James Horner hasn’t been shy about his lack of admiration for director Terrence Malick. The composer worked with the filmmaker on "The New World," and by his account, it was an arduous process due to Malick’s constant changes, and his inability to get to the core of the film’s love story. According to Horner, the editing process was a nightmare, and the final straw was when the composer’s work was abandoned altogether (his score was later released on CD). In 2006, the composer explained in lengthy detail his thoughts, not just about working on "The New World," but Malick in general saying, "I never felt so letdown by a filmmaker in my life." And now in 2015, he’s again sharing about his less than ideal time on that film.
Chatting with Little White Lies, the magazine asked Horner about "The New World," and composer again offered his honest opinion. "Terrence Malick is an enigmatic filmmaker. He’s a brilliant photographer. He’s a brilliant cinematographer. In a way, though, he doesn’t know how to coalesce a story from beginning to end," he said. "When I first saw this movie it was an early edit. There was no reason this movie couldn’t have been as successful as ‘Titanic.’ It was cut that way. It was a story of this Native American girl meeting this guy and it was really romantic. In editing, Terry, as he does in his filmmaking, made much more of a dreamworld and he disassociated the scenes. There was no through-line any more. He lost the love story. He wasn’t interested in that. He started telling a story about images and it didn’t hold together. The movie didn’t hold together for me, or for an audience."
"I think that Terry’s brilliant but he is an abstract painter," Horner continued. "You have to know going in that what you initially see — which is a real story — ends up looking more like a Picasso or an abstract painting and it’s broken up and musically that doesn’t work. You can’t tell a linear story any more and he ends up cutting stuff and for an audience, emotionally, I just don’t think that holds together. Visually, it’s stunning but the storytelling — it’s a book that can’t be read."
It’s a bracing critique of a filmmaker who is generally beloved, but it should be noted that Horner isn’t alone. Christopher Plummer, who co-starred in "The New World," has also sounded off on Malick saying, among other things, that "he needs a writer."
Meanwhile, Malick is busily working away on a slew of new projects. "Knights Of Cups" premiered in February at the Berlin International Film Festival, the documentary "Voyage Of Time" (coming in two versions) is brewing, and then there’s his untitled music scene movie. Back in March, word started circulating that the film was called "Weightless," though that intel was swiftly swatted. Well, it would appear that at some point, it was a name being used by those involved in the production.
Chatting with Thompson On Hollywood, Johnny Jewel — the musician who provided songs for "Drive" and scored "Lost River" — shared his brief experience working on the Malick movie. "[Jewel’s band] Glass Candy was playing a festival, Fun Fun Fun, in Austin and Ryan [Gosling] shows up because he heard we were in town and they were shooting the Terrence Malick film that at that point didn’t have a title, but now it’s called ‘Weightless’ and the plot weaves through all these festival experiences," Jewel said. "There’s a lot of music in the movie, and they came to the Glass Candy show and it was so — it was my fault because I wanted us to play almost in the dark. They couldn’t really film. It’s funny because the next year [Jewel’s other band] Chromatics played the same festival at dusk, so they filmed again."
So, more evidence that the film was or is called "Weightless." At this point, we’ll take whatever info we can get about the movie which also features Rooney Mara, Michael Fassbender, Natalie Portman and Cate Blanchett. It didn’t make the Cannes lineup, so perhaps Venice then?
I can read Malick\’s films just fine.
Maybe Mr Horner has been working for too long in the "comic book mind" backlot that Hollywood as became in the past decades.
Mr Malick is not James Cameron
He\’s brilliant at coalescing stories in a way that isn\’t like every other damned story. Even more saliently, nearly all of Horner\’s distressingly, often embarrassingly, bad music tragically was left in the film, as anyone who\’s seen it is all too aware. He\’s also monolithically ignorant of musical history, as demonstrated in his statement that Malick insisted on laying \’more Wagner\’ (Vorspiel) over the opening sequence of the three women swimming in the river, being quite apparently too clueless to know Vorspiel is the piece from the beginning of \’Das Rheingold\’, when the three Rhine-maidens swim through the river at the beginning of the world. All this entirely apart from the fact that it was one of the greatest uses of music in film history. \’The New World\’ is the most striking example I\’ve ever seen of a film in which transcendant music alternates with submediocrity.
How ironic considering this is one of my favs films e v e r & not to mention soundtrack. Forbidden Corn is an amazing track…It\’s poetry in motion The New World….
I can only thank the Universe that this film was not anything like titanic. I know how difficult collaborations can be and if ones work is casted out completely it can be painful, but this is obviously the opinion of an embittered man. And that\’s ok, but let\’s not forget that. It is because Malickmakes films that are not traditional and this challenging for us, and as he comments for him to make too, why we love him, admire him, and why we are so lucky to have him. And like others have said the meaning of "The New World" both in its historical and personal drama read just fine to audiences. I don\’t find it a tragedy that the Titanic audience neither came to see it not got it. Thank you for making films for adults and curious minds Mr Malick
WEIGHTLESS is postponed to 2016. So no Venice I suppose…
When Horner puts out a movie, we can see how his opinion on film-making has any relevancy.
With films like "Badlands", "Days of Heaven", "The Thin Red Line" and "Tree of Life", criticism of Malick\’s narrative skills at least need qualification, if not complete rethinking. You know that Proust didn\’t know how to tell a story from beginning t end
guess he never saw Badlands or Days of Heaven
That quote, "It could\’ve been Titanic" or whatever — he said that in like 2008 or 2009. Either LWL is reprinting old stuff, or he literally just recycled the line in 2015.
Ditto, Billyboy and Roark.
"the final straw was when the composer\’s work was abandoned altogether"
Yeah, that\’s why he has a chip on his shoulder.
James Horner is an idiot. His score was practically unnecessary for the film and Malick realized that as he ended up choosing classical music which suited exactly what he needed.
Horner is a hack anyway. He\’s lucky to have won what he has.
This coming from the man who doesn\’t know how to not constantly recycle his own scores.
Horner should just speak for himself. Plenty of people are able to "read" The New World just fine.
Calling later Malick films "a book that can\’t be read" may be a sign here. Remember similar criticisms of Kubrick. Must be difficult/impossible to work with, but it seems missing Malicks\’ strength to refer to as pretty images.
Malick obviously knows how to tell a story from beginning to end. It\’s just that he doesn\’t want or care to tell a straight story anymore. Two different things.
Can Weightless be in the Venice Lineup while Knight of Cups won\’t even be released by then? Because we can expect a release in october at best… They may wait after KOC comes out before showing Weightless in a festival… I don\’t know…
Horner is a hack anyway. He\’s lucky to have won what he has.
Horner is a hack anyway. He’s lucky to have won what he has.