Lost Issue: Wojciech Kilar interview Part 2/3

(continued from last Wednesday's Lost Issue...)

by Mark G. So

Mark So: There is a great deal of thematic complexity that you manage to convey simply and directly with your Portrait score. How did you approach the characters and their drama, and the need to bridge that past world to the modern world of the audience; how did you arrive at your 'solutions'?

Wojciech Kilar: I'll start with that melody called "Phantasms of Love." [sings the melody] In the film, it plays over a scene in which Osmond corners and wraps around Isabel, like a snake. As Osmond coils about her, the music does the same, with the theme [being articulated each time] higher and higher. It's in that same scene that all these men surround her. When those hands ensnare her and when Osmond traps her, this music is seemingly expressing something psychological.

As for the "portrait" theme [sings theme] -- it's as though inspired by two things. For one, it consists of these two "calls' -- [sings first six notes of theme] on violins, [sings remaining lower register notes of theme] on violas. This very simply and banally speaking represents the two things engaged in conflict within Isabel. You could even say that this represents Osmond and Ralph [the two men who vie for Isabel's affection], as the aspects of this theme alternate; first one is dominant, then the other. First the violins play, then the violas reply. Then lower instruments play first and higher ones, violins, respond. So this is really a portrayal of the split psyche of Isabel, of this unending dialogue, this telling oneself two different things. This is something that exists in everyone's psychology, and in this film, it's brought out especially through Isabel's duality. These two things fighting within her put her constantly on two different sides; she's driven alternately in one direction, then the other.

The second thing is that I wanted to write tasteful, good music for Isabel [to convey a sympathetic and ennobling view of her character]. When we were recording in Prague and we played [the "portrait" theme], applause broke out -- the whole orchestra started clapping. This doesn't happen that often at film music recordings. Why did they react this way? Well, I'm sorry, and you'll have to forgive the way this sounds, but it's because this is simply normal music. [laughs] It seems to me that this music is highly refined in some way, and that the orchestra musicians felt this. I got the feeling from them that they weren't playing any sort of ordinary, typical film music but rather something that held its value intrinsically. This was my desire, to write for Isabel music that was, simply put, good music; good, quality music that was, even for film music, quite complexly put together as well, by virtue of that internal dialogue. Normally with film music, it's melody and accompaniment. [In the "portrait" theme], there's this polyphony answering itself, and I think the musicians realized that they were playing something other than the norm. So on one side, this music had to show these two opposing forces in Isabel, and on the other hand, it had to show the nobility of her soul; the nobility of the breadth and the openness of her character.

You know, I've said a lot about this psychological aspect of my music; however, what affects me primarily is the image. That dark color of the images -- that this film is rendered in these dark browns and dark greens -- this flowed into the character of the music. So really, my analysis is post factum; it's after the fact that I analyze my own music, and that [I arrive at] all this about how in a particular theme are found Ralph and Osmond, and that something else can be found elsewhere. What inspires me primarily is the image. I can say [in terms of broader musical ideas] that I immediately knew [on first seeing the film] that the scoring would be primarily for strings. I decided that [this texture] would serve as an overall foundation because I felt that it very much correlated with the dark character of the film's images. Indeed, the images affect me quite sensually. You ask me how I wanted it -- I don't know. Who knows? I saw the film and I wrote. It's as I sometimes say -- and I won't go overboard, because it would be a bit of a megalomania [laughs] -- it's like asking a flower how it grows, and it says, "how should I know? I simply grow." Music "grows' just the same. I see a film, I pick up certain emotions, and it all clicks with something in me musically -- this happens automatically. These analyses that I've told you about come later. If I were to tell myself, "I must write music which sets forth Ralph and Osmond simultaneously," for instance, then I wouldn't write anything, because this would be completely dry. [Composing music] is an emotional thing; one writes emotionally, under the emotional impression of the film, and later one analyzes this. This is what creation is all about, it's unclear and uncertain; this isn't math or physics. Although in physics I thinks discoveries are also made through inspired hunches, and in mathematics or even astronomy as well. [laughs]
Of course, there are some things that are obvious, for instance that music called "Flowers of Firenze," with that oboe melody. Suddenly an Italian landscape appears, that kind of thing, and you know you have to write something generically pretty. There you have that child-like oboe -- that was a little inspired by the person behind that thought. It's a bit of innocent, pastoral, child-like music. This is uncomplicated music of the sort that one writes for a country landscape or for some pretty vistas. But I also wanted for this to be in a sense "pure,' because everything else is so very dark, heavy.

Sometimes, strangely, the color of this film for me would even correspond with the colors of the instruments. Indeed, in the case of the violins, you look at them and they're this bronze color, although not just in appearance but also elementally so -- for instance, I associate the flute with a blue color and violins, I associate with certain browns.

MS: So for you there are these prevalent kinds of psycho-coloristic connections with certain sounds and the instruments that produce them?

WK: Yes, yes. So this music, "Flowers of Firenze," was supposed to be a sort of contrast with that dark, gloomy music.

There's also that piece called "A Certain Light." [sings theme] That's simply your typical "love music;' broad and lyrical. It could also have played over some outdoor sequences. At the recording, Jane [Campion] was worried that this music was perhaps too sentimental. She said, "I don't want to be sentimental," and I said to her, "I know that you don't want to be sentimental in your film; it's because you're too sentimental in your life." [laughs] That made her smile. She had said, "I don't want Dr. Zhivago. [laughs] I don't want this large, sentimental, very singing music," but in the end, for the finale, she used it at full volume. This is over that scene at the end, when Isabel kisses -- I've forgotten his name -- after Ralph's funeral and returns home. Indeed, from that point the music goes along in quite a "Hollywoodian' fashion. [laughs] It's very "Hollywood' at the end.
There's also another theme, although it's apparent that in it, the other themes are being recalled and repeated. It's the music called "Love Remains," which plays over the last dialogue scene between Isabel and Ralph, when she convinces herself of whom she loved. It's a little sad, but it ends in a major key. It's a lyrical piece, and the first music [in the score] that is of a cleanly romantic sort. It also seems to me quite refined -- that thin piano with just a slight background of strings. It ends according to my attitude towards death, really, which is that death isn't the end. That's why this love song ends brightly.

MS: There's this sense of purification and Elan at the end of everything?

WK: Oh, exactly.

MS: I also read a strongly minimalist element in the repetition of your thematic ideas in Portrait which I found rather interesting; this chronic repetition seems to relate the contrasting elements of the Portrait score and to communicate some dramatic ideas, as well?

WK: If you know my concert works, you can see that I've been writing like this since the early "70s. I had a minimalist phase about 25 years ago, to which I'm now returning. If you listen to my Piano Concerto, you'll see that I'm getting back to minimalism. But I must say that the way the term is often misused, it would suggest that repetitive music is minimal music. I think it has to be emphasized that this is not true. Repetitive music is actually maximal music; through repetition, an unheard emotion is attained -- a notably greater emotion is achieved.

MS: So it's this idea that the emotion builds upon itself with each repetition?

WK: That it builds, yes. The most well-known piece of repetitive music is Ravel's Bolero.

MS: And then of course there's your Exodus?

WK:  My Exodus, and Shostakovich's 7th Symphony [we vocalize melodic bits from this latter work; laughter]. I'm always arguing that this is the same thing, repetitive music and minimal music -- or rather maximal music! [laughs] [The Portrait score] is really one of those instances in which my music for film is very close to my concert music. This happens occasionally. For instance, in Dracula, there's that piece called "The Storm." That's music that I would dare to give for performance in concert as a serious symphonic work. So occasionally it happens with film music that there isn't the sense that it is lesser in musical merit but rather that it could stand up just as well in concert.

MS: Some of your most popular and acclaimed music you wrote for Bram Stoker's Dracula, which happened to be your first American film. What was your experience on this film, and with its director, Francis Ford Coppola?

WK: Coppola called me personally, at three in the morning no less. [laughs] This, by the way, is a pleasant thing about the American film industry, that the director himself will call you. As it happens in Poland, among my friends, the producer calls, or even a second- or third- ranking producer. But in this case, Francis Coppola himself called me at home in the middle of the night. He introduced himself and said, "I very much like your classical music, and I think that you're also composing for the cinema." I don't think Coppola had heard any of my film music; it seems he had only heard my concert works. So he said he was making this Dracula film and asked me if I wouldn't like to write music for it. I took this offer as a great complement, because my all-time favorite film is The Godfather. I adore that film, and I have always adored it, from the moment I first saw it. I told him, "when I think cinema, I think Coppola," and when he asked me to do the music, I replied that this was an offer no one could refuse! [laughs] He asked, "can you take a trip?" I took the trip, and that's how it started.

What was so great with Coppola was that from the first moment he was terribly kind and human; right-off I was invited into his home, and he cooked for me -- spaghetti and ribs! Right away I was introduced to the family, to the children, to his wife. This happens very rarely in Europe. Before they invite you into their homes in France, they have to have known you for many, many months. So there was an incredibly kind atmosphere, and there was also a wonderful atmosphere surrounding the recording of the Dracula music, which was conducted by Anton Coppola, [Francis's] uncle, also a delightful man. This kind of familiar atmosphere is terribly importantly to me. Only then do I open up, only then can I give something of myself.

MS: So you need that human contact with the people you're working with?

WK: Human contact, yes. And it was the same thing with Jane [Campion]. But it's not always this way. It happened not long ago, without giving names, that I was approached for an American film, and I met a fine person, a wonderful director -- exceptional, subtle, gentle, cultured, sensitive, all the superlatives. This person made a very, very good film. I saw this film, and the stars are very good in it, it's a fine big budget film, and again, the director is a remarkable person. I went to America and met with him, and we spent a few wonderful days together. We saw this film of his many times, and I came to the decision that I couldn't do it. Although I had gotten to know this director well as a person, although I know his other films well, and although this film of his in my view is a wonderful film, which, knock on wood, will be successful, I felt that, [with regard to the music I would write], becoming involved with the project would be too great a risk. There's always the risk that a director won't be pleased with what I do, or that something otherwise won't work out. Most often this risk is minimal; it could be 10 percent, 15, 5, 20. In such cases, you can still fix some little things at the recording, add some music, do a little re-recording cheaply. But with this film, it was a 50-50 risk -- 50 that I would do it well and 50 that I wouldn't. And so that's why, out of respect for this man, with whom I developed an incredible rapport, and whose film I really liked, I came to the decision that I wouldn't be able to score this film; that the risk was simply too great. For me, this film was something new. It's a very ambitious action film, and I don't have any experience with that sort of thing; I really don't have a feel for it. I like it when I can write a big melody -- for me, it's melody, melody and more melody. This film required a sort of a background or underlay musically. You know how it is in action films; music doesn't play an entirely independent role. It has to be more complementary, and it also can't differentiate itself very much melodically. It has to be a little more in the background. This may be my vice or my virtue, but I'm not too good at writing music that doesn't play an independent role. I told this director that I primarily write music that acts as a psychological or philosophical commentator, music that says something which can't be conveyed visually. It adds a commentary. I think that this is one of the main ideas behind film music, that it is not redundant but communicates something that neither words nor pictures can say. Scoring such an action film would have been a risky experiment for me. I later sent this director a very long fax saying that out of regard for him, since I greatly esteem him and his creativity and as we had spent a few wonderful, congenial days together in New York, I couldn't in good faith recommend such a risk for a friend, and that I regretted doubly -- doubly because for one, I held up this director's schedule and for another, I missed out on a nicely paying assignment -- that because of the artistic probabilities,  I couldn't do this for him. I have said a lot about this because it was really an agonizing experience for me. I liked this director, and I liked his film; it's just too bad that that's how it had to be.

To be Concluded in the next Lost Issue...

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