Written and photographed by Pablo Portilla del Valle
David Lang, Pulitzer award-winning composer and one of the honored guests at the Savannah Film Festival of 2015, had his most recent film score for the movie “Youth” screening at the Trustees theatre on Monday, Oct. 26.
“I hate labels. I hate distinctions between different kinds of music,” said Lang, when asked about his tendency to reject categorizing his own music.
Lang only refers to himself as a composer, and he feels that by putting labels on artists and music, people keep things from merging together. “I don’t think we should do that. We should live in a free world where people do whatever is interesting to them.”
Lang also shared some of his process in working in the film industry as a composer. The way he described it, a director has a vision — an emotional story he wants to tell, and it is the composer’s job to help the director tell that story. He also explained how there is a vast difference in the process behind composing for a concert, and composing for a film.
“In my concert music I can express myself however I want, but the thing in a film is you’re not the boss. Paolo [Sorrentino] has a vision for how this thing can work and my job is to solve it.”
The movie “Youth,” one of the main features at this year’s Film Festival, has been described as “a voluptuary’s feast, a full-body immersion in the sensory pleasures of the cinema” by The Hollywood Reporter after the film screened at the Cannes Film Festival.
“The biggest challenge for me was trying to get inside the character because the character is a composer and because the whole movie is basically about his emotional life,” said Lang.
The film revolves around a retired musician/composer named Fred (played by Michael Caine) and, according to Lang, how this character looks back on his life; what music meant to him when he was young and what it means to him close to the end of his life.
“That kind of distance is using music in a very powerful way, which is to mark how long his life is — what kind of emotional journey he’s on.”
Fred’s development has led Lang to reflect on his own life as a composer.
“To me, the most difficult thing, but also the most beautiful thing, was to try to project myself into that same kind of emotional narrative.”
He illustrated by sharing the questions that the movie evoked in himself.
“What’s my relationship to the music I wrote many years ago, how have I changed? What’s my relationship to the people I love, and how has that changed? What’s the difference between when I was young and optimistic? What’s it like to be older, and to realize that time is slipping away and how does your music shows both of those?”
Lang mentioned how this kind of engagement was “a very powerful thing,” how it was challenging but also “a great gift.”
“That’s really what Paolo asked [me] to do in the song, which I think is so beautiful. You’re supposed to hear at the end of this movie, that this song encapsulates both ideas of where he was and where he is.”
Lang explained how musical scores are “sort of like time capsules,” where people are capable of remembering a moment in their lives when they were, essentially, another person. Lang said he was able to take that from his life and project it into Fred’s.
“At least I was able to identify with that aspect of him: that music is really about the passage of time.”
When asked about his future projects, Lang said he’s currently working on operas.
“It’s is where my heart is. I have a lot of ridiculous projects coming up, which is really great.”
Before leaving, Lang shared some words of advice to SCAD students and aspiring artists around the world.
“My advice is that creativity is basically about risk. It’s about saying: ‘I can imagine something that could be in the world isn’t yet, and it’s not going to be, unless I put it there.’ It’s something that I think everyone who is curious about should pursue as fully as completely and with as much curiosity as possible.”
“Youth” will premiere in theaters Dec. 4.
