Film Composers Tap Into Offbeat Inspirations for Scores
VARIETY - Director Robert Eggers’ original idea for music in his intense period character study “The Lighthouse” turned out to be wrong. “I originally wanted it to be quite minimalist, but I should have known better,” he says. “The over-the-top indulgent writing, the insane performances and the camerawork, all as wild and crazy as Robert Pattinson’s character, required the same [musical treatment].”
He encouraged composer Mark Korven to pursue atonal compositional techniques. “Rob wanted the stormy black sea, the cruel wind,” says Korven. “It’s about character and mood. The score, essentially, is the character of the sea, the squalls, the dark mythology.” Horror today, he adds, “is so drenched in cliche that when someone comes along that’s thinking outside the box, filmmakers can seize on that.”
A large collection of brass is the core of “The Lighthouse” soundtrack, Korven notes, with such other offbeat colors as waterphone, bowed crystal and “some ludicrously badly played accordion courtesy of myself.”
The director was briefly disturbed by a studio executive’s comment that it sounded like “a Yeti moaning in the wilderness.” “You have to question, when is the obscurity adding to the tension and when is it just strange?” Eggers admits. “With any score, it’s about supporting the story. So long as it supports the story, and isn’t distracting, people will go along for the ride.”
