Composer Martin Phipps faced a huge challenge to create a score that reflected the nuanced humanity of the man on a brutal warpath. Things only got a lot more complex when he contacted director Ridley Scott, who didn’t give him any details about a musical subject.
“He’s a super smart guy and talks about other things, but it was pretty hard to get him to talk about the music. I haven’t had many conversations with him,” Phipps told Deadline on stage at the Sound & Screen: Film concert. “But when he talked about it [the score]He really talked about the character and didn’t dictate anything about the music. [He didn’t say]I want a piece like that, I want strings or horns.”
But what Scott lacked in musical specificity, he made up for by at least letting Phipps understand where Napoleon was coming from before and during his ascension to the French throne, which is the focus of the Columbia Pictures and Apple Original Film starring Joaquin Phoenix starring and in which it is in cinemas from November 22.
“[Scott wanted me] to understand that Napoleon was a figure and an outsider. He was not a highly educated aristocrat like many army officers, and in fact the reason he escaped the guillotine was because he was a lower aristocrat. And he wanted me to express that in music,” Phipps said. “He wanted the feel of it [Napoleon] wasn’t a particularly popular guy; he was just a relatively simple, uncomplicated man. He was a bit of a fighter. So we went with something simple, something that almost sounded like a gangster tune. We use trumpets and a simple waltz. We got into his head a little bit.”
For the score, Phipps also recounted how he tracked down a century-old piano that Napoleon once owned.
Come back on Monday for the panel video.
Source: Deadline
Ashley Root is an author and celebrity journalist who writes for The Fashion Vibes. With a keen eye for all things celebrity, Ashley is always up-to-date on the latest gossip and trends in the world of entertainment.
