Mychael Danna: Being Julia

By Mikael Carlsson

Throughout his career, Canadian composer Mychael Danna has scored films for numerous auteurs. His collaboration with Atom Egoyan is the most impressive example. They have worked on ten films together, including the masterpiece The Sweet Hereafter and films such as Exotica, Ararat and The Adjuster. Danna has also scored films for such distinguished directors as Ang Lee (The Ice Storm), Scott Hicks (Hearts in Atlantis) and Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding and Vanity Fair). But perhaps the biggest legend of them all is István Szabò, whose latest creation, Being Julia, features a beautiful original score by Mychael Danna.

There is only one way to begin this interview and that is to discuss the director of this film: István Szabò. He is without doubt one of the great European auteurs with films such as Mephisto, Colonel Redl and Hanussen behind him. What was it like to work with this legend?

 He is a true gentleman of the old school, and it was a pleasure to work with him. Although we were many thousands of miles away for most of the process, he was very clear and precise in what he felt the film was about, and what the role of the music should be.

How did you get the assignment to score a film for Istvan Szabo? And what specific instructions did he give you. What was his goal with the music in Being Julia?

I was replacing another composer. As you know this is a very common occurrence nowadays. I've been on both sides. Nine times out of ten it wasn't incompetence or anything like that, it was misdirection, or a matter of the team figuring out what it is they don't want at the expense of the composer's job. As the incoming composer I think it's good to reach out and call the outgoing composer and try to make the best of an awkward situation. Anyway, what they had discovered is that they wanted a more dramatic score. István comes from the school of less is more, and when it comes to music, for him, way less is more. He is doesn't like music that informs, or tells the audience anything that might duplicate what the actors are doing on the screen. He was still very cautious, but I think he had discovered that he had gone too far in that direction with the other composer. In fact, the film is very dramatic in the theatrical sense of the word, and quite different from any of his previous projects, so the film could, and does successfully accept a more demonstrative score.

Please tell us in your own words what the film is about and how you reacted to it as a musician.

This is a wonderful film, with the performance of a lifetime from Annette Bening, who plays a 1930's London stage actress having a mid-life crisis and exacting a delicious revenge in the process. I felt immediately that the film needed a dramatic and very memorable theme, much like the character of Julia; bold, elegant, and energetic. So I wrote one.

A lot of Szabo's films are period pieces with several of them taking place during World War 2. Did you try to reflect the time and milieu of 1930's London in your score and, if so, how did you do it?

Yes. There are many lovely source pieces of 30's popular music in the film, so I wanted to portray the other side of what was happening at the time, the love of elegance, and the survival of a rather 'classical', for them, late 19th century aesthetic.

Please explain how you approached the score in terms of themes, orchestration and structure.

It's a simple score in a way. There is 'Julia's theme', which is bold, elegant, energetic, and is in the form of a violin concerto. This seemed to fit her character: showy, dramatic, a virtuoso performer. There are a couple of other minor themes, but it's basically this one theme that ties it all together.

I feel that you have an ability to come up with a unique sound for most of the films you score. Is it important for you to explore new musical ground in a new score and if you were able to do it, what was new for you in Being Julia?

Yes, I love exploring new musical and dramatic ground, it's what keeps me excited about film music. This was all new ground for me, as I said I wrote a very memorable violin concerto theme, in the vaguely late 19th century style that was still around in 1930's theatre culture.

How did you work out this score in practical terms?

I was moving from Toronto to LA in the middle of this score, which I only had three weeks to write. So it was a bit mad, my studio was hardly set up. I remember writing the main theme in my car in my head between the studio in Hollywood and the house where we were squatting in the hills....

Your collaboration with Atom Egoyan is surely one of the finest director/composer relationships in modern cinema. How would you like to describe your relationship? Also, can you tell us anything about your new film, Where the Truth Lies?

We've now worked on ten films, including this one. I just got back from the set in Toronto, where Colin Firth and Kevin Bacon are playing, and singing, the roles of a comedy duo in the late 1950's. It's a whole new kind of music for me to explore, and the set was great, we had a twelve piece band backing up these guys... it's going to be a lot of fun. Working with Atom is like going home. Well literally, it is going home. And strangely, they are shooting here next week, about a block from my decrepit Hollywood Boulevard studio!

Finally, a few words about the future of film music. How do you think that film scoring will develop in the next decades? Are there any trends that we should embrace or are there any to watch out for?

The general level is certainly rising in many ways, especially as far as the educated awareness of other musical cultures, something I've been railing about for years. Some people feel that as far as the straight ahead old fashioned score, big late 19th century orchestration, that these scores are less well executed lately, and especially with the loss of some of the old masters in the last year the future of those kinds of scores is perhaps less likely to be rosy. But I think overall, the standard of the average film score today is much higher than it's ever been.