Excerpts from Randy Newman's Pleasantville Commentary

Editorial note: These excerpts from the Pleasantville DVD were originally transcribed and posted to the Little Criminal's Discussion List by (the lowly) Jymm. Text in parentheses ( ) is all Randy - his own verbal asides during the commentary. Text is brackets [ ] are minimal editorial changes included for clarity.

Excerpt 1: Taking It From the Top

Excerpt 2: Time

"I did two pictures in ’98. I did ‘Pleasantville’ and ‘Bug’s Life’ - and sort of helped put together this 30-year retrospective they did of me - and then I made an album, wrote the songs for an album - and it will be out in the spring. But when I was doing each of them, I had to keep them completely separate. When I was doing ‘Pleasantville,’ I wasn’t doing anything but eating, sleeping and doing ‘Pleasantville.’ Occasionally, a ‘Bug’s Life’ thing would fall in the ‘Pleasantville’ area - and occasionally a "Pleasantville’ thing would fall in a ‘Bug’s Life’ time period. But for the most part, you can’t do this job - with the time constraints and as difficult as it is - without devoting your whole day to it, every day that you have until the deadline. Hopefully, you get ten weeks - but you never do. Anywhere from five to eight, though I wouldn’t do one for five. I think I had about eight to do this - maybe a little more. He [director, Gary Ross] was very good about time.  They're separate jobs - and each day there's a problem to solve - whether it's the boy [Tobey Maguire's character in Pleasantville] putting the black and white makeup on his mother or a grasshopper chasing an ant for 2½ minutes."

Excerpt 3: Deciding where certain pieces of a score will be placed within a film

"It’s just what comes up that day. It doesn’t much matter how you’re feeling - and it never has with me. It’s always been a job. That’s the narrowest possible description because of the highs and lows and the depressions and how difficult it is to start things.

See, that’s what happens: before I did movies, I did whatever I wanted - I mean, all my life. And when you do movies you have a boss. It’s not a democratic system - it is to some degree with a good guy like he [director, Gary Ross] is - but it’s an autocratic system. Things come from above. A director says ‘Do this’ or decides ‘Let’s use this music here, let’s use this music here.’ When I worked for Nora Ephron, I didn’t recognize what the hell I did - because everything had moved around so much. She moved it little places where she wanted it - it’s her picture. I didn’t know about it and then you’re surprised when you see it.

So to some extent that happened in [‘Pleasantville’] - where I might have intended something for [a particular scene], he used it other ways. But his taste is pretty good - he has a pretty good sense of music. But it still is not the type of job where you have complete autonomy. You have some - and in some jobs, I imagine (I wouldn’t work for anyone if this were the case) you have none, almost none. My cousin, Tom, has worked on [films] where he just had to do what the guy said.

What I try and do is listen as closely as I can to what the director’s saying - and keep my mouth shut, which isn’t necessarily easy for me. Listen and try to intuit (if the guy isn’t articulate about music) what he wants, what I’m going to run into, and if I can stand to be in the same room with the guy. Gary’s a good guy - I don’t think anyone who’s met him would think otherwise - but you can get fake good guys, too. Get on the project and they beat the hell out of you. But I just try and listen as hard as I can to what he’s saying - and what I think is going to happen to me - and if I don’t like the guy, I won’t do it."

Excerpt 4: Why Pleasantville?

“What attracted me to the story [of “Pleasantville”] was, in a way, that it was about television - which occupies about five hours of the average American’s time [each day] and is the subject of almost no movie that’s ever been made.  I did “Parenthood” for the same reason - that it was about the mechanics of being a parent, not anything flashy but just the basic, daily...Little League and the little agonies that go with it.  And [Pleasantville] again was a big idea.  It was about the differences in the Fifties - but it was also in some ways about the influence of television.  And it was a good script.  I see a lot of them and he [Writer/Director Gary Ross] can write; it’s noticeable and I responded to it.”

Excerpt 5: “Get Ready”

 [Randy describes the cue “Get Ready” from a scene where characters played by Tobey Maguire & Reese Witherspoon prepare for their “dates.”]

 “Yeah, this was nice.  Wrong – that I did 1938 [-style music] for these people but…I like that.  I do it too often.  There’s ‘90s kids getting ready…I didn’t know what the hell to do.  He [Director Gary Ross] had it temped with 1940s music and I said, ‘No, that’s wrong.  We can’t do that.’  But that’s what I ended up writing – and it’s sort of all right.  I don’t know what else I could have done.  It still disturbs me but I like the music.  [The cue plays.] 

 I don’t regret it when I look at [the scene].  I love that kind of music – and it doesn’t hurt [the film].  But if I could have thought of something [contemporary] - ‘90s kids getting ready – that caught all the stuff you wanted to catch…and that had that rhythm, I would have done it.  But I still can’t think of how to do it.  Beck doesn’t do it…that stuff wouldn’t have done it - looping and stuff like that.  I’m relatively satisfied with that.  It doesn’t necessarily knock [the film] back to 1938, it don’t think.  It’s close – it was a close call, in my opinion.”

Excerpt 6: The relative importance of composing film scores

"It’s a very hard job. You know I look at ["Pleasantville"] and there’s detail and you realize that you have to put this down on a piece of paper and conduct it so it’s in the right places and things like that. And it’s very hard - but I don’t know how important it is. It’s like someone being able to stand on a crystal ball with one finger and twirl a bunch of hoola hoops around on his legs. He can do it - but so what?

It’s a low job, kind of. It’s a well-paid job. I’ve watched it (since my uncles did it) for over 40 years and there’s been progressively less respect given to music people. Progressively less autonomy and trust and less time - and more money. So it’s like you’re a well-paid farmer’s mule at this point to some degree. But well paid, no doubt about it. The money is good but the work conditions are bad. It’s like being a coal miner without the black lung (except directors). But it’s not like it was - and the scores are worse because of it."

Excerpt 7: Two cues

“I didn’t quote anything [in the score]…Yes!  I quoted one thing in the film, now that I remember:  I did - for her lust when she meets that handsome guy, the basketball player – rather than do 1940s saxophone, I did “Summer Place.”  As if she’d gone (whunk) back into those triplets of “I’m So Close To Cathy” and those songs they did then and don’t do now.”

 [The cue to which he is referring plays.  A bit later - following a cue called “Basketball” - Randy observes:]

 “Japanese companies (when they used to be happy about their economy, at least) used to have theme songs that they’d sing every morning.  And that’s like one of them.  [He hums the theme.]  It’s a bunch of bright, young, fresh-faced kids walking to school:  they’re going to have a bigger house than their parents, everything’s going to be better than it was before.  Everybody’s happy.  And [America in the 50s] was never that way obviously – as Gary Ross well knows…and everyone knows – but that was what was portrayed, all right.  And he’s right about that.  It’s hard to tell what the hell else that [theme could represent.]  It’s gone – it isn’t around [he hums the theme again].  I mean, you might do it for a British military movie about the Forties – but that they had actually shot in the Forties! 

Excerpt 8: Influences / The Sincerest Form of Flattery

“American composers that you could just drop in [to the score of Pleasantville] – none of them wrote music like this.  Leroy Anderson did – “The Typewriter” and all those hits he had; David Rose had “Holiday For Strings” which is a very 50s kind of thing, nice tune; there’s themes to all those TV shows, some of which are good.  You know, when I was going to write a theme to this show, I listened to some TV themes.  And…they’re real professional jobs, they’re good.  “Father Knows Best” or the stuff Earl Hagen did in those days.  It isn’t as if they’re…cheesy and bad – you listen to them, they’re good.  They’re like TV themes now except…they’re a little better.  They’re just older.  But it isn’t like these guys were hacks – they’re good musicians.  So you can’t “cheese it up” much, y’know.  So when I wrote one, I did the best I could for what that job would have been.  [He hums the theme for the Pleasantville TV show.]  It’s a strange thing.  It’s the type of thing like if they’d thrown my score out, I would’ve never had any use for it again. [Laughs] I couldn’t use it for anything.

 [Charles] Ives’ music is happy – but…he’s such a miracle, it’s such a strange event for him to have occurred at that time.  He came out of nowhere.  I don’t know where he got his music – from his life.  It wasn’t from music he’d heard before – he came before Stravinsky even!  But…there’s no composers who were…[writing in a “50s style”].  Morton Gould didn’t really do that.  There’s nowhere to look in America for any of that stuff – except the guys who were doing the job.

I don’t think [Sir William] Walton had a big influence on the Hollywood guys.  My uncle Alfred sounded like my uncle Alfred – which maybe sounded like…Wagner, Bruckner sometimes…(trying to think).  He sounded like himself – some blues influence always.  Not always y’know…not in “Song of Bernadette” or “How Green Was My Valley.

 No, I don’t think the English guys’ stuff influenced anybody [Hollywood film composers].  Maybe Bernie Herrmann.  Walton did some of the best scores of all time – but I don’t think it had any effect on anybody out here.  [Responding to an off-mike question.]  Goldsmith?  No, I don’t think so…now that I’m thinking about it.  You hear a lot of people ripping off Shastokovich and Prokofiev – there is that.  You can’t help it.  You know, you got to write enormous amounts of music in fifteen days – I don’t think you go directly to Prokofiev and steal 16^th notes – but maybe that’s what you studied and that’s what you know and that’s what some guys write.  I hear it…you hear complete steals at times.  I don’t blame ‘em.  Once they heard Bartok, they did Bartok – to some degree, where they could.”

Excerpt 9: Examining the composer’s ability to write without having seen the film

"You really have to [see the film] before you do the music. You can get the general feel of the thing and fool around in the idiom so you gain some facility in where you’re gonna be. Like, I might have fooled around with Fifties [music] if I felt it would be difficult for me (that wasn’t difficult at all). Or in "Bug’s Life," since it’s very much 20^th Century sort of dissonance stuff and very fast-moving stuff, I might have listened to Lutoslawski (which I did) and Shostakovich. But you can’t really write the score without seeing the picture because it just changes completely. Or it does for me - maybe some people can.

I don’t know whether [use of classical composer’s ideas in scoring is] different now. Film composers, no, they’re getting their own ideas - Horner’s percussion and Goldsmith’s percussion ideas and keyboard ideas - they’re their own as far as I can tell. When I started, I didn’t think much of [that]. I’m still not absolutely, totally convinced that the movie music that people like best has a theme and hammers it home, does it again and again and again. Whether it’s the theme for a picture or whether it’s the motive for a guy when he comes back. It’s developed, I do more of it now than I used to - and I think it’s right but I’m not convinced. Just like I’m not absolutely sure about sonata form - whether people get it. Whether it has this psychological effect: ‘Oh, how satisfying - he’s gone back to the home key!’ Who the hell knows whether he’s gone back to the home key?! I can’t tell! I’ve got my doubts about these things that are so-called verities."

Excerpt 10: The Score - how much does it help the movie?

"I don’t think [a score] can be all over the place. I think I was in ‘Ragtime’ - but the picture was supposed to be all over the place, the book particularly. That was what was great about it. It was fragmented, it did whatever it wanted to do - and so I did too. I would have liked to seen [the film] be all over the map. But I was all over the map. [Laughs] It was one of the first pictures I did and I wrote some nice music - I just have yet to find a picture to fit it. I’m not sure how much good I did the movie.

The first picture I did was ‘Cold Turkey’ for Norman Lear - then I did ‘Ragtime’, ‘The Natural’, ‘Parenthood’, ‘Awakenings’, ‘Avalon’, ‘Toy Story’, ‘Bug’s Life’, ‘Maverick’. There’s some others in there I can’t remember. ‘James and the Giant Peach’ - ooh yeah, that was hard. The song and the score were nominated [for Academy Awards]. ‘James and the Giant Peach’ maybe is the best score I’ve done - up till these last two, maybe. It was animated - but it wasn’t animated the way ‘Toy Story’ was animated. ‘Toy Story’ was traditional animation, in a way (even though it wasn’t traditional animation). You had to play it that way; when someone fell down, [the music] fell down with them. ‘James and the Giant Peach’ moved a little more slowly and there was some textural difference. I did it - but I can’t exactly explain to you what it was. It was sort of a softer, more lyrical thing. Even though the movie wasn’t successful, [JATGP] was the movie I’ve done (along with ‘Bug’s Life’) that I believe I helped the most.

This movie, ‘Pleasantville,’ it’s there - it’s a literate thing. I believe I did a good job and helped it emotionally. I did as good a job as is possible for me to do."

Excerpt 11: Volume

"Incidentally, ’Pleasantville’ is the best shot I ever had in terms of volume in a movie. It’s a director’s choice entirely how loud the music is - it isn’t the composer saying ‘No, let’s be louder’ and the director saying ‘OK, you’re right.’ They never say ‘OK, you’re right. Turn [the music] up.’ Part of the job is to get down for dialogue. But now - pretty much since ‘Star Wars’ and Speilberg, things that are wall-to-wall, (you know, it’ll be playing in the spaceship and the music’ll be banging away) [director’s] will just turn it down. And Johnny Williams is entirely capable of getting down for anything. He has more technique than anyone has.

[When composing a score] I take pleasure in solving the problems - feeling bad and then solving it - and writing for orchestra; subduing my ego enough to help the picture. [There are certain moments in a movie] where music counts."

Excerpt 12: Preview screenings and source music

"Composers usually aren’t there [when the movie’s sound is being dubbed] - you’re there for the mix but not for the dub. You know, it’s too painful. Previews and screenings, particularly with a comedy, can transform a musical score in a picture entirely. [Director Gary Ross] wasn’t a slave to what he saw in previews. He’s a bright guy and if he wanted to do something, he did it.

In [the movie "Pleasantville"] there’s a lot of important source music - Bonny Greenberg was in charge of it. It’s good - she did a good job, I think. She would have been scrupulous about [matching the music to] the right year and things like that, I think. But if [Gary] wanted something different, then he’d do it. When I saw [the movie], I didn’t know what to expect so much (except I knew what I did) - but "Rave On" [when it is used in the film] is a very touching, moving thing to me. I love rock ‘n roll…and I think Gary loves rock ‘n roll and Bonny Greenberg loves rock ‘n roll. It was nice to hear "Rave On"…it sort of brought a tear to my eye - an old crock like me. It was effective as hell. I really thought it worked - Bonnie had her doubts."

Excerpt 13: Getting people’s attention

"The disturbing thing about my whole career is that I know more about…and am more interested in this arcane, odd film music thing than I am in rock ‘n roll. I don’t know what’s going on now in rock ‘n roll - but scores…every time I go to a movie, I see what people are doing. And yet my persona as a [pop] record-maker…has made me famous to some degree. Whereas the other would never make you famous - unless you’re Johnny [Williams] or [James] Horner (or have something like Horner had happen to him). [I assume this is a reference to his work on "Titanic"]

[Pop music is] a field where the attention is focused on you… if there’s [an album] review in Time magazine, it’s of you. If there’s a review of "Bug’s Life" in Time magazine, it won’t mention [the composer] - or it might very rarely. My uncle, Alfred, did 200 movies - and I imagine he was in Time magazine when I was a little boy or something like that - but the big mention I saw of him in national publications was when he did a movie with George Stevens, "The Greatest Story Ever Told." George Stevens had him do "The Messiah" when Jesus is on the cross - and Al said "Don’t do this. It’s a mistake, it’s anachronistic, it’s wrong. ‘The Messiah’ is completely wrong for this." George Stevens insisted on it. He had to do "The Messiah" - he did it while Jesus is getting crucified. And he got crucified - my uncle - in Time or Newsweek or something. My family’s looking and that’s where he gets mentioned."

Excerpt 14: The pecking order for composers and their music

"I work just as hard on writing songs [as writing a score for a film] - but this is somehow more important to me. And it doesn’t count, it isn’t as important. There are 10 people more important on a movie than the composer. In a movie where there’s a big cast, there’s more. [laughs] You can’t complain about it if you’re earning a living in show business, what the hell. I mean, it’s a lot better than regular work.

Music should stay out of the way of dialogue. I had a director tell me once, ‘No, the dialogue’s not important. Keep the music up.’ But that’s not the norm - particularly when a writer directs his own picture. Dialogue is more important than music."

Excerpt 15: Music and movement

"Y’know you do things [in a score to emphasize a character’s movement]…and if you point it out to people - you say ‘It’s sort of Mickey Mousy’ - but they don’t notice it and it’s good, it works that kind of stuff. Music on movement.

I’ve seen movies [from] the Forties, some of the comedies they did, [with] Cary Grant…and [seeing] them without music [you notice] there’s little things that Franz Waxman, Cyril Mockridge - people who did those movies - did that make these people seem graceful. You can make them look bad if [the score hits] them in the wrong place, with movement and stuff like that. It’s a very delicate thing with that kind of picture. And it made them seem smooth and like nothing would ever go wrong with them. It’s a great thing they were able to do then. Some guys do it now but it’s harder - I mean, it’s not harder but there’s fewer guys who can do it.

Where the music should go in and where it should come out is often very difficult. In some places it’s clear but it’s a very hard thing to figure. And you do it fast nowadays - used to take more time."

Excerpt 16: Using source music

"There’s a scene in the picture where some of the kids have been transformed [they appear in color rather than black & white], they’ve been out at Lover’s Lane having sex, and – I can’t remember whether they’re reading books…but there’s some question about books, at least there’s some intellectual component to it – and the music [the kids listen to] is changed.  Later in the picture, there’s [an ordinance passed] about the music they can listen to – and they had Johnny Mathis on there – and Bonnie Greenberg and I said, “Johnny Mathis?  Johnny Mathis is kinda hip – that’s pretty good stuff.”  That’s some of the best stuff of the period, even though it’s ballads.  But [Director Gary Ross] wanted [Mathis] on there.

 But in the scene I’m talking about earlier on, they play Dave Brubeck’s ‘Take Five’ and they play Miles Davis’ ‘Miles Ahead’.  It’s something that Gary definitely wanted to do.  I said I didn’t think he should do it and so did Bonnie Greenberg, who was in charge of the source music.  Because it…felt a little cerebral, it felt like Plato’s Academy.  It’s free love and books and jazz.  It never happened in America.  That was the one jazz hit there was, you know – [along with] “Watermelon Man” and a Hugh Masekela record.  I don’t know how you would have finessed it.  I worked – and he cut the scene to ‘Take Five,’ the drum licks and all that stuff.  [Using] Miles Davis [with the camera] going across the street to those guys sitting there was questionable to me.  But it was a lot of time covered so I was happy in a sense that I didn’t have to write [music for] it.”

Excerpt 17: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

"When I was young, I listened to what was on the radio - and always have. I've never [owned many] albums particularly. I had some Beatles albums and Jimi Hendrix, I think - but not a lot. And Ray Charles - I had everything [by him]. My dad was a doctor; there was no music in the house - we watched television every night. Just like these people [referring to the characters in "Pleasantville"]. But music was important because that's what his family did. He loved his brothers and admired them to excess. There was *the idea* of music in the house - but not music. I didn't hear Beethoven unless I played it.

I started taking piano lessons when I was six, seven maybe. (It's not early anymore.) [An apparent response to the interviewer's reaction of starting lessons at an early age.] I can't say as that I ever loved it - [as if] I said 'Oh, please, let me take piano lessons.' It was like my father thought it was the greatest job in the world. I think he wanted me to be a film composer. And all of a sudden, one day there was a piano in the room. I didn't know what the hell to do with it; I was six."

Excerpt 18: The Education of the Young Artist [or "Trashing Beethoven"]

"I took piano lessons and I studied theory and counterpoint. I went to UCLA and studied music.

At the same time, I started writing songs when I was 16 - and signed with a publisher and tried to write songs for Bobby Vee or Gene McDaniels or the Shirelles or who ever was up. And was not successful. And then began making records in '68 or so - and began writing in what is my characteristic style, I believe, in about '65; a song like 'Simon Smith' and 'Davy the Fat Boy' were right around then. Where I changed and didn't write straight love songs so much anymore but did character studies, sort of; third-person kind of songs.

I can't remember when the first movie was - 1970 or so. It scared me so bad because it's what my family did - and they were so strict about it. I mean, I heard Jerry Goldsmith one day (all these composers would sit around and have lunch at [20th Century] Fox) ...I heard him trash the 'Emperor Concerto' by Beethoven. And I thought, 'Holy Jesus Christ!' He says, 'There's nothing original in it, nothing good.' I thought, 'Oh my God - Beethoven?!' [Laughs - giggles, actually.]

I was seeing some great music, goddamn! I was working at Fox when I was 20, running this copy machine. And I'd see Jerry Goldsmith doing 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea,' Johnny Williams doing 'Lost in Space,' Arthur Morton doing 'Peyton Place.' And I'd see the music - and I learned an enormous amount doing it, seeing it. And they were experimenting: I remember...to warm up for doing...a remake of 'Stagecoach' (really a bad movie but a great score), [Jerry] did a TV show called "The Loner" which he used the same theme he used in "Lonely are the Brave."

Excerpt 19: A Man's Gotta Know His Limitations

"Carl Stalling did all those Bugs Bunny, Warner Brothers things. You don't notice how fantastically difficult what he did was - until you have to do an animated picture. I've done animated pictures so I've 'done Stalling' to some degree; but he was really a master. All musicians admire him. And directors say 'We don't want Carl Stalling' and I've said, 'Well that's good, because I can't do it' [laughs]

The role of the composer - I've been watching [films] for 45 years as a cognizant person (since I was about 10 years old) - and 'Awakenings' I helped a lot. I think music was very important to 'Avalon' also. But I've done some [films] just 'cause I liked 'em. And ["Pleasantville'] was one of them, really. I don't know how much I contributed to this picture working. It worked - I mean, it was written well, it was acted well. Some emotional things I helped...but, y'know...I don't know.

[If you haven't seen "Pleasantville" - you *should* see it - the next section may be incomprehensible. The basic premise of the film is that two '90s teenagers are transported into a '50s TV show, "Pleasantville." Being a '50s TV show, everyone and everything in "Pleasantville" is black and white. The presence of the teenagers sets in motion a series of events that cause people and objects to (if you'll pardon me) show their true colors. The music which Randy is describing in the following section accompanies a scene in which the son (portrayed by Tobey Maguire) applies makeup to his mother (Joan Allen) so that her husband won't know that she has 'turned colored.' Perhaps my setup is pretty incomprehensible too...well I tried.]

I tried to do stuff that was touching, you know. [I used] Instruments that - flutes (you can sort of hear the wind and the blow), a harp, piano, even a vibe (sort of cheating) - but things that are directly fingered, hands-on, with each stroke when he's putting that makeup on. The last half of [the scene] I had scored as 'the mother bravely going back out' and I played some sort of subdued, heroic thing. Gary [Ross, the director] said that, 'It's the kid. Look how sad the kid is - that's what we want to play. And so I rewrote it and did that - and I think he was right. That was the feeling - he felt he was doing a horrible thing to the mother. Whereas, what I thought initially was that the mother was doing a brave thing to walk back out there. But he hated what he did - and that was more important. I just missed it. That happens to me...I mean, I'll -like- not get it."

Excerpt 20: A Battle Lost

[In this excerpt, Randy is discussing the music which accompanies a scene where the son (Tobey Maguire) shows a book of paintings to his boss at the soda shop, Mr. Johnson (portrayed by Jeff Daniels). Mr. Johnson is an aspiring artist (he does a display for the shop window every Christmas) - and the paintings show him the possibilities in art.]

"The art book cue is the one clear case in the movie, and the only one really, where we [Randy & director, Gary Ross] had a real disagreement - and a battle which I lost. In that, [the music in the scene] gets way too big in my opinion. I had a different theme there. It was very important to [Gary], that this guy [Mr. Johnson] was seeing these colors. It was something he wanted big like that, so he used the theme I used on 'the mural' [a scene later in the film where these same two characters paint a mural on the side of a building]. As a matter of fact, the reviewer in the New York Times mentioned it. That I shouldn't get so excited when I see a Gaugin! But I didn't." [laughs]

Excerpt 21: Rock music and the boxed set

"Rock music - with the Beatles - began to be looked on as an art form. And harmonically it got a little more adventurous there for awhile...and then backed off. It does it again occasionally - it reaches out and tries to do something a little fancier - and then goes back. Like I say, even though [making records is] the most important aspect of what I do probably, I know less about it. I'm less articulate about where [rock music has] been and what it does because I'm not often paying attention. I mean, I haven't *heard* Brandy and Monica. I can't comment too much on what's going on now - nor could I in 1978, necessarily. I just sort of did what I did. And loved...you know, I *liked* what I did...or I wouldn't have done it. And I've always loved the beat, just in general. What you've been hearing in this recording is my foot beating to whatever music is playing at the time. I can't help it.

They released in November a boxed set of 30 years of my music. Two [discs] from the 10, 11 [pop] albums I've made, one soundtrack (with The Natural and Ragtime and Avalon on it) and one of oddities and demos they found God knows where.

Some stuff I didn't remember at all; stuff I either chose not to release or forgot about. It's interesting - to me anyway. And I'm glad they did it. They did a very nice job, Rhino Records did it. It's one of the best things, really, anyone's ever done for me. I don't know whether it'll earn me enough to take up oil painting and head for the islands. But it's a nice package. Cheap at half the price."

Excerpt 22: Time (the Avenger)

"[Composing a score is] really not very important, intrinsically; I know that. But when I'm working on it, doing my best by the movie is the most important thing in my life - to the exclusion of anything else at all. On an average, I'm given 7 or 8 [weeks to compose a film's score] and I don't do 'em under circumstances that [don't allow sufficient time to do good work]. Guys will do them in 4 weeks or 5 weeks or 3 weeks or 6 weeks but... y'know, I guess I *could* - but I don't want to. For no amount of money would I do that.

Look - if you had 12 [weeks] you'd do better! I remember this one [scoring "Pleasantville"], I got some of the best ideas...way down the line - too late to have used them early [in the film?]. [For example,] there's the theme of the 50's town [he sings the melody to "The Pleasantville Theme" which appears on the soundtrack] (which is the theme of the TV show) and [he sings again - a theme featured 46 seconds into the soundtrack cut called "Bud's A Hero"] that feel-good march thing. Let's see...there's the theme I used for the kids when they were falling in love, the thing when it rains, and when that mural comes I think was the first time I stated that [theme]. [Director Gary Ross] used it first in the art book [scene] but I think I waited. But sometimes you're just getting started...you find things that you could have really used. And you find them late, so you can't use them too much. I sneak 'em in anyway."

Excerpt 23: Strings and things

"Strings are my favorite instrument because two-thirds of the orchestra are [made up of] strings. That's what I write for first - and then I think about the other stuff.

The scene with the rain and when he's [Tobey Maguire's character, Bud] out there feeling the rain, it's obviously a big emotional let-go. I think I did the same kind of thing on the mural as that...you know, play the rain, 'rain music' sort of. And then [the] arms outstretched, overhead shot [of Bud exulting in the storm] - I mean, you don't get any bigger than that in movies - and you do it. No pussy-footing around, no time for subtlety there.

Someone told me [the track called "Let's Go Bowling" from the released score] is their favorite cue in the movie. I took it as a tremendous insult. The bowling cue is...a source thing of that tango I wrote for the (if it *is* a tango) kitchen [scene earlier in the film]. It was [mixed] way down under the bowling, as well it should have been. It's nothing. People tell you also... 'I just loved 12 Songs' - something you did 27 years ago, you know. Who gives a shit?"

Excerpt 24: A sense of place

"I've done pictures where it wasn't important where [the setting] was. 'James and the Giant Peach' for instance, 'Awakenings' for instance, didn't matter. It could have been in Austria. But 'Avalon' was American and Eastern European, sort of. 'Parenthood' was American...and ['Pleasantville'] is. The one that I really could have gone either way on was 'Bug's Life.' And I chose to do Americana because...I just thought...when you'd see big country like that, where else are you going to see it? The minute a German comes to America, he races for the desert - because he's seen everything else. But they've never seen a desert. They have chasms in Bavaria - but they don't have that kind of [terrain]. So I did America for the ants. Shows you what a ridiculous business this is; here I am taking about Americana for ants - and yet these ants have earned 300 million dollars. [laughs]"

Excerpt 25: The search for meaning

Excerpt 26: Color, music & emotion

Excerpt 27: "Big"/Bludgeoning Music

Excerpt 28: Faust

Excerpt 29: "A more spiritual way..."

Excerpt 30:  Tip for Fledgling Film Composers

"I'm pretty good at this [composing for films] now. I mean there aren't that many people who are better than I am now. The thing is this *really* interests me, film music. And talking about songwriting - that doesn't - and I'm better at it. [Laughs]

Excerpt 31:  The Virtue of Writing It Down

Excerpt 32:  Getting Thrown Out (Air Force One)

Excerpt 33:  The Primacy of Work