"Spirited Away": Interview with David Newman
ColonneSonore.net continues its exclusive series of interviews with international film composers: this time we meet and discuss with the talented David Newman, composer of several successful film scores like Ice Age, Throw Momma from the Train, Doctor Dolittle, The Nutty Professor and The War of the Roses. Newman talks about his latest score for the film The Spirit (Frank Miller, 2008) and his job as a film composer in the Hollywood industry.
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 first chapter of 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.
ColonneSonore.net: 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?
David Newman: 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.
CS: 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?
DN: 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.
CS: 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?
DN: 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.
CS: 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?
DN: 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.
CS: 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?
DN: 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”.
CS: 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?
DN: 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.
CS: Talking about genre, you wrote a lot of film score for comedies, which probably is one of the trickiest and most difficult genres to write for. Did you ever had the feeling you were becoming sort of “type-casted” as the composer specialized mainly in scoring comedies?
DN: Hollywood is built on typecasting. The only positive is that if you do another genre that is successful, you will then be typecast in that genre. So… it’s kind of crazy to worry about.
CS: However, in many occasions a comedy film could also contain references to other genres that need to be enhanced or acknowledged musically. For example, in Galaxy Quest (1999) you had to score most of the film as if it was a “serious” piece of sci-fi adventure. Do you agree with this observation?
DN: Yes I do. I always try to write “sincerely”, as if I believe seriously in what is going on. In comedy I believe this is essential.
CS: What were the most challenging and most rewarding comedy scores you wrote?
DN: All of the Danny DeVito films…
CS: You also did quite a few scores for animated films (Brave Little Toaster, Duck Tales, Anastasia, Ice Age). This is another very tricky and demanding genre from a musical standpoint. Which are the main challenges for the film composer when he’s scoring an animated movie?
DN: Animation is a fantastic idiom. Since there is an element of “unreality” one can do so much more with the musical content or what I like to think of as “verticalness”, i.e. the wonderful ability that music has of doing many things at the same time – “sad/happy”, “dark/funny”, “scared/excited”, etc.
CS: You have a very fruitful collaboration with director Danny DeVito, which started in 1987 with the film Throw Momma from the Train. You composed a set of very different and interesting scores for his pictures. How would you describe your collaboration with him, which now spans more than 20 years and six films together?
DN: He is a true artist and a real filmmaker, a very rare commodity these days. And his films are wonderful for music. They are so operatic in nature – so visual, lush, evocative. They are wonderful movies to work with.
CS: I always particularly liked your score to The War of the Roses (1989). It’s a very peculiar and lively piece. You chose to enhance and amplify the satirical aspect of that movie, underlining the paradoxical situations happening on the screen between the two main characters. However, you never remained just “on the surface” of the drama, but you also gave voice to the characters’ inner feelings. What are your personal recollections of this score?
CS: It’s one of my favorite movies. There is a “habanera” theme that permeates the entire score. It speaks to a “death dance” that goes on and on throughout the movie. It’s almost predetermined from the beginning of the film. There is a scene, early at the beginning, when they meet and are walking together, and then they pass near their own graves! It’s very subtle, but it’s there. This relationship is doomed from the start, which is what the story is about. I wanted to speak of their “young” attraction and use that to morph into their descent into hell. There is a wonderful line in the film where Barbara (Kathleen Turner) asks “What fresh Hell is this?”. It is supposedly attributed to Shakespeare, but I think it comes from American author/critic/poet and wit Dorothy Parker. She is reported to have exclaimed "What fresh hell is this?" when her train of thought was interrupted by a telephone. She then started using it in place of "hello" when answering the phone or a knock at her door. In many ways she can be considered the patron saint of all tech support workers. In any event, it defines the movies, [which is about] making marriage a political entity with a beginning, a middle, and an end.
CS: Paradise (1991), an almost forgotten film directed by Mary Agnes Donoghue, is a score in which you showed your great skills as a dramatic composer, a side of yours that probably isn’t very much known to the general audience. This score is a lovely piece of Americana, full of lyricism and touching melodies, with some beautiful passages for woodwinds. What can you say about this score?
DN: I love this score and was ravaged critically for it. I felt very bad about this because I think it is a wonderful movie, with great performances – very subtle and heartfelt. This was one of those experiences that I will never forget. I felt the orchestration and composition were totally in sync.
CS: You’re part of what is probably the richest and most revered musical legacy in Hollywood, a tradition which started with your father Alfred, your uncles Lionel and Emil, and then continued up until today with you, your brother Thomas and your cousin Randy. How does it feel for you being part of such an important (and consistent, I'd say) musical heritage?
DN: I honor most of all my father, Alfred Newman, for his trifecta – administrator, conductor, and composer – all of which were necessary for his art and aesthetic. I have never heard an orchestra like the Fox orchestra in my life – maybe Furtwangler, Mengelberg, or to some extent Toscanini could do anything near what Alfred Newman could do with an orchestra. I realize that I am biased, but I was not always of this opinion. The string playing and the “rubato” style are completely unique as far as I am concerned. It is what film music became based on.
CS: The role of the contemporary film composer is of course very different than it was during the days when your father Alfred worked. How much the job of film composer in Hollywood is changed since then? And what instead is still very similar?
DN: It’s very different and yet very much the same. There are more concert music opportunities, but the hierarchy of music on cinema has taken a turn for the worse. Also, there is a sense of “eclecticism” that makes film music almost as homogenous as it was during the “golden era”. It’s just bizarre how this happens.
CS: You’re now doing a very large and structured tribute to the music of great film composer Jerry Goldsmith, with the American Youth Symphony Orchestra in Los Angeles. Can you explain a bit further the genesis and the development of this interesting project?
DN: We are doing a three-year project with the American Youth Symphony (http://www.aysymphony.org). I think Jerry Goldsmith is the greatest film composer of the modern era. We wanted to celebrate his contribution to music, culture in general, and to Los Angeles in particular as he was a native. Since AYS is based in LA, we thought this a natural outgrowth of our mission. We have already presented one concert and will be doing two more in the coming 2 years.
CS: Jerry Goldsmith still is the hero and number one film composer for many people. I know Jerry was always very complimentary about you and your music. What are your personal recollections about him?
DN: That’s nice of you to say. I loved him as a human being and as a composer who was so secure in his craft that he had the generosity to share his knowledge with others. He was like a little kid when talking about any aspect of music. What a lovely guy.
CS: You’re also a very skilled conductor and did several film music concerts through the years. Which is the role of film music in modern concert halls? Does film music need to be re-thought and re-structured deeply in order to be presented and enjoyed in a concert setting?
DN: I am not sure how to answer that. Films are really a part of Western Culture at this point. When you do a film music concert, almost everyone has seen the films so it’s perhaps a chance to hear a bit more of the artistry of the composer that one wouldn’t hear in the movie because of the sounds effects, etc.
CS: What is your definition of film music?
DN: Film is so peculiar in that it demands collaboration from a group of people who don't want to collaborate. And yet, it doesn’t matter because the “film itself” is King! Music must help the KING! It’s the way it has always worked and will always work…
A very special thanks to David Newman for his kindness and courtesy.
© ColonneSonore.net/Ottava Arte, 2009