INTERVIEW WITH DAVID NEWMAN di Maurizio Caschetto (06/05/2009)
"Spirited Away":
Interview with David Newman
by Maurizio Caschetto
David Newman (b. 1954) is part of that small group of film composers which better than many others meets and demonstrates the validity and consistency of the classical Hollywood film scoring tradition. Along with composers like Bruce Broughton, Christopher Young, Don Davis – but also less active ones in today's film music, like Arthur B. Rubinstein, Lee Holdridge, Laurence Rosenthal and the late Shirley Walker – Newman is the best example of professionalism, talent and skill that Hollywood film music can express, continuing a long and revered tradition without much ado, but always working hard to improve the craft of film scoring and taking it to a next level.
David Newman is also and above all part of what probably is the most revered and glorious American film music heritage: the Newman Family, a lineage that finds its father in the figure of great film composer Alfred Newman, one of the real founders of the “Hollywood Sound” as well as the biological father of David and Thomas Newman, both talented contemporary film composers.
After a long period spent in LA-based studio orchestras as a session violinist (where he performed scores of such giants as John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith), David Newman began his activity as a film composer in the mid-80s, working mostly in mid-budget genre films like Critters (1986), The Kindred (1986) and Malone (1987). He then started a fruitful collaboration with brilliant actor/director/producer Danny DeVito, composing a lively score for the black comedy Throw Momma from the Train (1987), a score that sealed an artistic partnership that continued with varied films like The War of the Roses(1989), Hoffa (1992), Matilda (1996) and Duplex (2003). The success of the scores for the DeVito films brought him to "specialize" mostly as a composer for comedies, but Newman showed all of his talent almost in every genre, including animation (especially the highly successful Ice Age) and sci-fi/fantasy (Serenity). During a career that now spans more than 20 years, David Newman collected a long and respectable resume, always showing a remarkable voice that probably should be heard even more in today's film music landscape.
In 2008, director Frank Miller (Sin City) wanted him to write the music for the film version of the popular 1940s comic book The Spirit. Newman was able to return to the cinematic territory of action and adventure. The score for The Spirit shows a composer capable of fumbling in a varied and rich musical lexicon dominated by peculiar textures and creative orchestrations, as well as a fresh approach too seldom heard in contemporary blockbuster films.
Colonne Sonore met David Newman to discuss this latest score, as well as to make a short trip into the career of this brilliant composer.
I'd like to start our interview talking about The Spirit (2008), your most recent film score. How did you become involved with the project? Were you familiar with Will Eisner's comic books on which the movie is inspired?
I was not familiar with the comic books. I was initially brought in to look at a 30-minute compilation of scenes from the movie, to get an idea of the flavor, texture, etc. I then met with Frank Miller and we spoke for about half an hour. I didn’t hear anything for a month. Then one day they called and offered me the film.
How you and director Frank Miller approached the film in terms of its music needs? What were his indications/suggestions about the role of the music in the picture?
I think that we were both in agreement about the texture of the film. It’s kind of a tongue-in-cheek, stand-off Western in a sense. That’s why we spoke about using a harmonica to express the Spirit’s isolation as well as his context, [as a] reference to the Western culture.
The score is not written as typical “comic-book” film music. It's more textural and full of instrumental details and colors. You created a strong musical counterpart of the film's very peculiar visual design and look. Did you write the score to have its own personality more in terms of color and orchestration than melodies and themes?
There are melodies as well as motives, not really textures, [there are] “genre specific” elements, and references. Again, the movie is really almost a “parody” of different styles of Hollywood movies: noir, action/adventure, comic book, etc. I worked closely with the sound design [department] so that we were in sync rather than fighting with each other.
You used an harmonica as a musical characterization of the Spirit. It seems to harken back to Ennio Morricone's Once Upon a Time in the West and its own depiction of the main character for that movie, who was a sort of renegade much like the Spirit. Was that a conscious tribute?
Yes, as I said before – not really a tribute, but a reference. Most of Hollywood movies are references to what has come before. In my mind, this is sort of how Western culture works. It builds or destroys what was “before” – but even if it destroys, it is referencing the past.
There are also some “heroic” moments that, in some parts, reminded me of your score to the 1995 film The Phantom. That movie was based on a popular comic-book from the 1930s/1940s too, but you approached it more like a traditional adventure, brassy score. What are you recollections about that score?
The Phantom was more of a straightforward Hollywood movie score. I did it very quickly and the most important part of that score were the melodies. For The Spirit, it was almost the opposite. [I had] a great deal of time and [I did] lot of “staying out of the way”.
You don't have many action/adventure films on your resume, but the few you did were always very exciting, lively and original works, showing your skills in a symphonic idiom. What are the main challenges for a film composer when writing for action/adventure blockbusters kind of films, according to your experiences?
I love writing for good films. I don’t really care about the genre. I am very well trained so I believe I can do any style. Maybe I am better at some, but my experience tells me that whatever I need to do, I can figure out how to do it. I had a lot of experience playing in orchestras – I played violin until I was in my 30’s – and you really learn a lot about orchestration by sitting in an orchestra. Even if one is not that facile on his instrument, it is invaluable to sit in an orchestra during rehearsals – listening to how composers craft their work and how they make it “sound”. I miss this enormously, playing in a big orchestra.
