Originally published in Soundtrack! magazine, December 1990. Article republished without permission of the author.
David Newman on the Flower Planet
interview by Matthias Budinger
David Newman is a self-declared pessimist. So he didn't expect too much
when coming to Munich for the first time to conduct and record his score for the
10-minute animated short called FLOWER PLANET. The film was produced by
Bob Rogers, whose earlier film, RAINBOW WAR, was a hit at Vancouver's Expo
'86 [see CS #15], and will make its debut at Japan's Expo '90 in Osaka.
Newman's off-beat score was performed by the 95-piece Graunke Symphony
Orchestra, an ensemble which has intensified its film music activities for the last
five years, having performed such notable scores as Chris Young's
HELLRAISER, Michael Kamen's ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHHAUSEN
and Carl Davis' RAINBOW.
Newman's music, although only twelve minutes in length, has all the qualities
which make a great symphonic work: sonorousness, inventivemness,
compactness and splendid material. It's an artfully composed piece of music,
rollicking and forlicsome but also with quiet and melancholy moments,
prominently featuring eloquent bassoon soli. Says producer Bob Rogers about
the score: "It has personal style. It's not like, say, a John Williams score. It
sounds like somebody specific, somebody with a point of view."
My conversation with David Newman took place during the FLOWER PLANET
recording sessions in Munich. In everything David Newman says, there's a
certain seriousness and reflection. But when he talks about his famous father,
composer Alfred Newman, his voice and total behavior become passionate and
devotional. One immediately feels how much Davis must owe to his late father,
who would have been 90 next year.
Q: What is FLOWER PLANET all about?
David Newman: The film is going to be
presented at the Japanese Expo '90 in Osaka, which starts in March. It's going
to be projected on a 50x80' screen. It's essentially a kind of parable piece about
a planet which is very colorless. A little creature teaches music to the
inhabitants, and the music starts making things grow. There are about nine
different characters, and they start playing music but in a very primitive way.
They don't really get it. They are not together, and they start fighting. So the
whole planet grows into throns and weeds. They eventually feel that they have to
play together in harmony, so they make the planet into a beautiful and colorful
place. The color scheme goes from very dark, black and white to very green,
luch and jungle-like. And the end it becomes the whole palette of colors.
Althought there's no dialogue in the film, each character has its individual voice.
Q: I take it your music also develops from
beginning to end.
David Newman: Oh, yes. Actually, my daughter
wrote a little tune, a lullaby, and we decided to use that as the main thematic
material of the piece, which is taken and developed in various ways, and played
by the various creatures on the planet. they do imitations and permutations of it.
There is a great statement of the theme.
Q: Were you content with hte performance of the
Graunke Symphony?
David Newman: Oh, yes, I was. I thought they
did very well. This is my first time here, and it was really plesant. With my
background, I was a violinist and I did a lot of session recording work in Los
Angeles, so I know what's going on there. I didn't know what to expect here. It's
such a specialized thing. I asked myself: Can they follow clicks? It takes a while
to do stuff like that. I don't like to use clicks. But in this situation there was a lot
of pre-recorded material, so I didn't have any choice. We had to sync up to that
pre-recorded material. It's an intricate affair to use clicks.
Q: I think it's even harder in animated films than in
live-action films.
David Newman: If there wasn't something pre-
recorded I probably wouldn't do it. But then you need more time and money.
Clicks can make a performance kind of woodan. this was a really complicated
film to do. But the studio is set up technically very well. This is a very nice, big
stage. We had 95 people in ther orchestra. It sounded great.
Q: I heard someone say you did eight movies
last year.
David Newman: Yes, I did a bunch of stuff. I did
LITTLE MONSTERS, I did HEATHERS, a couple Disney movies, and then
MADHOUSE, and WAR OF THE ROSES. Then I did eight Disney shorts for the
MGM-Disney Studio in Florida. I also did a classic German silent film, SUNRISE
[by Murnau] in January in Salt Lake City with the Utah Symphony for the oepning
of the Sundance Film Festival. That was great. I'd like to do that here. It's a
great movie and it's a nice score, about 95 minutes, not very long. It's just an
incredible movie that holds up very well, except for a few scenes.
Q: Are you still active at the Sundance Institute?
David Newman: I resigned a couple months ago.
I've been there for three years and I got busy. Every year I was having to go
back and forth for workshops, three of four times. It was just too much. Every
three or four years, there should be a new artistic director. In a way, that place is
set up so that it's a kind of master class situation. I think it should be new people
that go up every time.
Q: Is there a new director or new direction to the
Sundance film music program?
David Newman: We haven't picked a new
director. I don't know about the film music projects. I don't think we are going to
do that anymore. We are not going to make recrdswith Telact anymore, it's jsut
too hard for everybody to do, time-wise. But we are going to record all the music
for THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS. It's a hell of a lot of music, like four
hours. A bunch of it has never been recorded. I'm also going to go get some
stuff of my father's at some point. But I've been concentrating the last year
mostly on my film music assignments. There are some other things I like to do,
too; I have an idea for a one-act opera based upon a story by Conrad Akin,
called SILENT SNOW, SECRET SNOW. I have to find some time in the next
couple years to do that.
Q: What is your opinion of the current state of
film music?
David Newman: Film music is in a trasitional
stage right now. Everybody is waiting for the technology to influence it.
electronic music is waning now. More score now -- at least in America -- that
used to be all-electronic are now orchestral. It's always gone like that because
orchestral music will always be the mainstay of the medium. It sits the best on
optical. But the medium will eventually change, because technology always
opens up a big new market -- look at CD's, they absolutely saved the American
record industry. I think that not enough people will go to the movies anymore
because of the large video market. Why go to the films if you set up a system at
home with better sound? It will be interesting to see what happens when there's
a new technology for films, and what it will do to music. What will happen with
musical technology? I don't think of electronics, but of things like the ability for
musically illiterate people to write music and have it played live by musicians, the
music printing capabilities, the ease with which you can manipulate instruments to
simulate what an orchestra would sound like. That has never happened in history
before. That's going to change film music, especially commercial music.
Q: There was a time -- it seems to be centuries
ago -- when film music composers had to be classically trained. Now they can
manipulate sounds and compose -- or compile -- music without necessarily
having to know what a G-minor chord is. It's a two-sided coin. I know it's a
delicate question, but considering the technical revolution in film and music we've
just talked about, could you imagine your father still writing film scores today,
were he still alive?
David Newman: I have no idea. I mean, he
weathered the changing styles in the '60's. My father was very versatile when he
was writing. He used a lot of peopular music idioms of the time. All that's
happening in film music now is that the popular idioms are being used. It's not
like using popular songs, it's like using popular concepts and sensibilities. My
father would be in his eighties now, so I don't think he would do it. I mean, for
god's sake, eventually enough is enough; he made enough money, so what's the
point? But he had been a younger man, yes, I do think so because he was able
to deal with different styles. You have to be able to deal with
different things that come up, otherwise you don't work. Things always cycle.
There were always movies like the ones my father did.
Q: When you were in your teens, did you realize
that your father was such a big and famous film composer?
David Newman:
I knew he was. But I was 16
when he died. I wasn't really into music at that time, I was into athletics, to tell
you the truth. I wanted to do a baseball player! I love baseball, it's a great game.
But as I got older I started listening to his music. My father had a larger
influence on me than anybody, but it was only after he was dead that I realized it.
I remember when I was 18, 19, or 30 years old I was madly in love with Mahler. I
couldn't get enough Mahler. Then I started listening to THE GREATEST
STORY EVER TOLD. I had all the original music, it's like three hours. It's so
beautiful, cue after cue, this gorgeous, melancholy music played, like, by
god. I also adore ALL ABOUT EVE, especially the last scene
where the girl is standing in the mirror looking at herself and bowing. At the end
she is just siutting there with her Tony Award. It doesn't mean anything. It's like
empty power. My father wrote such seductive music, it's calling you. You are
drawn to the scene. The phrasing and the vibrato that orchestra was able to do,
the whole string sound ... I just couldn't believe it when I heard it.
Finally, I got to college. I was a music major as a violinist. I felt out of it,
and I was trying to learn what I felft about music. What is important to music?
What is it about music that I like? Listening to my father really helped me find
myself. I really feel that I got my sensibilities about music from my father. I wish
he was alive so that I could tell him how much it means to me. My enjoyment is
what I like about music is something I learned from my father without knowing
that I was learning it, because he did not force any music on us at all. He worked
at home, so there was always stuff going on. But I didn't realize he was really
famous. After he died there were about four or five hundred telegrams from all
around the world and at least 200 bouquets of flowers at the house. It you
imagine your father dying ... he is just your father, and then there's a rush of
telegrams, people bringing flowers, people calling day and night. You don't
realize it. Film music is a specialized art form. It's not like it your father was a
movie star. He led a pretty normal life. We all went to public school and played
sports with everybody.
I have a large Toscanini collection but I've never heard any
classical orchestra sound like the one my father was conducting. I've never
heard anybody have that much soul in an orchestra that had that specific point of
view, that one single vision. That to me is the ultimate thing in music; it was like
marriage of him writing it and him being in absolutely autocratic control: hiring,
firing, budget. He was in control of all that at FOX. He had a complete
carte blanche -- to spend as much money as he wanted. He could
do anything. You have to be in a situation like that to be able to
make something sound that way, and it's never going to happen again. It's not
the way thgings work nowadays. He happened to be a great conductor. Other
studios also had conductors but they were not trained like he was.
I was also trained as a conductor way before I started writing. I didn't start
writing things down until I was in my late 20's or early 30's. I did a lot of
conducting in Los angeles, a lot of musical shows. I had an orchestra for a while.
I'm glad to know how to do that, it comes in very handy. I can see how it was
such a necessary attriute for my father to be able to do what he did. Nobody
else could do it.
Q: What I like about his music is that it has two sides: there are moments with magic feeling or etheral quality (THE ROBE, DIARY OF ANNE FRANK, SONG OF NERNADETTE, for instance), but he can also be very earth-bound and dynamic, as in HOW THE WEST WAS WON.
David Newman: You should hear that on Laser-Disc! HOW THE WEST WAS WON is a great score. That and ALL ABOUT EVE are my favorites. His CAPTAIN FROM CASTILE score just makes the movie. We show it up at Sundance. You know, in America they are all football-crazy -- I mean college football. The last cue in CAPTAIN FROM CASTILE is the "Conquest March". The school that I went to in Los Angeles, USC, brings marching bands to all the games. They sit in the stands during the play, and in the half-time they march around playing stuff. At the end of the game -- when they win -- they always play "Conquest". Isn't that funny? That's how that music lives on.
My father's library is at USC. My mom [Martha Newman-Ragland, now the wife of film composer Robert O. Ragland --MB] donated a large sum of money for a Hall that's going to be in his name at USC. It will probably be built in the next five years. It will be a multi-purpose Hall that can be made into a lot of different environments. That'll be nice.
