Adventures in the Screen Trade (47 page)

ON CONFIDENCE

I start every picture thinking that I'll fail, that I'll never be able to do it, that I'll forget how to cut. I won't know how to do it, I'll let it down. You get very moody when you're working on a picture. Certain things you can cure and certain things you can't--I'm fifty-eight years old and I still bite my fingernails.

ON THE FIRST CUT

I like to come on a film as early as possible. I like to come on when they start shooting and I like to edit the film as it shoots. The first cut for me is the most important. I like to have that done within a few weeks of when the film has finished shooting. It may be half an hour longer than the final film will be. You start with this amorphous first cut, which is usually lugubrious, long, terrifying-it sends the director home with the shivers. You've got everything in there and it's atrocious from a story- telling point of view, because everything's said over and over and over.

ON THE ATMOSPHERE IN THE CUTTING ROOM

The cutting room is a place where an atmosphere can be created in which a director can be as insecure as he is ever going to be or could possibly want to be, and know he's not going to be exposed to anything but people who want to help solve problems.

On any film, problems develop in the writing of the screen- play and the shooting of the film that eventually have to be solved. The cutting room is the last place where any problems of story or acting or directing that have accumulated along the way can be Fixed. The buck stops in the cutting room.

Every picture has what I call a "soft underbelly." There arc always areas of difficulty where we flounder, and I think the director has to be given the right to go ape-shit crazy--and they've got to be given it with no smart-ass solutions of "Ah- hah, ao you didn't know." In other words, they've got to feel

comfortable being insecure. Just the way you might have to feel insecure in your writing.

ON DA VINCI IN GENERAL AND MORRIS IN PARTICULAR

I think Morris, the father, came off as a much richer character in the story. In the screenplay, I had very little feeling for Morris emotionally. I miss a feeling of loss on Morris's part.

Small point-wasn't it the postman who had the head like a nose and Bimbaum made him beautiful? That's the word Morris uses in the story: "beautiful." In the screenplay, you changed it-here he says, he made him "cute." That alters the meaning. "Cute" is a slightly downputting remark on the part of Morris.

Look-Willie gets a marvelous gift from Bimbaum. But he also gets a gift from Morris that I can see so clearly in the story but not in the screenplay, which was that Morns realty understood what an artist was. In the story there are days and days spent in the living room where they're discussing haircutting-the father wants to be an artist, too, he wants to be more than a tech- nician. And he isn't. But you get the feeling that maybe he could have been. Otherwise, why would he spend all this time talking with Bimbaum? In the story, that's one of the strong sequences, where the father is so excited about this artist he's brought home, this nasty old man.

I think the feeling of loss would be greater if Morris had given more of himself to his relationship with Bimbaum in the screenplay-and then deprived himself. Because what he's doing is cutting himself off from his son. He's going to have a son who's going to grow up and be Bimbaum.

ON THE PORCH SCENE

I would want to try and strengthen Morris; I would like to give the feeling that he's more than just a fixture there in order to hire and fire and get mad. That scene on the porch, the one where Willie's playing checkers with his friend and Emma comes out and says she can't take it anymore in the living room. "Ten days-how long can you talk about head shapes?"

I don't like Emma just telling me what's going on in the other room. If it were shot exactly as your screenplay indicates, we couldn't do much.

But I would like there to be coverage so we could shoot where the real life is-inside. We don't have to play the porch scene as crisply as you've written it. I want to see Morris. I want to give Morris credit for having the potential so that when we know that Willie is going to become an artist, that there was something about Morris that also could have gone that way but didn't. I never got that feeling because of the way the screenplay concentrated on the foreground.

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As I listened to Dede Alien talk, it was a wonderful moment tor me-because I think she's dead right, I had damaged Morris.

And as she went on. a whole bunch of images, images I'd never imagined in the writing, hit me. What if the porch scene began where it does-but then concentrated on the living room?

-what if Morris were holding his scissors at a certain angle, and Bimbaum came over, slightly adjusted the angle of Morris's arm? And Morris tried to get it right. But no, another slight arm adjustment.

-or what if we were looking at a bunch of roughly drawn head shapes and Morris pointed to the wrong one and Bimbaum shook his head, corrected, pointed to the proper one, and we could see Morris's frustration. He's trying, he's trying like a son of a bitch, but it just eludes him.

-or what if, during the final haircut, instead of just being in- side and Morris storming through the door, announcing how Many minutes to go, what if we punch up those "pacing" shots of Morris to show just how difficult a moment this was for him? He was suffering just like Willie was suffering, just like maybe even Bimbaum was suffering. All that may help. I don't think it can hurt.

I didn't mean to weaken Morris, but when you make an adaptation, you're bound to lose things, some of which are unintended.

I was writing about this guy who loses a job-that was the structure I was following. So I tightened the material--three haircuts to two-and Morris's reactions changed. In the story, he lets Willie have the second haircut after the rainstorm-in the screenplay he just shouts for Willie to get the hell gone.

A different screenwriter might have kept the long living- room sequence in the story, might have let there be three haircuts-but I didn't know how to do it without, the whole piece unraveling.

I'm not sure I ever would have come up with Dede Alien's suggestion-something in me says that's an editor's mind at work. They have such knowledge of how you can play a scene, so that it works on the screen but might be confusing on the printed page.

I also envied her relationship with directors-she's in a sense the end of the relay race and she and her director share one certain knowledge that binds them in a way no screenwriter can ever be: They both know they're on the Titanic together. . . .

Composer: David Grusin

David Grusin is a distinguished jazz pianist as well as a record producer. His first movie was Divorce, American Style, in 1967- Since then he has worked on the following films, among others:

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter Tell Them Willie Boy Is Hen The Graduate Three Days of the Condor The Electric Horseman Heaven Can Wait Reds Absence of Malice On Golden Pond

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ON MOVIE SCORES

it really isn't important how pretty the music is. The film isn't about music; the score isn't about music. What matters is how helpful the score is to the Film.

ON MYSTERY

I think the function of a score is subliminal and psychological. I believe there's a mystery about the emotional response a listener gets from a piece of music. I can't define how it works, but it's there in some way. How you respond to a Mahler symphony will certainly differ from your reaction to a Donna Summer record, but in both cases something happens to you. You're may- be not even aware of it.

What we try to accomplish in film scoring is to channel those responses in an organized way, so that an audience can be "loved in one direction or another without actually knowing why. I believe that's the most functional use of film music.

ON THE TUG OF WAR

By the time the composer gets hired, the battle lines are drawn. Usually, the composer comes on very late, after the film has been rough-cut. There may already have been three years of work on the project with a producer, a director, a writer, and others being involved. And if there are differences of opinion, which there frequently are, usually I find the producer on one side and the director on the other. And not just about music- about the project in general; maybe one wants a scene left in and the other doesn't. When I show up, there's a preconception of getting me on one side or the other. In other words. I'm often in a tug of war. The director might say about the producer, "Don't listen to him, listen to me, he doesn't understand the film. I'm the only one who understands it." And the producer might take me aside and say the same thing. I don't mean to imply that this happens every time out, but it's happened to me often enough by now to make me think maybe it's not an uncommon disease.

ON THE PROBLEM I'm convinced there are at least a half dozen ways to successful- ly score almost every film; I mean radically different ways with radically different styles of music. So the crucial problem be- comes: Which way is the very best? That's the problem I roll around on the floor with.

ON FIRST IMPRESSIONS

The best situation for me is to see the cut of the film the first time without other people around. I really think that one of the biggest contributions a composer can bring to a project is simply this: The composer is one of the few people involved at that point who has never seen the film before. And on his first viewing he truly sees the reality of it. He doesn't sec the script as it was before the rewrite, he's not seeing the earlier cuts before all the scenes were changed, he's seeing exactly what's on the screen now. There is a certain objectivity that lasts for that first running. And for me, that first impression is terribly important-because when I see the film that first time. I'm the audience.

MUSIC FOR DA VINCI

I don't think Da Vinci should have a big score at all. I mean, the orchestra should not be large - I think I'd try to use as few instruments as I could get away with. I'm not speaking of the amount of music here. I'm talking about the kind of sound.

Less can really be more in film scoring. That's why so many art films are so impressive musically: They arc sometimes scored with just a few instruments (frequently because of a lack of budget), and that sparseness is artistically quite pleasing. Personally. I find that kind of thing terribly appealing.

And I think basically that Da Vinci requires a two-motif score-the kid's and Bimbaum's.

ON MUSIC FOR BIMBAUM

When we first meet him in the shop, and through the dialog, I don't think we need music for him. The haircut is what makes him an artist, so I'd like to introduce his theme once he's got the scissors in his hands and we can see the man at work.

We want to set him apart, he's unusual, and maybe we could do that with some kind of dissonance. But not too much; we don't want to make him scary. It's all a matter of degree.

I think the scissors are a specific, wonderful sound. Hopeful- ly, they could be used as they exist, at the start, but then gradually we might change the reality of the sound by "bending" it electronically, or perhaps filtering it in some way.

I wouldn't want to get cute with the scissors-for instance, by making a waltz out of the scissor tempo. But I think they might be superimposed over some instruments to become part of the music--some high, shimmering kind of texture. I hear high sounds for this scene; maybe the first instrument would be a harpsichord, riding high over some mid-range muted string. I don't know for sure, but I think I'd like a kind of hard-edged sound for Bimbaum. I'm not sure if his music should be melodic, but perhaps angular, with unusual intervals; not unpleasant, but harmonically and melodically different. ON MUSIC FOR WILLIE

For Willie, I think one might just pick an instrument, and that would become his sound. It's an old device; I think it came

from ballet and opera, where a character is identified by a specific instrument. I don't know why, but at this point I hear the kid as a clarinet.

ON THE ENDING

I don't know if the ending can work musically the way you have it working in the script. You've got the music making a kind of an unusual plot point; it's supposed to take us into the future and let us know that Willie becomes an artist like Bimbaum.

Music is frequently asked to do things for film for which there are no ironclad guarantees of success, and this may be one of those times. You're also asking a lot from an audience, because they're not conditioned to think of music as carrying the plot in this way. They may be listening to the melody, and perhaps the orchestrations, etc., but are they really going to be able to absorb the idea of the kid becoming an artist, solely through the score?

I think things are further complicated by having him first fumble with the harmonica, then get better, then adding the guitar) and after that the piano.

Maybe a good way to start would be this: When the guitar en' ters, the harmonica stops. And when the piano takes over, the guitar stops. Maybe that way we could make the story point. In other words, when the guitar enters, the "harmonica" part of his life is finished. He's moving on. And he's done with the guitar when the piano begins-he's growing, getting older. At the very end, we could perhaps bring the three instruments together, but certainly not till then.

I'm not saying this solution would work; maybe, maybe not The problem's still there: Audiences aren't stupid, but we're asking them to do things they're not accustomed to.

For me, the ending would be the challenge of the score. Before trying to write it, there would be a lot of rolling on the floor.

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The Grusin interview reminded me again of one of the truths of filmmaking: We are all at each other's mercy.

Look, I know the producer's going to get killed by the studio and the director's going to be eaten alive by the star; I realize that just when the cinematographer has spent hours beautifully lighting a romantic garden scene, it's going to rain; I am aware that the production designer will be told, the morning he was supposed to shoot in the Sistine chapel, that he won't be allowed to use the Sistine chapel. Well, tough about them, I've got troubles of my own. I'm the screenwriter and my constant trouble is that my screenplay is toothpaste but my specific problem with Da Vinci was this: I couldn't figure out the ending.