{"id":3626,"date":"2011-10-03T13:33:37","date_gmt":"2011-10-03T17:33:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=3626"},"modified":"2012-04-02T15:07:58","modified_gmt":"2012-04-02T19:07:58","slug":"cliff-martinez-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=3626","title":{"rendered":"CLIFF MARTINEZ (2011)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Return to<\/strong><\/em>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Exclusive Interviews & Profiles<\/a> \/\u00a0Composers<\/a><\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

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Since 1989, Cliff Martinez has scored almost 30 feature films, but he\u2019s best known for scoring two of director Steven Soderbergh\u2019s best works: the visceral crime epic Traffic<\/strong> (2000), and the composer\u2019s masterwork, Solaris<\/strong> (2002), which ranks as one of the finest sci-fi scores in the last 10 years.<\/em><\/p>\n

Martinez\u2019s writing style embraces contemporary electronica, rock, classical, modernism, minimalism, and ambient sounds \u2013 each amalgamated into an often hypnotic soundtrack. <\/em><\/p>\n

On album, his music draws the listener into a world of transitional sounds that are easily pegged as fully electronic, but often germinate from organic instruments made of glass or steel. As part of a film\u2019s mixed soundtrack, a Martinez score is perfectly balanced with existing sound elements. He’s adept at capturing the psychological conflicts of characters, and avoiding film scoring clich\u00e9s which in turn have made his work from 10 or 20 years ago age extremely well in spite of popular scoring conventions, and technological advances in digital gear. (Traffic<\/strong>, for example, hasn’t aged whatsoever.)<\/em><\/p>\n

In our conversation, Martinez discusses two of his three scores released in 2011: Nicolas Winding Refn\u2019s critically acclaimed crime drama Drive<\/strong>, and his latest collaboration with Soderbergh, the virus thriller Contagion<\/strong>.<\/em><\/div>\n

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.<\/span><\/em>Mark R. Hasan<\/strong>: For Drive<\/strong>, I understand director Nicolas Winding Refn wanted you to write music that would bridge both the songs, the sound design and the score with a particular emphasis on the eighties sounds.\u00a0Was the eighties sounds or the emulation of some of those vintage synth sounds in the score due to the source songs that were chosen, or was it a particular style the director wanted to have in the film?<\/em><\/p>\n

Cliff Martinez<\/strong>: More the latter. I remember a conversation with Nicolas about synthesizers in particular. I think it came about mostly because of the sound selection, and the songs were in the film long before I came on board, and they just felt like an integral part of the film. It felt like a natural choice to try to acknowledge that style somewhere in the underscore.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/strong>: When you\u2019ve composed scores using electronic elements, have you ever made use of any vintage instruments?<\/em><\/p>\n

CM<\/strong>: No. I\u2019ve got (I think) one analogue synthesizer and it does seem to have a certain mojo that its software counterparts do not, but for the most part I\u2019m completely fine with the software emulations. I was never a big synthesizer guy to begin with. I have rarely ever used them in my film scores. I don\u2019t have any attachment to any vintage instruments. I don\u2019t have any romantic notions about older gear being better than the new stuff. I was perfectly happy to use the current crop.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/strong>: When you begin a score, I\u2019m curious how in your mind you decide what musical palette to create. There are certain rhythmic textures and chord progressions that you like to employ, but when it comes to picking the specific instruments, is there a certain group that you enjoy using, or do you find that certain aspects of a script or maybe a performance in the finished film will decide the instruments that you will definitely use?<\/em><\/p>\n

CM<\/strong>: I have some favourites. I\u2019ve got a bunch of stuff in my house that I like to use. I have bass and baritone steel drums, I have Baschet Crystal [glass harmonica<\/a>], I have some pitch percussion valve instruments that I like to use. Whatever\u2019s laying around the house I like – and guitar – but I think mostly what feels right for the film.<\/p>\n

Certainly the budget has something to do with it. I love to do orchestral things, but I don\u2019t usually have the means to do that. I think probably the dramatic needs of the film are actually what inspire those choices of what I pick.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/strong>: I\u2019m curious how you feel about how your style of writing and the sounds you produce seem to work well with stories involving deep, dark psychological issues and characters that have a certain kind of traumas \u2013 either overt, or as an undercurrent that eventually percolates to the surface in a climactic scene?<\/em><\/p>\n

CM<\/strong>: I seem to get chosen for those kinds of films, not that I choose those films; those films choose me. It seems to work. I like do to things that are kind of character driven.<\/p>\n

[Even in] the dark action-oriented ones like Drive<\/strong>, it seems like the underscore kind of goes and highlights the psychological component of the film more so than the action part of it. I guess that\u2019s what I do best [and] that\u2019s what people like about my style.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/strong>: I find your style is really organic in terms of the way it\u2019s balanced between dialogue, sound effects and sound design, and the fact you don\u2019t always score exactly what\u2019s happening onscreen.\u00a0If there\u2019s a chase sequence, you may choose not to score all the action; you may decide to score the emotional intensity of the actors, what they\u2019re going through during a particular sequence where they\u2019re being chased, or their mental state as they\u2019re trying to hunt someone down, which I find more interesting.<\/em><\/p>\n

CM<\/strong>: Yeah, I kind of like to go for the character-driven in that the situation. Sometimes there\u2019s other considerations. In Contagion<\/strong>, rhythm and pacing were a big part of what the director was looking for, but it varies from film-to-film. It\u2019s usually characters first and foremost for me, but I tend to look at the scene or the film like a doctor looks at a patient, trying to figure out if anything is wrong or missing that the music can help with.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/strong>: Are there any composers that influenced you, or composers that you admire, either current or from the past?<\/em><\/p>\n

CM<\/strong>: Of the old guys, I really enjoyed Bernard Herrmann. One of my first memorable scores was The Day the Earth Stood Still<\/strong> which I used to see once a year on television; that was a score that stuck with me.<\/p>\n

Current guys? Thomas Newman, Harry Gregson-Williams \u2013 all the guys that are kind of rugged individualists. When I think of my early development, I probably listened to people that were not film composers for inspiration, people like Philip Glass and Brian Eno.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/strong>: I\u2019m sure other interviewers have raised this question as well, but you\u2019ve had a 20+ year relationship with Steven Soderbergh. Do you find at this point you have a shorthand with him, where you don\u2019t need to have a large discussion over what\u2019s required for a scene – you sort of know what kind of music he likes \u2013 or do you feel that each time you start a project, everything begins fresh?<\/em><\/p>\n

CM<\/strong>: Well, having done ten films with him, I do know his likes and dislikes, but at least in the last several film we\u2019ve done together, Steven still has given me some pretty specific direction of what he\u2019s looking for.<\/p>\n

For example, with Contagion<\/strong>, initially he had a temp score with sounds from The French Connection<\/strong> [by Don Ellis], The Battle of Algiers<\/strong> [by Ennio Morricone], and Marathon Man<\/strong> [by Michael Small].<\/p>\n

MRH<\/strong>: That\u2019s quite a variety!<\/em><\/p>\n

CM<\/strong>: Yeah. That was sort of the very first temp music, and that was pretty interesting. The film changed quite a bit. I started on it in October of 2010 and kind of sat with that and the temp score for a month or two. Then he threw it all out and used Tangerine Dream as temp music, and that also was interesting, because it was the first time that he indicated an interest in synthesizers. Again, it was a kind of older synth eighties style, and then he threw all that stuff out and used as a reference more contemporary sounds [that were] more varied and energetic because he was very concerned about the pacing of Contagion<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

During each step of the way I had written music, and I though some of it was really good; also each style kind of had its own merit, particularly the French Connection<\/strong> stuff\u2026 so I kind of combined all of it, not out of laziness because I didn’t want to toss out the stuff that I\u2019d written, but I thought that combining all those approaches would lead to some interesting styles.<\/p>\n

Steven has usually come up with ideas like that, and he directs me primarily in the form of a temp score. Usually the more radical the choices, the more interesting the score comes out. The French Connection<\/strong> is probably the weirdest choice, because there was nothing about the film I though was of the seventies to me. I\u2019m sure to Steven [it referenced] a lot of older films; there didn\u2019t seem to be anything about it that asked for a vintage score, but it was an interesting road to go down.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/strong>: The French Connection<\/strong> is one of my favourite scores, but it\u2019s also an odd one. I like the composer a great deal. I think Don Ellis would\u2019ve written some fabulous stuff had he lived longer, but French Connection<\/strong> is just so strange because it becomes so discordant in a lot of places; it\u2019s an odd fusion of chamber orchestra, minimalism, jazz, and odd meters, but I\u2019m not surprised that it would be a score that would migrate into someone\u2019s temp track because it has some abstract ideas that perhaps helped the director and composer figure out what specific style was needed.<\/em><\/p>\n

CM<\/strong>: Well I don\u2019t claim to have figured out what that score was about, really. Taken alone, Steven initially said Contagion<\/strong> was a horror film and the tracks that he references from French Connection<\/strong> sounded more like from a horror movie; it was really discordant and really kind of ugly music, so I didn\u2019t try to emulate that perfectly or too closely.<\/p>\n

One thing I thought was a popular device was to create dissonance in horror music [so] that was one thing that I took from that. Another part was just the fact that it was orchestral\u2026 [I liked] the scale and the weight of the group of instruments. When the Tangerine Dream thing came along, he said \u2018I don\u2019t want to hear any live musicians,\u2019 and I thought \u2018Oh, swell,\u2019 but I kept it and combined it with the synthesizer thing\u2026 I\u2019m not the first guy that combined orchestra with synthesizer, but I thought the contrast between the two was pretty interesting.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/strong>: And my last question is whether there are any particular genres that you\u2019d like to score, either ones that you haven\u2019t tried yet or ones you tried maybe once, and would like to revisit?<\/em><\/p>\n

CM<\/strong>: I thought the phone would ring like crazy after Solaris<\/strong>, that I\u2019d get a bunch of offers to do science-fiction films, [but it didn’t]. I\u2019d love to do science-fiction, a full-blown horror film, or a full-blown action film where I\u2019m actually scoring tonnes of action sequences, and something lighter \u2013 comedy would be fun too. All the things that would be the opposite of what I\u2019ve been doing!<\/p>\n


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.<\/span>KQEK.com would like to thank Cliff Martinez for speaking about his latest film scores, and Beth Krakower at CineMedia Promotions for facilitating this interview.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Visit Cliff Martinez’s official website HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Reviewed scores include Contagion<\/strong> <\/a>(2011), Drive <\/a><\/strong>(2011), Lincoln Lawyer<\/a><\/strong> (2011), and Solaris<\/a> <\/strong>(2002).<\/p>\n

Reviewed films include Contagion <\/a><\/strong>(2011)<\/p>\n

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All images remain the property of their copyright holders.<\/em><\/p>\n

This interview \u00a9 2011 by Mark R. Hasan<\/em><\/p>\n

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Return to<\/strong><\/em>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Exclusive Interviews & Profiles<\/a> \/\u00a0Composers<\/a><\/em><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to:\u00a0Home \/\u00a0Exclusive Interviews & Profiles \/\u00a0Composers . Since 1989, Cliff Martinez has scored almost 30 feature films, but he\u2019s best known for scoring two of director Steven Soderbergh\u2019s best works: the visceral crime epic Traffic (2000), and the composer\u2019s masterwork, Solaris (2002), which ranks as one of the finest sci-fi scores in the last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[97,301,22,780,131,781,779,300,4212],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-Wu","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3626"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3626"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3652,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3626\/revisions\/3652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}