Glass breaks through barriers in film scores

  Courtesy of Janus Films Philip Glass‘
compositions will be played live accompanying film, such as his
work with this 1946 film, "La Belle et La Bete," by Jean
Cocteau.

By Howard Ho
Daily Bruin contributor

In the often stifling world of academia, it is nice to know that
true artistic freedom is possible on your own terms.

Proof of that axiom lies in the being of Philip Glass, perhaps
today’s most well-known and influential ““ if not
controversial ““ composer. His greatest talent is not
necessarily his musical ability, but his sheer sense of how musical
composition will and should fit into our increasingly
musically-diverse world.

“All music is ethnic music, it just depends where you want
to draw the line,” Glass said. “At a certain point I
just got rid of all the lines.”

Throughout this week in Royce, Glass and his ensemble are
performing some of his most renowned film scores with the film
accompanying the performance. Tonight is “Powaqqatsi”,
the second in a trilogy of films by Godfrey Reggio, which feature
Glass’ music and images without sound or dialogue. Thursday
will display Tod Browning’s 1931 “Dracula.”
Friday, it will be Jean Cocteau’s “La Belle et La
Bete” and Saturday, the first of Reggio’s trilogy,
“Koyaanisqatsi.”

Speaking to a crowd of students who were as interested in his
music as his success, Glass was mild mannered and his words, though
quick and to the point, were carefully chosen. Yet within that
exterior is an artist, one who wishes not to compromise even when
breaking into industry-driven Hollywood.

“For industry films, the film is done and the composer
works after the film is completed, usually in about three weeks.
Breathtaking, isn’t it?” Glass said, noting the
difficulty of creating so much work in such a short period of
time.

Though an annoyance and a restriction, composers still pull
through that system, because it’s the only system in place,
unless you’re John Williams and you can hook up with a guy
like Steven Spielberg. Glass, however, has argued his way into more
creative control and freedom, a feat other film composers find
impossible.

“When I work in film, especially the ones playing here
this week, I have insisted and have succeeded almost all of the
time in working with the filmmaker from the beginning of the
project. I usually work starting with the scenario,” Glass
said.

Perhaps the most distinguishing feature of Glass’ film
career is that it began so late; he was 40 when he did his first
film scores. Since then, however, he has risen to become a
recognized artist in that field, especially with his Academy Award
nomination for Martin Scorsese’s “Kundun.” Before
film, Glass was a maverick opera composer, doing such work as
1976’s “Einstein on the Beach,” his first major
critical and financial success.

  CHRIS BACKLEY/ Daily Bruin World renowned music composer
Phillip Glass recently spoke to UCLA students in
Schoenburg Hall. Glass will be performing a selection of his music
on campus all week long. “The only place the composer is
really in charge is the opera house “¦ I had a lot of
experience in opera. One of the first films I did had a scenario.
When I looked at it, I said, “˜Well, it looks like an opera
scenario to me,'” Glass said.

“I knew how to write music for that. I started writing
music from the scenario. For some reason, it was considered an
astonishing idea by everybody else. But I managed to get any number
of directors to go along with it. In my view, the only way that
image and music can organically be connected is if they come into
being very much in the same time so that the interaction between
the filmmaker and the composer is continuous,” Glass
added.

If his ideas don’t seem revolutionary, they are. The
current system in Hollywood is quite different. The composer is
usually told to write music based on watching the completed film
along with a temp score, which basically is pre-existing material
the director wants the composer to imitate. Within that context,
composers are told to write up to over an hour of music in weeks
rather than the necessary months.

“Film is a very tough medium to be working in because
it’s basically an industry. It’s not a collaborative
medium. A lot of things come together but it’s not about
cooperation. It’s about control, and it’s controlled by
one person. Well, it used to be one person, now the studios control
it,” Glass said.

Unfortunately for Glass, artistic organicism is not the most
cherished principle of a profit-driven industry. So Glass finds
solace in the fact that his music can operate both as part of a
score and as a separate work of art.

“I don’t care what is in the movie; when I make the
soundtrack record, I make it the way I want to. Some pieces may be
on the soundtrack that never got into the film. Because what
happens is that you write for a scene and the scene gets
cut,” Glass said.

Glass’ success, though somewhat obvious to people today,
was won on the fiery battle ground of tradition versus iconoclasm,
old versus new. Glass fought passionately for his music to be
heard. Not all were immediately receptive to the revolution.

“Literally, people threw things at me. I’m talking
about 1967, ’68, ’69,” Glass said. “There
were these people who actually jumped on stage and started banging
on our instruments. People got upset. I was considered by many
people a kind of musical idiot that had never gone to music school.
But I knew what I knew. I had chosen to write the things I
did.”

After graduating from Juilliard Music School, Glass continued
his education in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, perhaps most famously
known as the teacher of Aaron Copland among other composers. There
he also met Ravi Shankar, the acclaimed sitarist from India with
whom he has collaborated many times.

If there ever was a case for a universal musician, it found its
modern incarnation in Glass. The most difficult road to pave, one
might say, is that one that links the European classical tradition
with modern pop music. But Glass seems to have paved it long before
we knew it existed.

“I’ve written a song for Mick Jagger. It’s a
very nice song, and he sings it very well,” said Glass, who
has also collaborated with Michael Stipe and David Bowie.

Now Glass, 64, seems to be returning to his musical roots. His
fifth symphony premiered two years ago in Salzburg and a sixth is
currently underway, incorporating Allen Ginsberg’s
“Plutonian Ode.” Glass admits the symphonies sound a
lot like Russian composer Dimitri Shostakovich’s symphonies,
to which Glass grew up listening. But his first symphony, an
orchestral piece based on the songs of Brian Eno and Bowie
(“For years, no one would look at the score because they
thought it was a rock-and-roll piece…”), demonstrates his
true musical mission, to remove the lines of pop and classical,
high and low brow.

“The thing that attracts you to work with somebody is the
talent. I wanted to work with David Bowie and Brian Eno because
their melodies were so beautiful,” Glass said. “I
didn’t know anyone else writing stuff like that. I ended up
having a profound respect for the talent of any musician who has
found a voice and can share it with other people.”