Analysing music, especially scores can be, sort of dull. But when you are talking to the man who composed music for films like Little Miss Sunshine,The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus,The Boondock Saints, Monsoon Wedding; you know you are digging into a refined mind.
I was compelled to seek you out after hearing your score to Life of Pi. I discovered that your filmography was not only impressively long, but extremely eclectic. Girl interrupted, then Moneyball and then a Capote. Do you actively choose projects that are different from one another? What is the criterion?
Certainly, a composer benefits from going from one style to another, from gaining the freshness that occurs from re-inventing your style for very different worlds of contrasting films. The criteria for me has always been to work with filmmakers with something to say, who are drawn to explore less traveled paths, and take the film and the music to new places. Whenever I am feeling scared that I have got myself into something that is too much of a reach for me, that’s when I know I am in the right place!
Many of your scores have an epic feel to them—Water, The Nativity Story etc. Are you naturally attracted to these sorts of films?
I’m drawn to good stories, set in unexpected places, whether they play out on a grand scale or not, isn’t something that I am more or less drawn to. Often epics are less identifiable, less believable on a human scale, with characters that are one dimensional…those sorts of films are not something that I am attracted to. Anything with layers of meaning, with complexity of character and motivations are very inspiring for music.
When is a score finished in your eyes?
You have hit on something very problematic for me! I have a great difficulty feeling that I am ever done with anything I’m working on. I guess I am lucky to work in an industry where there are very strict deadlines; otherwise I would never hand over any music! It’s difficult because while you are working on a score, you have your critical faculties set very high, always striving to find what could be better, and how to make it better and I have trouble turning that off, even when I am watching the final released film! The time away from it, is the only cure. Once I’ve worked on one or two other things and then come back to it in a year, that is about the only way I can enjoy it.
Your scores oftentimes come from striking places. Ararat was based in Armenia. And Water in India. How much research do you conduct for scores like these?
A great deal. I have always disliked “world music”, which I would define as the uninformed and insensitive use of non-western instruments. I studied ethno-musicology in University and so have an approach that is more careful than that: I do a great deal of listening and reading and try to understand not just the musical instruments and forms of non-western music, but also its place in the society that it serves, and how and when and where it is used. Ideally, I like to record in the country itself. Although there are many Armenian and Indian musicians in LA for example, I have recorded in Yerevan and Mumbai instead, which is a great deal more difficult of course, but what you learn as a composer by going to the place the music sprang from, is irreplaceable.
You have collaborated with Ang Lee on three films so far. What’s your working relationship with him?
When he first signed onto this film, he called me and said that he was working on a project that I was born to write the score for: a story about an Indian boy on his way to Canada. Well, I am Canadian, married to an Indian woman, and Ang was there 11 years ago in my baraat! Ang is the ideal director for a composer, always striving to be true to the story and characters he is working with. He is relentless in this search, which means he sets the bar very high for everyone working on the film, including himself. Every moment has to ring true, and he is very sensitive to the effects of music, so he is a wonderful collaborator, very involved, working beside you to make the score true to the overall vision. We spent a long time talking about the concepts in the film, and then got more specific about what kind of music would best serve these themes he wanted to convey in the film.
When you came onto the project, did Ang Lee, have a particular idea about the score he wanted for Life of Pi?
Yes, we discussed early on many of the characteristics of the score which ended up being quite close to where we ended up. He knew we would need a large orchestra, given the wideness of the visuals and also touches of Indian and French music as well as choir. We were careful not to get too literal with the various religions and cultures that make up Pi’s life. We wanted to blur the borders as much as possible, to keep Pi’s experience as relatable as possible to everyone. What he experiences, we all experience in life in one way or another: loss, love, pain and joy. And he is a true world citizen, born Indian with a dash of French, at home with Hinduism and Islam and Christianity, and on his way to Canada. So we used techniques like having the English boy’s choir sing Sanskrit mantras and verses from the Vedas, and a Tibetan style choir singing in Latin. We were very careful to make the various eastern and western musical elements sound effortless and natural.
You’ve worked on Monsoon wedding, Water and now Life of Pi. How is it composing music for films with Indian settings? How do you envisage India?
Certainly, I have a very close connection with Indian culture. I’ve studied and worked with Indian music and musicians for many years. All those films you mention, I recorded at least some of the music in India itself, so I’ve spent many happy hours in Indian recording studios! I never tire of experiencing India. I’ve traveled there many times over 20 years, and it seems a country impossible to know all of. As soon as you think you understand something about India, the opposite is shown to be true.
Where did you draw inspiration for Life of Pi? What research went into it?
The score for Life of Pi is really everything I’ve ever learned in my career, all put into one film score: English church school boy choir, Balinese gamelan, Bansuri, Santoor and Kanjira, Persian ney, Accordion, big Hollywood orchestra… I’ve used all these instruments in other films but never all in the same film. I read the book 10 years ago, and it really inspired me. It seems that my whole life has been a preparation for this film.
Life of Pi is mostly based in a single backdrop of pacific waters. How difficult was it coming up with a score that would carry the film?
Although the setting is simple for much of the film, i.e. a lifeboat in the pacific, there is no shortage of drama, either episodes like the whale, the island, the storm, or the internal drama that occurs. The music must guide the viewer, and Pi, on both these journeys: the physical journey as well as the internal emotional journey.
As musicians, what is the most important element to you when creating the sonic backdrop to a film?
Serving the story is the most important role that the music can fill. It’s not what is musically satisfying that we strive for, but what is best to help the overall experience of the film. With Pi, given the richness of the visual part of the experience, we were careful not to let the music get too complicated and taxing to listen to. The music had to have a sense of compassion, not only for Pi, but for the viewer who also has to experience Pi’s tragedy and struggle.
What is your working relationship with your brother and fellow composer, Jeff Danna?
Jeff and I have been playing music together since we were very young. We truly enjoy the opportunities we have had to collaborate on film scores, often as co-writers, which we have done 5 or 6 times. Co-writing is something I really like in some situations; the films of director Terry Gilliam, for example, are films that Jeff and I have written together, which works very well for Terry’s very rich and multitudinous worlds. On Life of Pi, Jeff played electric guitar in one piece.
What would be the mark of a Danna composition? One distinct feature that’d be there throughout a film?
I’ve been told that my scores are very different from film to film. But I think what they have in common is giving the viewer a way into the specific story that the film is telling. Each score is very specific to the world that the filmmaker has created, which is the fun of what I do, to immerse myself as totally as I can in the world of the film.
