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Author	Topic: Badalamenti Masterclass Report

Pete M Oscar® Winner	Last weekend I was lucky enough to attend a masterclass given by Angelo Badalamenti at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. For those who were unable to attend, here is my report (I may have got the order of things wrong, but this is basically what wa said): The event was introduced by the festival's Artistic Director Lizzie Frankie, who said that when planning the festival, she had thought how great it would be to crown off the other composer masterclasses she's had (this is her last year before moving on) by having Angelo Badalamenti come, but unfortunately they had no contacts to him. However, by chance, they met at Cannes, so she invited him to come for the event. He said he'd like to come and play golf. She said that'd be no problem, and that she would get Shaun Connery to be his Caddy. Only it seems Angelo took her at her word. Then Angelo came down, & was most upset that Connery was in fact not even in Edinburgh. First, I must say that Mr Badalamenti is a thoroughly entertaining guy. He looks a bit like you expect him to be a big Italian-American Mafia-type, but his good sense of humour was much in evidence. You could almost imagine him doing stand-up. He's certainly the kind of person that you'd be plenty happy to sit & chat with for hours. Interviewing him was Mark Kermode. First there was brief talk about Angelo's background as a pop writer under the name Andy Badaly, and he mentioned the two films he scored in the '70s in passing. Moving swiftly to Blue Velvet, he revealed that he was initially asked to simply coach Isabella Rossellini to sing the title song, since she was having difficulty with it, & other people they had tried had failed to obtain the right results. A couple of hours with Angelo, however, and he was able to give David Lynch a tape of the song. Lynch apparently later said that he could have simply used the take on that tape into the film straight. He also talked about his appearance in the film as the piano player during that sequence. It seems Rosellini had a habit of moving slightly across to the left whilst singing, & thus obscuring Angelo out of the shot. So the more she moved, the more Angelo lent over to try & remain in view. Eventually Lynch had to stop filming & tell Isabella not stand still, otherwise Angelo was going to end up on the floor. We then saw the clip from the film. After doing that song, he was then asked to write a song "Myseries of Love". Apparently David wanted to use his favorite song, a Cocteou twins track (I forget the title), but unable to face the costs of it, the producers asked Angelo if he could come up with something in that mood to use instead. Wisely, Angelo wanted to keep Lynch in with the song, so he would be more likely to be persuaded to actually use it, so he got him to write the lyrics. It kinda backfired a bit however, when he got the lyrics from David (and he brought out the actual peice of paper that he was given), since, as a pop writer, he couldn't get into the lyrics, & thought they were complete rubbish. Asking David what sort of music he envisaged, being told that it should be 'like the wind' ("Riiiiight.") apparently didn't really help. However, he managed to come up with something, & eventually wound up doing the whole score. We then saw the song in the film. He then talked a little about working with David Lynch, & how close they have become (Angelo called him "his second wife"). He gave us a demonstration of how they work together writing score before filming. Angelo would sit at the keyboard, with a tape recorder playing, & then Lynch would try and communicate what was needed. He actually had a keyboard with him at the event, and gave us a demonstration of how the "Laura Palmer theme" from Twin Peaks was written, by playing it, & giving us the Lynch running commentary as he played. This was a really quite remarkable occurence, & one I don't think I'll ever forget. I've seen composers conduct their music before, but there is something much more amazing about seeing the composer at the keyboard, playing it himself & talking us through how he wrote it, which was both very funny, & extremely moving at the same time. Try to imagine the theme, or play it (these aren't the exact words Angelo used, but as close as I can remember to them): quote: "Okay, now we're in the woods. The moonlight is shining through the trees. Oh, wow, those are two very beautiful notes, Angelo. But could you play it a little slower?" At which point Angelo stopped. He had been already playing it fairly slowly. Apparently a drummer he worked with once quipped that with Angelo that are two speeds, slow & reverse. He started playing the dark opening chords again. quote: "Okay, now the mood get lighter. In the distance there's a beautiful girl. She's walking this way. Oh, Angelo that's beautiful. She's wearing a white dress that's flowing in the breeze. She's coming closer. Oh, yes, that's fantastic. Closer, closer, she's passing by, & oh, yes, yes, Angelo that's wonderful, and she's passed, now down, & down. Down more. And she's gone. We're back to the dark woods again..." Apparently this was almost exact quoting from the original tape of when Angelo originally wrote the theme. Although obviously there's some slight changes in my remembering Angelo's rememberances. Whilst at the keyboard, he demonstrated his style of using suspended chords, & he showed us how they worked, by just improvising something. First he was talking us through what he was doing, but he got a little carried away, & just sat there improvising the most beautiful music for about three minutes (at least it seemed that long), after which he decided that he'd definately have to use that theme for something... He also gave a demonstration of the main Twin Peaks theme, although it obviously wasn't quite the same as the original, since he didn't have a special guitar tuned 7 times lower. This section on the keyboard was the most exciting part of the evening for me, even if it's the hardest to necesarily convey it in words. Continuing with Twin Peaks, Angelo talked a little about two peices from Fire Walk With Me (which was being screened after the talk, although I couldn't attend as I had to go see Guillermo del Toro's The Devils Backbone). First was the song that plays around half way through the film. I don't actually have the soundtrack to the film yet (although after hearing this I will definately pick it up soon), nor have I actually seen ANY Twin Peaks ever, so I can't really describe what the scene was, except to say that it was in a bar. Even though I didn't really know who the people were, or what was going on, I have to say that the power of the music made a singificant emotional impact. Kermode was close to tears after it, & could barely talk, so he let Angelo talk about the next clip, from the end of the film (some weird pinky room or something, with a big Angel-y type job). Apparently Lynch's only instructions to the scoring here was that it had to be extremely, transcendaly beautiful. He suceeded magnificently, & I am quite upset that I didn't already have the CD. Talking about the method of scoring films, Angelo said that most of the time he wrote the music to the film, but usually with David Lynch (& also occasionally with Paul Schrader), they would write the music first, then make the film fit around it. Talking about Paul Schrader, the next clip was from Comfort of Strangers, another film I'd never seen. The clip seemed to be from toward the end, with Christopher Walken being evil, & slitting someone's throat in front of a woman (tied?) in a chair. He was apparently quite excited by the potential of the score to include both Arabic (or was that Turkish, damn I should have written this three days ago) & Italian opera influences. Apparently Schrader originally wanted to use an excerpt from Mascagni (I forget what it's called, but it's really, really famous), hence the Italian influence in it. Angelo really objectd to this ("Mascagni didn't write that tune. God wrote that tune."), so resolved to write his own music for the scene, which thankfully made it into the final cut. And wow - I have to say this was an amazing peice of scoring. Even though I didn't know who anyone was, what was happening, or anything, the music really took my breath away, and sent huge shivers down my spine. I am really going to have to track this one down too, and I am now very pleased to discover (as I had a horrible feeling it would unavailable), that it has been released on CD. The other segment talked about was the opening scene to City of Lost Children, one of my favorite films (Aha! Something I have both seen & got the score for!). He talked about the way that the music initially is very beautiful & unsuggestive, but then twists (with a very important note as the second santa appears, the first twisting of it out of the normal state & making things more ominous & unsettling) into what will eventually be revealed as Krank's theme. If you have yet to discover this marvellous work (both film and score) then I highly recommend you seek it out. Before the ending Q&A session, he talked briefly about his cameo appearance in Mulholland Drive ("She's the girl."), playing Dan Hedaya's brother, shady mafia-type. Lynch's direction to him was to remember someone he visited once, who sat the whole way through the meal not saying anything, just murmering "Kind of" or similar on the one or two times Angelo tried to make conversation with him ("What sort of work do you do? Are you in construction?"). We saw the scene, which was rather funny & yet also with a neat edge of menace. It's the best coffee drinking scene I've seen for ages (you'll have to see it to undestand, but Angelo pulls it off magnificently), & one of the best uses of the line "Napkin." I can recall. Time for a few questions at the end, although they weren't all particularly exciting ones, nor did they reveal much of interest. Angelo had difficulty understanding the Scottish accents of one or two people (although not me, since a)I don't have a Scottish accent, & b) I didn't ask a question, as he had answered my couple of questions in the talk & I'm not quick enough to think of new ones just like that). One guy mentioned how he had had music from the Straight Story played at his wedding. Angelo thought he was asking if he could have it played, & said he'd be happy to come along with a keyboard & play it for them live. He also mentioned how doing Straight Story with David was a nice change (a G rated David Lynch film distributed by Disney?) to allow him to do more Americana style music. Overall, it was a hugely enjoyable event, which seemed to be enjoyed enormously by everyone there (and a very well done to you if you managed to read all that). The only downside is that now I shall have to buy more Badalamenti CD's. Oh, & even though the golf course is literally just outside my front door, I never did see him playing golf...
posted 08-22-2001 08:31 AM PT (US)

Pete M Oscar® Winner	Incidentally, also at the festival I have seen Amelie/Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Bangkok Dangerous, Battle Royale, Devils Backbone/Guillermo del Toro, Seance, Enigma, Surprise Movie (Planet of the Apes), & am also seeing the closing film on Sunday (Wit). I'd be happy to provide a report on any/all of these events (in the Just Movies section) if I think that anyone would be sufficently interested to read them. NP Legend (Goldsmith)
posted 08-22-2001 08:44 AM PT (US)

Graham Watt Oscar® Winner	Good stuff, Pete! I'll be starting a new "What Have You Seen...?" thread for September. If you don't want to wait until then, you can of course start your own "What Have You Seen In What's Left Of August?" thread. I promise to read your posts there if you promise to read mine next month!
posted 08-22-2001 01:24 PM PT (US)

Timmer Oscar® Winner	That sounded great Pete, I wish I could of been there. A well written review too! Enigma is a film I'd like to see, how was it?!
posted 08-22-2001 06:01 PM PT (US)

joan hue Oscar® Winner	PeterM, this was really interesting. I know it takes time to type all these details. Thanks so much for sharing. NP Cousins, one of my favorite Badalmenti works.
posted 08-22-2001 09:21 PM PT (US)

Pete M Oscar® Winner	quote: Originally posted by joan hue: PeterM, this was really interesting. I know it takes time to type all these details. Thanks so much for sharing. Thanks. It's good to know that someone still appreciates posts about film music round here. I forgot to mention about his using his real name for Blue Velvet rather than Andy Badaly. Simply was that he had been using it as a more "American sounding" name for his pop work. Then with Blue Velvet, produced by Dino de Laurentiis, with Isabella Rossellini, etc., he felt that using his real name would be quite appropriate, as well as making it seperate from his pop stuff. Timmer - Enigma was really good. It's the sort of intelligent, mature, character driven thriller that we really don't get too many of nowadays, sadly. It falls apart slightly towards the end (when I'm told that it changes from the book), & Dougray Scott seems slightly ill-at-ease, but overall I highly recommend seeing it. John Barry's score is pretty good too, quite sombre & it fits the film wonderfully. However, there are lots of other scores of his that I need to get on my shelf before this one (though my John Barry collection is quite pitifully small). According the end credits, the album will be released on Decca. NP Medicine Man
posted 08-24-2001 08:45 AM PT (US)

OHMSS76 Oscar® Winner	Pete, that was a great report! Thanks for sharing that! Badalamenti has always been a favorite of mine, and I wish he would work more. The Comfort of Strangers is probably one of my all time favorite misunderstood-underrated scores, and I agonized for a couple of years after seeing the film, that it would be unreleased....alas CAM rescued it, and it's gorgeous. The scene you mention in TP:Fire WWM is probably towards the end...but I can reveal no more. This, along with Comfort, were two VERY important films to me in my adolescence and the scores are both near and dear to me. 'The Voice of Love' is the cue you are referencing on the album, and you should definately get it quick, it's terrific. Julee Cruise later did a vocal take of this theme, but it's not as powerful as the Badalamenti-Landrum synth version. NP:Zombie(Goblin), but I'm turning this off and putting on some Andy Badaly! Sean
posted 08-26-2001 01:13 AM PT (US)

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