David Shire's The Conversation: A Film Score Guide

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1 (Line for Chapter Number) (1 empty lines) CONTENTS

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List of Figures vii Editor’s Foreword Kate Daubney xi Acknowledgments xiii Introduction xv Chapter 1 David Shire’s Life and Musical Background 1 Chapter 2 David Shire’s Approach to Film Scoring 23 Chapter 3 Historical and Critical Context of 63 The Conversation Chapter 4 Analytical Approach to Meaning in 87 Film Music Chapter 5 Background and Analysis of the Score for 121 The Conversation Notes 163 Bibliography 193 Index 203 About the Author 211

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FIGURES (3 empty lines) (3 empty lines) (3 empty lines)

1.1. Staging of Cyrano. August, 1958. 5 1.2. Production still from Belle at 14th Street. 8 1.3. “Sunday Thought,” Shire’s first piano composition. 12 1.4. Shire’s letter to Coppola. May 10, 1977. 15 1.5. Spotting Notes for Kramer vs. Kramer. 17 1.6. Shire conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. 18 2.1. Saturday Night Fever. “Salsation.” 26 2.2. Saturday Night Fever. “Salsation.” Salsa clave. 26 2.3. Saturday Night Fever. “Night on Disco Mountain.” 27 2.4. Short Circuit. Main Title. Expanding vamp. 28 2.5. Short Circuit. Main Titles. Melodic idea from vamp. 28 2.6. Short Circuit. Military drumming. 28 2.7. Short Circuit. “Humanized” melody. 28 2.8. Short Circuit. Further “humanized” melody. 29 2.9. Short Circuit. “Come and Follow Me.” Vamp. 29 2.10. Short Circuit. “Come and Follow Me.” Drum pattern. 29 2.11. Short Circuit. “Come and Follow Me.” Main melody. 29 2.12. The Pelham twelve-tone row. 31 2.13. Twelve-tone matrix for the Pelham row. 31 2.14. Taking of Pelham One Two Three. Main Theme. 32 2.15. Segmentation of the Pelham row in trichords. 32 2.16. Taking of Pelham One Two Three. 2M1 “Blue’s speech.” 33 2.17. Farewell, My Lovely. 10M2 “Mrs. Florian Radio Source.” 34 2.18. Farewell, My Lovely. 7M3/8M1 “Whorehouse Overlay.” 35 2.19. Farewell, My Lovely. 7M1 “To Amthor’s.” 36 2.20. Farewell, My Lovely. 7M3/8M1 “Whorehouse Overlay.” 37 2.21. Farewell, My Lovely. 5M3 “To The Barrier.” 37 2.22. The Hindenburg. “Main Title.” Sketch 38 2.23. The Hindenburg. “Main Title,” mm. 16-21 and reduction. 41

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2.24. The Hindenburg. “Main Title,” mm. 29–46 and reduction. 42 2.25. The Hindenburg. “Main Title.” Conductor score. 44 2.26. Richard Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra. 45 2.27. 2010. Main Theme. 46 2.28. Matrix for the 2010 row. 47 2.29. Manipulations of rows in the Main Theme for 2010. 47 2.30. “Derived” row, by applying T6, I3, and I9. 48 2.31. 2010. 11M1 “Countdown.” Hexatonic constructs. 49 2.32. 2010. “Bowman/Betty.” “Neutral third.” 49 2.33. Return to Oz. Spotting notes for 3M3/4M1. 50 2.34. Return to Oz. Sketch for 3M3/4M1. 50 2.35. Return to Oz. 5M2. Tik Tok marching down the corridor. 51 2.36. Sergei Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf. Hunters. 51 2.37. Return to Oz. Use of pitch collections as “blocks.” 52 2.38. Return to Oz. 1M1. Layering. 52 2.39. Return to Oz. 1M1. Juxtaposition. 53 2.40. Return to Oz. 1M1. Chordal extensions. 53 2.41. Zodiac. 1M1. Twelve-tone aggregates, triadic constructs. 54 2.42. Zodiac. 2M2. Serial killer names himself Zodiac. 55 2.43. Zodiac. 2M5. Toschi’s theme. 55 2.44. E half-diminished scale. 56 2.45. Zodiac. 8M22. Use of E half-diminished scale. 56 2.46. Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. Desire leitmotif. 57 2.47. Zodiac. Greysmith’s Theme. Unstable sonorities. 57 2.48. Return to Oz. 1M1. Sketch. 58 2.49. Return to Oz. 1M1. Herbert Spencer’s rendition. 59 3.1. Repetition in the visuals. 1) Aerial view, 2) Maquette. 73 3.2. Structured repetition in cinematography. 74 3.3. Repetition in the visuals. 1) Vagrant, 2) Harry. 75 3.4. 1) Intimate moment, 2) semi-transparent plastic, 78 3) Harry, 4) corpse of the Director. 3.5. 1) Harry piercing bathroom wall, 2) eavesdropping. 79 3.6. First scene. 1-6) slow zoom, 7-8) couple as target. 81 3.7. Harry navigates in and out of the frame. 83 3.8. Surveillance-like movement of the camera. 84 4.1. Cognitive mechanisms to explain meaning in film music. 88 4.2. Return to Oz. 5M2. Tik Tok. 89 4.3. Return to Oz. 3M4/4M1. Bellina. 90 4.4. Return to Oz. Shooting Star. 91 4.5. Return to Oz. 3M3/4M1 “Oz!” Nome King. 91 4.6. All The President’s Men. “Creep Sequence II.” 91 4.7. The Taking of Pelham. 10M2 “Smoking More.” 92 4.8. Return to Oz. 5M2. Tik Tok marching. 93

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4.9. Farewell My Lovely. 9M3 “Carnal Knowledge.” 94 4.10. The Taking of Pelham. 6M2/6M3 “Money Montage.” 95 4.11. The Taking of Pelham. 7M2. Absence of meter. 96 4.12. The Hindenburg. “Prelude to the Holocaust.” 97 4.13. Return to Oz. 1M3 “Ride to Dr. Worley.” 98 4.14. All The President’s Men. “Creep Sequence III.” 99 4.15. Metaphorical projection of relevant features. 100 4.16. Return to Oz. 8M1. Dorothy falls. 101 4.17. The Hindenburg. 3M3. Ascent of the zeppelin. 102 4.18. Raid on Entebbe. “The Raid.” 103 4.19. Return to Oz. 2M2/3M1. Nurse approaches Dorothy. 104 4.20. Short Circuit. NOVA surrounds the protagonists. 104 4.21. Graphical representation of the PATH Schema. 106 4.22. Norma Rae. Norma decides to join Warshowsky. 107 4.23. Three graphical renderings of the CONTAINER schema. 108 4.24. CONTAINER schema for The Big Bus, “Harbinger Curve.” 108 4.25. The Big Bus. 8M5 “Harbinger Curve.” 108 4.26. Cognitive categories of sound design as “containers.” 110 4.27. Typical layering of sound design categories. 110 4.28. Farewell, My Lovely. 7M3/8M1 “Whorehouse Overlay.” 111 4.29. Return to Oz. Dorothy’s leitmotif. 112 4.30. Return to Oz. Ozma’s leitmotif. 112 4.31. Return to Oz. 1M1. “Shooting star,” combining leitmotifs. 113 4.32. Return to Oz. 12M2 “Just a Reflection.” 113 4.33. Monkey Shines. Circus music. 115 4.34. Return to Oz. 3M3/4M1 “Rag March.” 115 4.35. The Big Bus. 1M4/2M1 “No Pops, Not Him.” 116 4.36. The Big Bus. 3M4 “Also Sprach Zarathustra” (R. Strauss). 117 4.37. The Big Bus. 1M3 “The Explosion.” Dies Irae. 118 4.38. Saturday Night Fever. Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. 119 5.1. Hypothetical titles for piano pieces. 124 5.2. Diagram of Attack-Decay-Sustain-Release. 126 5.3. “Speed up pattern” indication. 127 5.4. Conceptual metaphor unfolding throughout the film. 129 5.5. Merging of Solitude and Conversation leitmotifs. 129 5.6. 1M1 “End of Day.” Assignment theme. OCT [1,2] scale. 131 5.7. 1M1 “End of Day.” Harry’s theme. 132 5.8. 2M1 “Blues for Harry.” 134 5.9. 2M2 “Harry Goes to Warehouse.” 134 5.10. 3M1 “Phone Booth.” 135 5.11. 3M2 “Harry Goes to Amy.” Amy’s theme. 136 5.12. 4M1 “Harry Leaves Amy.” 138 5.13. 4M1 “Harry Leaves Amy.” Spotting notes. 139

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5.14. Shire’s remark within spotting notes. 139 5.15. 4M2 “Harry Sees Ann.” 140 5.16. 5M1 “Harry’s Confession.” (First Part) 141 5.17. 5M1 “Harry’s Confession.” (Second Part) 142 5.18. Passage from spotting notes for reel 7. 143 5.19. 7M1. “To Each His Own.” Shire’s arrangement. 143 5.20. 7M3-8M1 “Sophisticated Lady.” Spotting notes. 144 5.21. 8M2 “Harry and Meredith.” 145 5.22. 8M3 “I Remember You.” 147 5.23. 10M1 “Dream Sequence.” Shire’s indications. 148 5.24. 10M1 “Dream Sequence.” 149 5.25. 10M1 “Dream Sequence.” Analysis. 149 5.26. 11M1 “After Seeing Mr. C.” 150 5.27. 12M1 “Bloody Hand.” Shire’s indications. 151 5.28. 12M1 “Bloody Hand.” Transfer in the soundtrack. 151 5.29. Embedded figures in cue 12M2 “Cartoon Source Music.” 152 5.30. 12M2 “Cartoon Source Music.” 152 5.31. 13M1 “Bloody Toilet — Stair Flight.” 153 5.32. 13M2 “Ann in Limo.” 154 5.33. Musical gesture from Ann’s theme. 154 5.34. 13M3 “Love Bug.” 155 5.35. 14M1 “Room Debugging.” 156 5.36. 14M2 “Lost Virginity.” 157 5.37. 14M3 “Demolition.” 158 5.38. 14M3 “Demolition.” Overlay. 158 5.39. 14M4 “Finale.” 159 5.40. 14M4 “End Titles” Overlap of saxophone and piano. 160 5.41. 14M4 “End Titles.” 160 N.1. 2010. 10M4 “First Seeing Spot on Jupiter.” Ligeti. 172

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EDITOR’S FOREWORD (3 empty lines) (3 empty lines) (3 empty lines)

In the context of increasingly complex debates about technological surveillance, and within a culture in which social media blurs bounda-ries between what is private and what is not, Francis Ford Coppola’s film The Conversation has a continuing contemporary relevance. Cop-pola might be forgiven for not anticipating that when he made the film in 1974, its messages about how nuance and perspective can transform the reading of a situation have a startling impact in a world where so little seems to be secret. If a storyline about an overheard plot to kill seems reminiscent of the James Bond movies of the era, it is interesting that Coppola’s decision to request a thoroughly pared-down score from composer David Shire reflects more of the very earliest Bond scores than the overblown musical gestures we have more recently come to associate with the drama of spying. And indeed, if nuance and perspec-tive are the themes of The Conversation’s story, then they are without doubt also the framing influences over its score, drawn so powerfully from jazz, a musical idiom that evolves from real-time responses to what is heard. The simplicity of the score’s piano sound masks a thoroughly intri-cate construction, and Juan Chattah’s exploration of the music balances advanced techniques of musical analysis with thoroughly engaging insight from the composer. David Shire’s diverse portfolio of scores shows his versatility without doubt, but his enthralling narrative of his involvement in composing this score, the interactive relationship with Coppola and the film’s cast, and his detailed recollections of how cir-cumstances translated into musical content enable Dr. Chattah to show us the score from the inside as the composer builds it, as well as to ap-preciate how it functions so effectively in the audience’s experience of the film. He illuminates the sophisticated ways in which Shire uses techniques of motivic manipulation to chart the collapse of Harry

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Caul’s mental state, techniques which belong as much to the most ad-vanced jazz improvisational skills as they do to more conventional Hol-lywood scoring approaches. Indeed, readers of Erik Heine’s Scarecrow Film Score Guide on James Newton Howard’s score for Signs, may notice an interesting similarity with regard to the long Hollywood com-positional history of reflecting emotional insecurity through musical language, even though Shire’s chosen idiom could not be further from a classical Hollywood sound. Dr. Chattah also dissects with great care the impact of the film’s soundscape and sound design showing, as other Scarecrow authors have, how the aural experience is never merely about the music. The Series of Film Score Guides was established to promote score-focused scholarship, but that simple aim has long since been out-stripped by the achievements of the Series’ authors in divulging great variety in what the analysis and scrutiny of content and production of film music reveals. The Series has given us revisions of our under-standing of some of the figureheads of film score composition and rev-elations of the logistics of their compositional practice. Some canonic score sounds that have permanently permeated the public conscious-ness have been deconstructed, and bewitching and byzantine aural tex-tures have been explored in critical and theoretical ways that push the boundaries of music out into the wider soundscape of film. Certainly, the inclusion of a jazz score in the Series is long overdue, but this vol-ume also contributes to a growing asset this Series offers to fan and scholar alike: the invaluable insight of a living composer. I am ex-tremely grateful to David Shire for his generous contribution of time, materials, and openness to Dr. Chattah’s project and I am sure that readers will find enormous entertainment and intellectual fascination in his observations, as well as a companion in our listening to his score. Indeed as always, what binds this latest volume together with all its predecessors is that essential engagement in our experience of music in film, and a fascination for the means by which we are drawn in. That original principle behind the establishment of the Series has remained largely unchanged, even if the disciplinary environment in which the work is undertaken has evolved as a consequence of the work itself. Dr. Kate Daubney Series Editor

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INTRODUCTION (3 empty lines) (3 empty lines) (3 empty lines)

The Conversation remains a timeless microcosm of American society through its themes of technological intrusion and privacy. Elaborating on fictional accounts, the film highlights current concerns about the balance between transparency and secrecy in today’s connected world, where the enabling power of mass communication persistently shifts the boundaries between the public and the private. Befitting a film about wiretapping, the soundtrack propels and illuminates the narrative: while the film’s plot portrays the transgression of private space, the soundtrack maps this transgression onto the aural boundaries via com-plex intersections of dialogue, disembodied recordings, non-diegetic piano, diegetic jazz, all in a sparse but meaningfully layered audio con-struction. For the film, David Shire created one of his most distinctive scores. Grounded in the degenerating consciousness of the film’s pro-tagonist, Shire’s music features an all-piano score with pioneering ex-cursions into electroacoustic techniques; the resulting sonic palette pro-vides depth and meaning by establishing a musical/narrative metaphorical correlation that reflects the main character’s psychologi-cal journey. Drawing on extensive interviews with the composer, the first chap-ter delves onto his life, and chronicles his musical career from early childhood to present day. Some of the questions during interview were deliberately intrusive, often inquiring about sensitive topics related to potential weaknesses or shortcomings, rather than the more glamorous aspects of a lifetime association with entertainment. Shire’s unflinching responses and detailed recollections led to insights about his life, and in turn, to revelations about his music. The chapter is written with little authorial and critical intrusion, and at times, it may appear as a channel for Shire’s reminiscence that has not been through the intellectual sieve

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of analysis. Yet, by distilling particular moments in Shire’s life, the chapter takes an alternate route to uncover key facets of his character that informed the compositional process of The Conversation. Presenting numerous musical examples transcribed from Shire’s own manuscripts, the second chapter is an in-depth exploration of his compositional techniques. In coming to grips with the relationship be-tween analytical methodology and the music being analyzed, I took into account the plurality of styles extant in Shire’s output. Shire’s idiosyn-cratic compositional strategies illustrate a synergy of eclectic influ-ences, an integration of interrelated and overlapping musical structures from disparate musical worlds. My analytical approach acknowledges these strands by attending to formal design, harmonic gestures, pitch content, melodic contour, cadential formulas, harmonic prolongation, and other structural features of the music while applying a wide-ranging theoretical lens. The third chapter takes a detour onto the extra-musical facets of the film, tackling issues of critical reception that situate the film within cinematic genres and historical events. Informed by a wealth of schol-arship on the film, the chapter offers an interpretative account aimed at fleshing out its semantic richness and bringing to light the various dis-cursive layers that interact with the musical score. The fourth chapter is perhaps the most unusual within the Film Score Guide series. Pursuing a holistic examination of the score for The Conversation requires a unique analytical framework; therefore, this chapter presents an interdisciplinary paradigm that broadens the musi-cological strategies commonly employed to analyze film music, by borrowing models from embodied cognition, semiotics, metaphor theo-ry, and related fields. Examination and application of these models is complemented by traditional music analysis; this interface crystallizes in an analytical framework that reveals vital processes lying at the heart of film music interpretation. The final chapter presents a detailed analysis of the complete soundtrack to The Conversation. It blends the theoretical paradigms put forth in chapters two and four with the aesthetic and critical insights proposed in chapter three. Additionally, close inspection of the manu-scripts illuminates Shire’s compositional process, resulting in an analy-sis that sheds light onto the various layers of musical meaning that permeate the interpretation of the narrative.