Welcome back to Scoring for Films by Vito Lo Re and Fabrizio Campanelli. Even though hoarseness is still bothering me, we couldn't today avoid showing you what we think is an amazing episode: "Road to Perdition" A stunning 2002 film with Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, and a very young Daniel Craig playing Paul Newman’s dumb son, before stepping into the role of Agent James Bond. It’s a film directed by Sam Mendes, with Thomas Newman nominated for the 204th time and also featured the last appearance of Paul Newman — they are not related — who also got a nomination for Best Supporting Actor. The film took home the Oscar for cinematography, by Conrad Hall. Let’s just say it’s a film that maybe could’ve taken home a few more statuettes... including perhaps one for our idol.

So, before showing you a particular scene... if you haven’t seen this film... Shame on you! A 2002 film that — as is often the case — I won’t say it caused problems between the director and the composer, but there was a lively dialogue, because obviously the composer had a certain type of sound in mind... he wanted to give an Irish flavor. The protagonist kills people on behalf of an Irish mob boss, so that characterization was specific.

So Thomas Newman’s idea at first was to include something ethnic, because both the setting of the community and the time period to him suggested using a fiddle that also recalled the rural part of the story. But Mendes wanted something more detached and linked only to the story; sounds that were narrative without anchoring it to a period that could be misleading... Just like in “All Quiet on the Western Front,” where the music is completely detached from the historical period in which the film is set. And it’s a choice that’s not always easy... but it’s capable of portraying the psychological dynamic perhaps more accurately, because our brain doesn’t carry with it connotations that could probably have repercussions on the idea we’re forming instantly while listening. This scene — which shows the journey that this child takes with his father after witnessing the murder of the rest of his family — can be divided into three moments and in this minute and a half, these three moments are wonderfully outlined.

We start with the boy, as his father says: “Try to sleep, it’s going to be a long trip.” The music suggests the child’s imagination, his dream. And so, suspension... And how is that suspension created? With the fifth. With the fifth but no third in the harmony. The third is the only melodic landing point of the melody, which however develops in a way that is totally misleading.

Yes, because over an F# chord — let’s say major, for simplicity — the melody revolves around B minor. And this is the first great weapon: that is, blurring the lines, which creates that dreamy dimension always based on a very thin boundary, a very unstable balance. Newman is great at this — I’m thinking of American Beauty... We talked about the dreamlike dimension in American Beauty, and it’s a stylistic trademark of Thomas Newman that I really love, because it makes me dream. What better than dreaming with a protagonist who in the scene is literally dreaming. I maybe would have made a small variation: I would’ve had the tutti come in right on the change of shot.

Not a wrong choice, for sure, but many editors sometimes have a bit of an idiosyncrasy toward excessive syncing. Actually, this way it connects much better than how I would’ve done it... Here ends the first part and begins the second: the strings come in with a flow that’s fairly independent from what the piano is doing. The harmonic game Thomas Newman is building this B section on is centered around an F#7(9). Yes, minor though... The rhythmic pattern is what really gives us the sense of shift...

In this section the strings help us enter the final phase, the C section. And when do they begin? When the night has passed, they've spent the night traveling, and they arrive in Chicago... We see the buildings reflected in the car window and in the eyes of the boy, and these strings make this progression that grows with tension and wonder from the child, and it resolves beautifully... on the strings. And here the strings enter because we’ve changed: we’re in the city, the journey is over, we’ve arrived at a destination, and who better than the same theme, but now played by the strings, to introduce us to the big city?

Here we have a striking example of what it means to shift the point of view in sync with the movement of the camera. At first, it’s just piano with the boy, intimate sound, theme based on fifths; from that intimate piano... we’re no longer following the child’s eyes — we move outward and leave the child — we shift to the city. The piano leaves with the boy. The third emerges and firmly marks its presence and presents the city from outside, with a shot of the city, of the people, of that whole environment which is seen from afar, in all its magnificence. Yes, Newman achieves this not only by shifting the theme to the strings, but also by finally moving the chords underneath with a fairly modal approach, and so this closer spacing of the chords gives us the feeling of movement, and above all the perception that something has changed, because we’re in a new world.

It shifts from key to key on major chords. F#, D major, E major, F#... I like to call them orchestral power chords. It’s a chord progression often found in pop music, right? It’s perfect for describing all the energy that in this case lies in the city, right? Let’s imagine the child in an urban environment that’s far from his habits.

So, we imagine the impact of energy in seeing Chicago reflected in the opening of the theme. To me, this transition is magnificent, but here Thomas Newman recounts a difference of opinion about how to evolve the piano theme in the city. At first, he didn’t want such a grand orchestration but a fiddle instead. Yes, that was one of the choices he had made, and I have to say sometimes directors can actually be right. Every now and then this strange phenomenon occurs. Yes, sometimes it can happen.

No, objectively I have to say I wouldn’t have known how to score this scene better than it was actually done. And this really is one of the great things about Thomas Newman. Let me point out that when we’re on D major, there’s still an A#, so there’s this complete ambiguity... The greatness of this composer lies in the fact that he can shift from seemingly minimalist styles like this one to much more complex ones — like “Meet Joe Black,” for example, or “Finding Nemo”... completely different languages; that’s the skill — I always say the skill that great composers have: to know how to use different styles for different films. Without taking anything away from John Williams, he has his own fairly standardized way of working.

This score, for instance, John Williams would never have written it. It's also interesting to think about how Thomas Newman might have “read” the scene at first, because for him it was clearly instinctive to go from the boy’s gaze inside the car to a sort of continuation of that intimacy through the fiddle. So he proposes it and pushes for it with Sam Mendes. Apparently so as not to lose that intimate quality he felt very strongly. But Sam Mendes says: no, here I'm telling the story from the outside, I’m portraying a big city, something huge, so I want a full orchestra. And so he rebuilds the same theme with the full orchestra in a masterful way, with every single note perfectly in its place.

Now, this is a very delicate thing, especially in terms of orchestration. I studied for almost a year with a major orchestrator working in Hollywood. One exercise we did had music in the style of Thomas Newman. He told me: be careful, because you’ll find a thousand things that don’t work in classical harmony. Forget that background because this is a different thing. And if you’re not careful with orchestration, using A# under a D major chord can create more than one issue...

So orchestration also plays a fundamental role. As we move forward, we see the multitude of Chicago dissolve with music that keeps going; here it’s all music. Keeping a fiddle going for maybe four minutes could be a bit too much. So, besides the narrative mechanism, you also need the intelligence to use music in a way that starts with directing and editing, because here there’s nothing. There’s only music and images: the dream of a composer. You could have used the fiddle in the previous part or in this one; but surely you would’ve felt a "step" between the use of the fiddle and the use of the orchestra.

Instead, this music — in the span of a minute and a half — has three narrative and psychological shifts, yet they’re incredibly harmonious, cohesive and fluid. And the neutrality of Thomas Newman's fifths gives us once again that flavor of ambiguity and uncertainty — but also charm... Why did I mention earlier Thomas Newman's ability to move across very different styles? Because this might seem like simple music, maybe even full of "mistakes"... harmonically speaking, okay? But what matters is his ability to go beyond and to explain, in different musical languages, the psychology of characters in a way that I think no one from his generation was able to do.

And with such beautiful themes!... These themes are beautiful, they stick in your head and push you to see the world around you through the eyes of the character that theme is linked to. Many composers who followed a classical path would have serious trouble writing a piece as simple as this one, because often we’re clouded — and even misled — by the fact that we “know a lot” and we want to show everything we know... The result might be musically beautiful, but does it work? No. I’d say this episode gave us a wonderful theme and also some interesting harmonic insights to reflect on.

I think it's time to say goodbye. Leave us a comment if you’ve seen this film, or if there are other scenes from this film that you think were particularly interesting for the music-image relationship. Bye bye.