Excerpt on Batman from "Film Music (Pocket Essentials)" by Paul Tonks

[Azrael]

I hope you don't mind me posting this here, this is from the book Film Music from the Pocket Essentials series. I thought it was an interesting and fun read.


[?]The real superstar of working relationships that originated in the mid-80?s was that of Tim Burton and Danny Elfman. Pee Wee?s Big Adventure (1985) was a dizzying splash of colour and style with a musical accompaniment that?s part Georges Delerue, part Nino Rota, part Bernard Herrmann, but as we?d soon discover, all Elfman. ?I used to see him in clubs when I wasn?t even in the film industry, ? remembers the director. ?They (Elfman?s band Oingo Boingo) were very theatrical and fun , and they had a subtext under them being sort of narrative. Not like film music exactly, but there was something in them that seemed very filmic. So when I had the opportunity to make a movie there was no question that it would be great to ask him.

He?d been successful in a band, but when we went to the film we were both starting out at the same time. It felt very contemporary to have somebody who was like me in the sense that we knew what we were doing but we didn?t know what we were doing. It was new and we were stupid and arrogant to think that we could do it. It was funny to see him in clubs and then dealing with a big orchestra for the first time. ? Pee Wee?s influence on comedy scoring was instantaneous, and is still felt today. Distancing themselves completely they returned with the supernaturally screwball Beetlejuice (1988), where Elfman mixed Harry Belafon te into his offbeat take on the afterlife. Then everything changed with Batman (1989).

The marketing machine set in motion for the Caped Crusader's adventure was at an unprecedented level. It included Warner Brothers securing Prince, one of Warner Music?s biggest selling artists, to write several songs. His album was labelled ?Original Soundtrack?; it preceded the release of the film, and sent one of many songs not actually in the movie (?Batdance?) to Number 1. Film studio /record label handshakes inspired by the success of this has led to the current state of affairs, where the word soundtrack means any of a number of things to the pub lic. What hasn?t helped is the scenario Elfman faced, whereby his score album was suppressed until a month after the film opened so as not to interfere with Prince?s sales. He faced it again the following year on Dick Tracy, and has done several times since, as have all too many of his fellow composers. The great shame of this is that his gothic masterpiece sold in lesser numbers and contributed to being passed over for Oscar consideration.

Burton and Elfman learned their lesson in corporate commercialism, and played a hand outside of the industry game with their next project. It is with Edward Scissorhands (1990) that we now turn to the 90s? [?]

[Grissom]

Nice read. Thanks. Danny Elfman is still one of the greatest.