playing purely for himself and his practice, but
also for the joy of playing and celebrating his own ability. With solo playing, there’s a chance to express
yourself. It was very important that we feel Alex’s personality and his strong bravado as a musician and as
an artist.”
“Tony also has a passion for music that’s created for film that’s really rare,” says Abels. “And for
him to express that through this script and his direction of this project is delightful to watch. He’s just so
excited to be able to be in this playground. Being one of a group of composers to collaborate on a film is
something I never thought I would experience, and it’s just not how it’s done. But for this film, each
composer brought their own individual personality to the different pieces of music, which was what Tony
intended.”
JAMES NEWTON HOWARD (The Bourne Legacy, Michael Clayton)
wrote Viviana’s BEHEMOTH! score that she presents to the musicians, and except for the music in the LA club,
wrote all of Viviana’s original music, including the requiem she plays as a young girl (co-written by Tony
Gilroy) and the duet that Alex plays with Viviana at the end.
“Before BEHEMOTH!, I had done three movies with Tony,” says Howard. “When I heard about this
project, he said, I want the voices to be noticeably distinctive, and so these other really talented people
came in. Tony’s idea was ethereal in a way — I couldn’t imagine what it would actually look like or how you
could do it.”
“Tony was actually in the room standing in back of me while I was composing all this stuff for the
score — we’ve done it before and it really works, and I don’t think I have that experience with any other
director,” adds Howard. “But Tony, I welcome him into my creative process, which is unique. But Tony is
very musical. In fact, we co-wrote some of the music together in the movie, which was a first, but I was
open to it because it was so cool when he wrote. It didn’t sound like me, which was part of the magic of
the collaboration for this movie.
LUKAS FRANK (Walk With Me, East of Wall)
wrote the music for Viviana’s performance in an LA club of a song called “Your God Is Sleeping,” as well as
a cue heard at the very beginning of the film as a kind of Serian family theme.
“I have a band called Storefront Church that feels not-too-dissimilar from what the song for the
film ended up sounding like,” says Frank. “We had the title and just kind of ran with it. Tony had written
some lyrics himself, and I took those and just wrote completely different lyrics that were the same
sentiment.”
“Viviana is supposed to be a super-genius pure musician who’s not interested in being cool or
impressing anyone. She’s in her own lane, this buzzy underground musician and artist with a lot of talk
around her in music circles,” says Frank. “That was sort of intimidating to write for. She’s larger than life.
So, I don’t know, I just kind of turned my brain off and just tried to write a good song that felt timeless but
not too trendy.”
“I’m always thinking about narrative and character and kind of cinematic qualities in my
songwriting,” says Frank. “When you talk to him about this movie, the characters are like real people to
him. So it feels very alive. It’s like you can live in it easily.”
NAMI MELUMAD (Thor: Love and Thunder, “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds”)
wrote the harp cues for Ginnie Serian, which is sourced from the movie-scoring session for the fictional
Tolerance Hill, some of which is heard during Ginnie’s scene, then at a funeral and as her ashes are
spread on the beach. Harpist Gail Levant played on these pieces.
“The fake movie I worked on was Tolerance Hill, an English period drama,” says Melumad, “which
then scores the scene on the beach and when Alex says goodbye to his mother. We focused on the harp,
because obviously it’s a memory of his mother, a harpist, but you also have to consider the story in the
English drama. It's about a heartbroken woman, and the emotions needed to carry into Alex’s nostalgic
feelings. We should feel the wanting and the nostalgia of being in his childhood home with all the emotions
that it carries.”
“And it’s a mixed emotion cue; it’s not just longing to be there — there’s also a bit of tension,”
continues Melumad. “This cue is kind of a love song for his mom and then it leads us into the funeral, which
is another set of feelings involving his ex-girlfriend.”
“BEHEMOTH! was a once-in-a-lifetime project,” says Melumad. “I’m extremely proud and honored
to be part of it. Being included in a collective of composers full of people I grew up listening to and who
inspired my music. A lot of my music has been shaped by their scores. This project celebrates film music in
a way no other film does.”
Says John Gilroy, “The film scores used in BEHEMOTH! drive Alex’s recollections. It’s organic
because of the people that we’re talking about, the people that make movie music.”
Says Tony Gilroy, “There have been documentaries in which they’ll show a scene and say, ‘Look
what happens if we put other music on it and how it changes’ — I think everybody’s seen those kinds of
things, and they may have an appreciation of where movie music comes from. But no one’s ever gone in
and looked at it like we do.”
