Welcome back on Scoring for Films from Vito Lo Re and Fabrizio Campanelli. So Fabrizio, today I have an easy, easy, easy question for you. Who wrote the soundtrack for "Pirates of the Caribbean"? I know this one, I know it. It's easy. Zimmer.
Right. So, if Zimmer wrote it, why do we see this credit in the film's closing titles? Oops. Today we are talking about "Pirates of the Caribbean", this very successful franchise, and specifically we are talking about the first film. "The Curse of the Black Pearl." Instead of Klaus Badelt, there was supposed to be someone a bit more famous, a certain Alan Silvestri, who had been commissioned for this soundtrack, as he had written many scores for adventure films, including Marvel's. And he had also worked with the film's director before.
So the film's director had brought him on board for the project - the director was Verbinski - but the famous Jerry Bruckheimer was producing it and he was not exactly an easy guy to deal with, He didn't interfere with the films, did he? So, we need to understand where the legend steps on the toes of other kinds of narratives. Officially, it wasn't a rejected score. Officially, Alan Silvestri was hired, but due to pressures from the producer in particular, they decided to switch to Hans Zimmer. So the official version, which we can hear in the link in the description of the interview with Alan Silvestri, where he himself says that it's not exactly a rejected because he didn't write the 1M1, the first music. actually, it seems like he had written something.
What's certain is that Bruckheimer had already worked with Hans Zimmer. A very short time before, "Black Hawk Down" by Ridley Scott had been released, produced by Bruckheimer - which won 2 Oscars, by the way - with a soundtrack by Zimmer. At the beginning of all Jerry Bruckheimer films, it says "A Jerry Bruckheimer Film." So you understand he's a pretty "hands-on" producer. So Bruckheimer wants Hans Zimmer. Alright, let's call good old Hans. Hello, Hans?
Hans has a little problem, both ethical and contractual. The problem is he's working on the soundtrack for "The Last Samurai." What does he say in several interviews? He puts it romantically, saying: "I had promised Tom Cruise and the producers that I wouldn't interrupt this 'honeymoon' with them." But in our opinion, besides professional ethics, there were penalties as big as a skyscraper. But anyway, the moral is: Zimmer can't be credited as the composer of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" film. So, he has a company with many composers. It was called Media Ventures, today it's called Remote Control.
And there's another problem: there isn't much time. There's very little time. And legend has it that the score was produced by Zimmer, composed by all the slew of composers at Media Ventures and that they composed it in two to four weeks. Silvestri in an interview says: "I don't know, it doesn't seem very plausible." But Silvestri doesn't own Remote Control with four hundred slaves! So, what happens? The music is formally attributed to Klaus Badelt who appears to be the author of the main theme and the main themes of the soundtrack but assisted by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 additional composers, among whom Ramin Djawadi, Geoff Zanelli, Steve Jablonsky.
All composers of a certain caliber. And then there's also the army of orchestrators, led by the legendary Conrad Pope. So Hans Zimmer is listed as Music Producer. Deus ex Machina. When Zimmer does his concerts with his music, he always brings the theme from "Pirates of the Caribbean." Legend has it that he made a demo during a night and that the demo was liked. After that, Badelt, assisted by the army of composers, arrangers and orchestrators would create this soundtrack.
And besides, in today's film music, we always see a lot of additional music, many additional composers because there is a tendency to have an enormous amount of work in a short time. However, this accustoms the production to seeing even the most absurd requests fulfilled. And besides, at that time - besides Zimmer's undisputed skill - it was also quite a plus to have the ability to create a soundtrack of this level in a very short time: recorded in 4 days with the choir recorded in London and then added later. In short, that means a lot to the producer. I like to think of this way of working by Zimmer (which he brought from a truly entrepreneurial point of view) this type of work to Hollywood. In the golden years there were many orchestrators but generally the composer was onky one, the additional composers were fewer.
He does what I call "The Renaissance Workshop System"; when you - in the Renaissance - wanted to get a portrait painted by a renowned artist, there was the main artist and the assistants. The titular painter painted the face, the rest was done by the others. Silvestri instead absolutely belonged to the old school, just like Elmer Bernstein. Yes, because if we saw a large number of composers and music in this film, all this is ridiculous compared to what happened in "Gangs of New York." where Scorsese got a little carried away... Scorsese had been in love with this film for a long time. Imagine that this film has a 30-year genesis!
In 1970 Scorsese reads the book and loves it. In '79 - so almost 10 years later - he manages to buy the rights, but immediately realizes that it's a very expensive film and at the moment he doesn't have enough money. Universal offers him a 30 million budget but it's not enough. The first interested in producing are Disney. They say this project is great, we like it! They look at it and say "Well...
it's a little bit violent..." And so the dance of closed doors continues and poor Scorsese, gets turned down by Warner Bros, 20th Century Fox, Paramount, MGM, a disaster! It seemed that there was a curse, so he couldn't bring this film to the screen. Until 1999 when Miramax comes along and puts 100 million in the budget. The film was a big commercial success: it costed 100 million and made 190. But it wasn't one of those films that multiplied the budget tenfold. So, we're only talking about the box office, plus there was home video...
When the producer took risks because today the producer no longer takes risks. At the time there was a certain Harvey Weinstein, who in a few years will face other problems... Scorsese had already worked on three films with Elmer Bernstein, Get on board and prepare the soundtrack! Since the film's genesis was thirty years, he had been talking to Bernstein about this project for years. So much so that Bernstein started working a year earlier. For a year, he worked, wrote and recorded the entire soundtrack.
A year is a long time. But even here things didn't go as planned. Because Scorsese got carried away, with one of his habits: including a lot of repertory music, a lot of songs... Bernstein approached the film with his own style: a grand orchestra using ethnic instruments, including bagpipes; what would Ireland be without bagpipes? And what would Italy be without pizza, mandolin and mafia, right? Let's hear Bernstein's score: the grandeur of these bagpipes recalling Scotland and Ireland...
I mean, the homeland of immigrants in New York. We can also hear how maybe it's a bit too ethnic or overdone. In some cases, it almost sounds like a western. Yes, there's a problem of poor understanding between Scorsese and Bernstein. And it's strange for a project with such a long gestation. And with a year of work on the music.
They should have talked and understood each other better, but it didn't happen... What was the problem? Bernstein wrote music that was more descriptive of the action and less descriptive of the characters. Scorsese instead wanted something different. And to achieve this result, Scorsese would include a lot of repertory music and songs. By the way, the ethnic music in this score, must have been written by some Irish guys, I guess.
No, no, no, it was written by Italians! All this Irish ethnic music was performed by Mariano De Simone and Massimo Giuntini, who - even though they are not named James O'Connor or Patrick McGuire - are two musicians specialized in this type of music. And so Bernstein in the end was rejected. It would be one of his last soundtracks, because he would die shortly thereafter. But besides all the songs, repertory music, Bernstein was replaced with Howard Shore Another big shot. A great composer who wrote a soundtrack more in line with what Scorsese was looking for.
There are 86 musical pieces in this film! Which is an outrageous number. So the pieces written by Shore are naturally few. When you jump on a project in progress, with less time, you try to avoid repeating the same mistakes. Shore still keeps some ethnic elements in what he writes, but the music is definitely more in line with what Scorsese wanted. With all that repertory music, the margin for error is smaller.
And in the end, Shore wrote three pieces for this soundtrack... Shore, who had already collaborated with Scorsese on "After Hours", and who would later collaborate again on "The Aviator" and "The Departed". He does his job and gets the project done. So, fundamentally, what is the difference between the work Bernstein did and the work Shore did? Bernstein's music works, but it's a bit dated. I agree.
When you say it's a bit western... That fragment we just heard is indicative of a sound structure and a way of writing that is a bit dated. Shore's soundtrack is definitely more modern. But that wasn't the last difficulty the film faced, because the film was released practically a few days after 9/11. I don't know if you remember, empty theaters.... Like the pandemic, those things that don't impact the box office.
In addition, the film ends with the image of the Twin Towers today; it was still an open wound, so the film stayed dormant for a while and returned to theaters almost a year later. But the saga of rejected scores doesn't end here. To be continued... In the next episodes we will see what other illustrious victims there have been. Before we say goodbye, subscribe to the channel and activate the bell. If you like, you can even leave a like and maybe a comment!
See you next time.