00:00www.mesmerism.info
00:07Ideally, each film is its own world.
00:09Joel and Ethan, they're very specific about location and period,
00:13and the way people speak, the way they dress,
00:15and I want the music to be specific in the same way.
00:20For True Grit, the book is all written from Maddie Ross' voice,
00:24and it's filled with church language.
00:27Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil.
00:31My idea was that church music would help remind you why she's doing this,
00:35that this misplaced sense of righteousness and desire for justice
00:39is based in her church learning.
00:42And Ethan said that he had had exactly the same idea.
00:44The reference for him was this hymn leaning on the everlasting arms.
00:48While they were shooting, I spent the summer going through hymn books
00:50and playing lots of stuff.
00:52I found four or five things I thought were interesting.
00:54But still, I think in the end, you know, once they had
00:56leaning on the everlasting arms in their mind,
00:58it was very hard to dislodge it.
01:01So that became the opening and closing music of the movie.
01:06We sort of go through a series of hymns at the beginning of the film
01:09when Maddie is trying to develop her plan to pursue her father's murderer.
01:20But as Maddie goes into the wilderness, she ends up in a dark place
01:24and the hymns kind of get left behind.
01:31But you're a little Maddie the bookkeeper.
01:35Isn't that something?
01:37Yes, and I know you, Tom Chaney.
01:39Chaney is merciless and a dangerous man,
01:43but he's dangerous because he's dumb.
01:45So the music really just plays him as an unreasoning, unthinking force.
01:50So his theme is really just like percussion and something that pushes.
02:01When we finally go to record,
02:03and I'm suddenly surrounded by 80 people,
02:06I love the opportunity to learn from the musicians.
02:08Take the scene with snakes.
02:10If I had to say, okay, I need a sound from the woodwinds,
02:12it would be like snakes.
02:13What have you got?
02:14What can you suggest?
02:18Mr. Labeef!
02:25Mr. Labeef!
02:28Mr. Labeef!
02:29At one point, yeah, we take the basses and pitch them way down
02:33to the lowest possible sound they can make,
02:35detune the instruments.
02:37Those are just my favorite experiences.
02:43But I usually say what the role of music is in a film,
02:47it's to tell you something you wouldn't know otherwise.
02:49In True Grit, it's the religiosity of Maddie,
02:52and it's her determination.
02:53And finally, Rooster Cogburn and Maddie's relationship.
02:56What we have with it?
02:57MUSIC
02:57Grazie a tutti.
