I started using film as part of live theatre performance – what used to be called performance art – and I became intrigued by film.
There’s a sadness to the human condition that I think music is good for. It gives a counterpoint to the visual beauty, and adds depth to pictures that they wouldn’t have if the music wasn’t there.
In discussing the process with the actors, I made it clear to them that they could improvise but that the sum total of their improvisation needed to impart certain plot points, and schematic material.
The power of sound to put an audience in a certain psychological state is vastly undervalued. And the more you know about music and harmony, the more you can do with that.
It’s difficult working with very rich actors, because inevitably they become a little spoilt, and the managers and agents tend to control things more than is healthy.
In a way, the history of jazz’s development is a small mirror of classical music’s development through the centuries. Now jazz is a living form of original music, while classical music has gotten to the end of its cycle in terms of exploring its form.
When I do the music, I make the musicians listen to what’s happening in the film. That way they treat the dialogue as if it was a singer.
I’ve held onto little musical sketches that I thought could be useful, and the more time that I spend doing them for each film, then the more I have to draw on.
One of the things I love about cinema is the range.
There’s nothing I’ve done which I’m ashamed of or I thought was actually bad.
Then I became interested in drama, and almost by accident, I drifted into film.
I play piano and trumpet. I studied classical guitar.
I like to work my camera as if it were a musical instrument.
I had no plans to be a director.
I am intrigued enough to want to continue, and also to try and work with companies like Sony on modifying the cameras and making them more user-friendly and efficient.
Each film is different. Time Code was very quick – a matter of months. Miss Julie has been on my shelf as a script for some seven or eight years. But then the shooting process was very quick – 16 days.
The function of camera movement is to assist the storytelling. That’s all it is. It cannot be there just to demonstrate itself.
I’ve spent my life hearing people trying to apologize for music.
I would certainly say that films like Time Code and the Loss of Sexual Innocence were far more rewarding to me in terms of being able to move forward as a filmmaker.
Obviously, I try to make the films work for an audience. That’s the main point of making a film, and in retrospect, one can see that certain films, let’s say Leaving Las Vegas, demonstrated its own success.
But I don’t have such a strong desire to need to get away from filmmaking.