A Chat with Oscar-Winning Composer Rachel Portman
On working with directors like Demme and Hallström—and the new project that inspired her to get a dog.
by Abby Diamond
Even if you don’t follow film scoring, you’ve probably heard Rachel Portman’s iconic music. A prolific composer, Portman has scored over 100 films including Manchurian Candidate (2004) and Never Let Me Go. She was nominated for Academy Awards for her work on The Cider House Rules and Chocolat and won the Oscar for scoring Emma. Oh, and the British Portman was also deemed Officer of the Order of the British Empire.
I’ve spent the last ten years on a slightly different side of the music industry—writing pop songs for film/TV and advertising as well as for major label acts—so I was delighted to have the opportunity to chat with Portman about her inspired craft, almost 20 years after her Oscar win.
Abby Diamond: Your IMDB page is incredible. It’s one thing to have success, but to have longevity is another feat entirely. How do you sustain a career in this industry?
Rachel Portman: For a long time, I was always the youngest person on a film. Now I’m in my mid 50s and it’s like “Oh, wow, I’m probably the most experienced person in the room,” and it’s strange because I still feel relatively young. The fact that I’ve diversified has enabled me to write music that continues to surprise and interest me, so I’m not doing the same thing. I’ve written an opera [Little Prince which was also adapted for TV], I’ve written a musical [Little House on the Prairie based on Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books]. I’ve also done more films from the UK, which has been great. I continue to be fascinated to put music to film and the alchemy that happens when you do that, so my work feels relevant.
You were the first female composer to win an Oscar, for scoring Emma. Do you know when what you’ve done is good, or will have an impact like that?
I did a score a few years ago for a film called Never Let Me Go and I knew when I did the music that the film had an extraordinary resonance for me and therefore the score had a huge resonance for me too. People listen to it outside, and I kind of knew that when I wrote it, but nobody can tell whether people are going to like the film or they’re going to like the music. People have come to me and said “We’d like you to the music for our film and it’s going to be really huge, we’ve already had people falling over themselves saying how brilliant it is going to be, it’s going to change the world” and then the film comes out and it has a very short release. So nobody really knows, and for me it’s important to do the music because I want to do the music — not the outcome. It’s a journey, much more important than having to be a huge hit.
I’ve always been a singer first so even now, when I write tracks, I’m thinking of melody first. When you’re composing are you thinking in terms of broad strokes or [detailed] orchestration?
When I’m working on a film, eight or nine times out of ten I’m thinking of a melody too … I think a melody judiciously placed in a film has a chance to multiply emotional impact and the film’s impact. By that I mean a “real melody”: a beginning, a middle development, and an end. Not all films need that, but I like working on them and each melody you work on is a challenge.
I recently finished working on a film called Their Finest directed by Lone Scherfig, who did An Education [Ed. note: also streaming on Tribeca Shortlist], and she always asks me when I’m writing, “Is the melody as good as it can be? Could it be better?” It’s refining something until it is totally satisfying. There’s something really wonderful in her request for that.
In Cider House Rules, that piano melody happens right from when the train pulls in and is reintroduced several times in the film …
How did that work? I worked on Cider House Rules for a long time. It’s a very rich film, and like the book, it goes on a long journey. I had completed the whole score and recorded it, and about a month later the director Lasse Hallström came back to me and said “We’re missing some musical material, I think we need another theme.” And he said he liked this little phrase of about six bars — a little scrap of melody I wrote over the opening titles as you see Dr. Larch with this little boy, Homer, on a cot, who he’s just rescued. So I developed that and it became the main theme in the end, which hadn’t been in the original score I wrote! Part of the longevity of that particular theme is because I worked on that film for so long so it was really part of me.
I noticed in that film there are many scenes that are not scored. The first abortion we see, or [other] tense moments are silent. Was that purposeful?
We’re going back a long time but there was a tendency to not underscore so much then and to allow material to stand silent more, which I personally am a huge advocate for because there’s too much score in films now and it’s more interesting to have scenes play not always with music underneath them. I would have never considered putting music over the first abortion and neither would Lasse. There’s too much telegraphing with music in films; it’s nice to leave something more ambivalent by not scoring it.
[Composing for clients,] I often have to field vague or conflicting feedback. What’s it like to work with people? What are the battles you fight as a composer, especially now being an “A-list” one?
Every single film is different. In some films, the director has more autonomy and in others, there are many voices you’re having to please — it’s often the latter. For any composer, it’s a puzzle trying to understand what it is exactly your director is asking for because they or may not be able to articulate it.
When I worked on Manchurian Candidate with Jonathan Demme—who is the most wonderful director, I adore working with — I wrote a lot of music which we recorded and he didn’t like because it wasn’t on the right track. I had interpreted he wanted Hitchcock, intellectual frightening music. It was only when we recorded it that he said something doesn’t feel right and he wanted something more “visceral.” The minute he said that word, I knew what I had to do. But I hadn’t been set off by the right vocabulary, which wasn’t his fault or mine. The art of communication between the filmmaker and the composer is paramount, and hopefully in the films I work on it’s a collaboration; it’s important my voice is a part of it too. There’s a danger when a composer is told to do what a temp score is doing, and what someone is used to hearing.
In her acceptance speech at the Billboard “Women in Music” awards, Madonna said she has fended off 34 years of misogyny. I often hear stories of female composer friends of mine going to a studio or a lunch, and men not looking up from the table—or assuming they are girlfriends. Have you had those experiences?
I have been lucky to have not experienced misogyny, and I have a feeling that’s because I’ve been gender-blind in what I’ve been doing. It never occurred to me that I would be at a disadvantage and I put that out wherever I went. In my education, I was one of very few girls in a boys’ school and I went to an all-male college where they started to have a small intake of girls, and that helped me not feel different. It was not unusual to be a composer; I was just determined and did it. So I don’t have an axe to grind.
Occasionally a director will say “some of this music has to be quite macho, are you sure you’ll be able to do that?” because they can’t resist asking [laughs.] To which I say “Of course, no problem.” I have done quite male-sounding scores, but I’ve written a lot of music for films with female protagonists and female directors. There a lot of really good women composers out there and it’s just a matter of time before things even out.
As a songwriter and producer, I’m always learning new things and feel like I’m never quite “there,” which is exciting but a continuous ego burn. Do you still feel like you’re learning technically or otherwise?
Absolutely! I would stop if I didn’t. There are classical scores I want to study and scary frontiers for me I want to push through in terms of writing — not “scary” so much as “challenging.” It’s important to keep expanding your frontiers throughout your working life, otherwise you’re just sitting still. And that’s not something that really interests me.
Where do you draw inspiration?
I’m always interested in orchestration and when I have time, for example, I’m interested to listen more to Shostakovich’s symphonies and scores to delve deeper into them. I want to spend more time with Britain’s operas. I draw my musical vocabulary from acoustic classical music.
What do you listen to these days? I’m interested as someone who is in pop, do you listen to pop music? What do you think of Just —
…What do I think of Justin Bieber? [laughs] One of my daughter’s likes his recent album. I’m aware of what’s going on [in pop] but not that aware, really just because I’ve got three daughters. I listen to classical music, I just do. I might listen to Bon Iver, Toumani Diabate, and I like folk music and Laura Marling. I listen to a lot of piano music.
What are your favorite scores present or past? Or a score you wish you wrote?
I can’t really say because I’m happy with what I have done. I don’t have longings. If someone else has scored a film, then that film is complete. I thought John Williams’ score for Schindler’s List and Nino Rota’s music for The Godfather were really good. Keislowski’s score for Three Colours: Blue [composed by Zbigniew Preisner] was really beautiful.
You’re a chameleon in what you’ve scored, comedies and dramas. What’s your favorite genre or story to score?
Emotional drama is my favorite, something with heart. But I also like quirky. It’s difficult to say, but something that’s a real drama is what I like best.
What’s your daily routine?
I need to get down as early as possible — I’m an early morning person — I need to be at my piano by 8 — so I guess not that early, it used to be 6 AM I would start. I believe in a long day’s writing even if things are going bad, I still remain at my piano writing, and I write with pencil on manuscript paper because I find that thought process of putting pen to paper — it being a thoughtful process — is important to me. I need a cup of tea before I start, and to take the dog out.
What kind of dog do you have?
I’ve got a beautiful young yellow Labrador. I had to get her after working on A Dog’s Purpose, the film I just finished with Lasse Hallström.
Now that you’ve done all of these films, what are your goals or mantra?
My mantra is to make sure whatever it is I’m working on is fulfilling and nourishing creatively; to choose projects based on that. And as I said before, my goal would be to continue expanding my frontiers musically.
Bonus video: Shortlister Martha Stewart recommends Chocolat.
