Elmer Bernstein

Elmer Bernstein (b. April 4th, 1922)

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On Making Beautiful Music and 'Far from Heaven'
Elmer Bernstein ranks among the titans in his field of film composing, with a 50-plus-year career spanning more than 200 feature films and countless honors, including an Academy Award for 1967's Thoroughly Modern Millie. His most recent Oscar nomination -- the 14th overall! -- recognized his superior score for director Todd Hayne's superb homage to the '50s melodramas of Douglas Sirk, Far from Heaven. If you love movie soundtracks, chances are you love Bernstein's music, which includes the uniquely evocative scores from The Magnificent Seven, The Man with the Golden Arm, The Great Escape, and others too numerous to mention. His collaborations include work with directors as varied as Phil Tucker (yes, Robot Monster), Martin Scorsese (Cape Fear, The Age of Innocence), and John Landis (Animal House). Speaking to the composer over the phone from his home in Santa Barbara , one is instantly struck by his voice, a warm and frolicsome baritone with just a hint of Ed Wynn. His conversation with Barnes & Noble.com follows.

Barnes & Noble.com: From a stylistic perspective, Far from Heaven celebrates the cinema of the 1950s -- the time of your initial breakthroughs in film scoring. Did you revisit your work of that time in search of themes for this film?

Elmer Bernstein: Not really. I'd like to address what you're saying about old times and the score. It informs us a lot about where we have gone with music. The reason people think of the '50s when they think about the score is that it's a melodic score. You don't hear melody in scores anymore. If people think of the '50s as soon as they hear melody, it's a very sad commentary.

B&N.com: I thought melody was supposed to linger on?

EB: Melody has been replaced by noise. And that's not the fault of the composer. It's not that composers can't write melody; they can. What has changed is the character of the films themselves. If you have films that are all about special effects, you're not going to have melody. If you have films that deal with emotions in a cynical manner, you're not going to have melody, either. What interested me in the score for this film was the emotions of the people and the emotional character of the film.

B&N.com: So, you weren't consciously composing with a '50s mind-set?

EB: The style in which the film is presented to us is the style of a '50s movie, yes. But examine the film and its emotions: If an upper-class woman had, as her only friendship, her black gardener, that would raise a few eyebrows today. Also, if a woman comes to the realization that her husband is gay -- and I have had friends to whom this has happened -- I don't think the first thing she would do is run out and tell her best friend. Given the same film in a modern setting, I would have written the score in the same way.

B&N.com: Really?

EB: The purpose was to get behind the emotions of the characters in the film and project them, emotionally, to the audience.

B&N.com: Did you realize this independently, or was it a collaborative decision?

EB: The film was sent to me, and I thought to myself that it was a really sweet little film, and beautifully made with great performances. I knew what sort of score I would write, but I needed to meet with the director and find out what his intentions were. So I met with Todd Haynes at my home here in Santa Barbara, and in about five minutes we realized that we were completely on the same page. The first thing Todd said was, "Look, I just really want a score that gets behind the emotions of these people."

B&N.com: Splendid. So you had a working relationship?

EB: No. This may sound funny, but I didn't know Todd Haynes. These days, you never know. You can meet the director and he'll say he wants a bunch of rock 'n' roll tunes.

B&N.com: How did you translate the musical inspiration into actual notation? Was it all sort of organic and fluid and fast?

EB: I knew from the beginning what I wanted the character of the score to be. Because it's a very internal film and takes place inside of a house, I decided that I was going to use the piano very prominently. The piano is an instrument you associate with the inside of a house. I had decided that early on, and that I wanted a particular pianist to play it. The particular pianist I got to play it, Cynthia Millar, is a composer, but she plays the piano in a very special way. And when she was available, that had a great effect on what I did.

B&N.com: You knew the character of the score, and you'd lined up your pianist. What next?

EB: What is the theme? I spent a lot of time trying to find the thematic material that I felt projected the emotions I wanted to project. What I was looking for was the first big thing you hear at the beginning of the film. That really takes time and, curiously enough, courage, because when you're writing a theme-based score, the theme itself becomes really important. You keep trying this, and trying that, and you finally have to decide, "All right, that's it," and go for it. That's kind of a scary moment.

B&N.com: Did the theme come to you in a flash, or did you discard many before finding the right notes?

EB: Well, it's a process. Getting to the point where I would commit to a piece of material is often three or four weeks.

B&N.com: Your fellow Oscar nominees for Best Score were an especially worthy bunch, although I know people who carped about Philip Glass's score for The Hours.

EB: I'm one of the people that likes his score. I know others don't. What's curious, in a way, is that Philip had an easier job than I did, because what he decided to do -- and I think he was absolutely right -- was not to write a thematic score. His is an atmospheric score, really, and he didn't necessarily have to commit to a particular theme. And it works very well.

B&N.com: As do the nominated scores for Frida, (which won), Catch Me if You Can, and Road to Perdition.

EB: This is the best year in a long time. I'm really very proud to be one of the five people this year. If I had to pick the top five composers working right now, it would be every one of these nominees.

B&N.com: What's your personal favorite?

EB: For me, the score of the year is Thomas Newman's for Road to Perdition. I thought that was absolutely brilliant. Also, John Williams -- who never writes a bad one -- wrote one of his most inventive for Catch Me if You Can. He's just off in another world in this score.

4/1/2003

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