ARAB TIMES, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2017
NEWS/FEATURES
20
People & Places
Film
‘An anthem of sorts tune’
The journey of La La
Land’s City of Stars
LOS ANGELES, Feb 19, (RTRS): Even before “La
La Land” unspooled at festivals and in theaters, people were humming the tune “City of Stars” thanks to
early teasers. The melancholy theme appears twice in
the film — Ryan Gosling’s Sebastian sings a shortened version on a pier early on in the film, then later
duets with Emma Stone’s Mia when the two have
moved in together. The song has become an anthem
of sorts for the film, and is one of two tunes nominated
from the film for best original song.
Writer-director Damien Chazelle called upon his
college roommate Justin Hurwitz to score the film and
write the melodies for the six original songs. When it
came to the lyrics, they hired the duo of Benj Pasek
and Justin Paul, who are currently enjoying massive
success on Broadway as the
composers and lyricists of
“Dear Evan Hansen.”
The journey to Oscar-nominated song was full of its
own twists and turns. In what
sounds like the plot to a romantic comedy, the lyricists essentially “stalked” Chazelle and
Hurwitz for the job. “City of
Stars” was originally written to
be performed by Stone’s Mia,
before ending up with GosChazelle
ling’s Sebastian. And shooting
the number in one take in a crowded apartment proved
to be more of a challenge than expected.
Variety spoke to the two duos (Chazelle and Hurwitz, Pasek and Paul) about the unique collaboration
that brought “City of Stars” to life.
In 2014, after the success of Chazelle’s “Whiplash”
at Sundance, the pair began to work in earnest on “La
La Land” with Hurwitz composing melodies for the
film. Once they had them locked in, it was time to add
lyrics. Hurwitz describes the process of meeting lyricists “almost like dating.” They met with a number of
songwriters, and Pasek and Paul were recommended
by their manager, Richard Kraft.
Paul: Richard reached out to us and said, “I just had
lunch in L.A. with you guys. There’s these two guys,
they’re young filmmakers and they met at college and
they’re a duo. They’re just like you guys but they live
in L.A. They’re developing a new project, a musical,
and they need lyricists. I know you’re composer-lyricists but these guys are too talented and great, you
have to work with them.”
Pasek: We jumped on the phone with them and we
were really excited. You don’t often get the chance to
work on a film using original music.
Paul says the duo “responded kindly, but not enthusiastically,” so he and Pasek decided to get on a
plane and “show up on their doorstep and ask them
to dinner.” It worked - they all went to dinner and really connected. And as if they didn’t already feel like
stalkers, it turned out the friend they were staying with
in Los Angeles lived in the same building as Hurwitz.
Pasek: When we got back from dinner, our car
pulled in before theirs. They were like, “What are you
guys doing here?” Had they gotten there first, they
would have been convinced we were stalking them.
Chazelle: It was a coincidental stalking.
The next day, Pasek and Paul had a work session
with Chazelle and Hurwitz, where they presented the
lyrics to what would become known as “City of Stars.”
Pasek: When we began to speak with them and
found out we were going to LA, we were sent an MP3
of the melody they’d been working on. They’d been
working on it for so long and really developed the
melodies, so it was our job to put words on top of them
and how to make them function as song moments. We
got this gorgeous melody called “Ballad” that at the
time it was for Mia to sing. We heard this beautiful
melody full of longing and melancholy but also hope
and it contained so much emotion and storytelling, we
were so incredibly excited about what they’d come up
with.
Paul: We had come up with a lot of the lyrics on
the plane ride over, then we worked late into the night
to polish the lyrics. Then we took the elevator downstairs in the morning and went to Justin’s apartment
and sang our version of what the song would be. And
we just sort of started right in from that point.
Hurwitz: What they sang that morning is pretty
much exactly what’s in the movie. There were some
changes here and there, but it was practically perfect
right then.
Chazelle: The first time I heard the lyrics, I was
blown away. In some ways, there was a childlike simplicity to the language, yet it’s incredibly elegant and
poetic. There were these flurries of poetic phrasing—
“the smokescreen of the crowded restaurants”—so
beautiful and yet in some ways, so simple. We’d tried
to do dummy lyrics before but they didn’t slide into
the song easily. This did, and it was a revelatory moment.
But at this point, the song was still set to be sung by
Stone. That changed at the first read-through.
Chazelle: What hadn’t been clear on the page became clear in the read-through: that there was a redundancy. We were missing Sebastian’s voice. I originally thought his piano would be enough to externalize
his inner emotions. It turned out not to be the case.
Once you’ve established a language where people can
sing their feelings, his character needed a chance to
do that and balance it out. So we gave it to Sebastian
and saved the song “Audition” for Mia’s big moment,
which I think makes that number even more powerful.
During the three-month rehearsal and prep period,
Chazelle also decided the song should be sung live.
Chazelle: The first draft of the script didn’t have the
scene of them sitting at the piano. There was a different number, more uptempo. That was something that
in prep we decided didn’t really fit the movie anymore.
We wanted a number there to chart the crossroads moment when Mia is committing to her play and Sebastian is committing to the new band. We landed up on
reappropriating it as a duet because we loved the idea
of it as a recurring melody. So now Ryan introduces it
alone earlier in the movie, then you re-hear it in full as
a duet at the piano later in the movie. Once we landed
on that structure, in talking about how to stage it, we
landed on doing it live and doing it in a simple way to
contrast with the two big numbers around it— “Planetarium” and John Legend’s “Start a Fire.”
Hurwitz: It’s a song about yearning. He sings it
early on about their courtship after he asks her out on
a first date. He’s excited but also very cautious, he’s
had so many dreams that haven’t worked out for him.
So it has that hopeful, optimistic sweetness, but also a
sadness. When it’s reprised later on, their relationship
is further along, but at this point in the story they’re
making big gear shifts professionally. I love how it
addressed both the relationship and the professional
ambition and for that reason it felt like the other heart
of the movie, along with the main love theme.
Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni (left), gives flowers to Hollywood star Angelina Jolie (right), during the premiere of Jolie’s new film ‘First They Killed My Father’
at the Elephant Terrace inside the Angkor park in Siem Reap on Feb 18. (AFP)
Film
Syria’s White Helmets to travel to US for Oscars
Jolie unveils Khmer Rouge film
Actress Kim Min-hee poses for photographers with the Silver Bear Best
Actress Award for ‘On The Beach at
Night Alone’ during the award ceremony at the 2017 Berlinale Film
Festival in Berlin, Germany on Feb
18. (AP)
Stubblefield
Presley
Variety
NEW YORK: Clyde Stubblefield, one of
funk’s defining drummers whose solo in
a James Brown song became a standard
sample for hip-hop but earned him little
money, died Saturday. He was 73.
Stubblefield’s death from kidney failure
was confirmed by Joey Banks, a fellow
drummer who played with him in his home
of Madison, Wisconsin.
The self-taught Stubblefield in 1965
joined funk legend James Brown’s band
and became best known for the 1970 track
“Funky Drummer,” in which Stubblefield
breaks out a solo at the singer’s urging.
The solo, danceable while projecting
utter confidence, years later would become
one of the most frequent samples in music
history as rappers built off its beat.
It was not only hip-hop. His solo was
sampled in George Michael’s hit “Freedom! ’90” and in “Baby Love Child” by
Japanese pop group Pizzicato Five. (AFP)
❑
❑
❑
NEW YORK: Lisa Marie Presley describes herself as deeply in debt and just
out of a treatment facility in court papers
that accuse her estranged fourth husband
of having hundreds of inappropriate photographs of children on his computer.
Their 8-year-old twin daughters are
under the care of California child protective services, according to documents filed
this month with California Superior Court
in Los Angeles related to husband Michael
Lockwood’s request for spousal support.
Lockwood has not been charged with anything and his lawyer said the accusations
are inaccurate.
The court papers tell a tale of profligacy and alleged fraud that has made
things messy for Presley, the 49-year-old
only child of Elvis Presley and ex-wife
of both Michael Jackson and Nicolas
Cage.
It’s not clear why Presley’s daughters
are in state custody; her lawyer did not
immediately return a call for comment
Saturday. Presley said in court papers
that she has lived with her adult daughter
and has been in a treatment facility for
undisclosed reasons since moving from
Tennessee to California last year. She and
Lockwood separated in June after 10 years
of marriage. (AP)
❑
❑
❑
LOS ANGELES: The professional wrestler
known as the bearded nefarious character
“The Russian Bear” Ivan Koloff is dead.
He was 74.
The news was confirmed in a statement
SIEM REAP, Cambodia, Feb 19,
(AFP): Angelina Jolie unveiled her
new film on the horrors of the Khmer
Rouge era on Saturday at the ancient
Angkor Wat temple complex in Cambodia, a country the star shares a deep
affinity with through her adopted son
Maddox.
Cambodia’s king and survivors of
the communist regime were among
hundreds of people invited to the debut screening of “First They Killed My
Father”, directed by Jolie and based on
the memoirs of Loung Ung.
Loung Ung was five years old when
Khmer Rouge troops, led by Pol Pot,
swept into Phnom Penh plunging her
family into a harrowing ordeal that
saw them sent to brutal labour camps
before her eventual escape to the United States.
In its quest for an agrarian Marxist utopia, the regime killed up to two
million Cambodians between 197579 through execution, starvation and
overwork.
It is the second movie by Jolie to
tackle the subject of genocide — in
2011 she made a film about the Bosnian conflict featuring mostly local
actors.
But her latest silver screen offering
is more personal.
Jolie adopted her first child Maddox from an orphanage in Cambodia’s
western Battambang province in 2002
and she has been given Cambodian
citizenship.
The Hollywood star previously said
it was Maddox who pushed her to
make the film.
At a press conference in Siem Reap,
Jolie described Cambodia as a “second
home”, adding that she chose Loung
Ung’s book because she wanted to
tell the story of the Khmer Rouge era
“through the eyes of a child”.
It also brought her closer to her son,
she said.
“I wanted to focus not just on the
war but on the love of family and on
the beauty of the country and in fact
I wanted to understand what my son’s
birth parents may have gone through.
And I wanted to know him better and
I wanted to know this country better”,
she said.
Jolie’s six children, three of whom
are adopted, accompanied their mother
released by the WWE: “WWE is saddened
to learn that Ivan Koloff, best known to the
WWE Universe as one of Bruno Sammartino’s most bitter rivals, has passed away,”
for an audience with King Norodom
Sihamoni before the premiere.
Ensure
In a tribute to those who survived
the brutal regime, Jolie pushed to ensure the film would be both made by
Cambodians and accessible to them.
Almost the entire film is in the
Khmer language while the cast members and much of the crew were local
hires, including the two child protagonists.
The film is also co-produced by
Rithy Panh, Cambodia’s most acclaimed filmmaker.
He lost almost all his immediate
family during the Khmer Rouge years
but went on to produce searing documentaries that helped break the silence
surrounding the genocide.
Loung Ung, who Jolie described as
a “family friend”, said that while the
film centred on her family’s experience, her story would be familiar to all
Cambodians.
“I view it as the story of all of us”,
she told reporters.
Despite the prosecution of a few top
Khmer Rouge cadres, the genocide
continues to be a controversial subject.
Strongman Prime Minister Hun Sen,
who was a former regime cadre before
he defected and has run the impoverished country for more than thirty
years, is opposed to any new prosecutions of regime leaders.
But the Cambodian government has
welcomed Jolie’s film so far.
Veteran foreign correspondent Elizabeth Becker, one of a handful of western journalists to visit Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge era, described
Jolie’s film as “heartrending”.
Jolie said she hoped her film would
remind viewers of the need to help
children escaping war and persecution
today.
“There are little Loungs all around
the world today in many different
countries, many different war zones
where we have no access to them and
we don’t know if they’re going to be
alright”, she said.
The premiere will be followed by
screenings across Cambodia, some
seven months before the film is released to a global audience on Netflix.
Jolie’s arrival in Cambodia marks a
part of the statement reads. His cause of
death was reportedly liver cancer.
The news comes one day after it was
announced that former WWE star George
Polish director Agnieszka Holland (left), and her daughter and co-director Kasia Adamik pose with the Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize for the movie ‘Pokot’
(Spoor) during a press conference after the award ceremony of the 67th Berlinale Film Festival in Berlin on Feb 18. (AFP)
rare public appearance since her highprofile split last year from Brad Pitt.
❑
❑
❑
Rescue workers from Syria’s White
Helmets — the subjects of an Oscarnominated documentary — said on
Saturday they have received US visas to attend next week’s prestigious
Academy Awards ceremony.
For weeks, the rescuers and the
film’s staff had been nervously watching the fallout from US President Donald Trump’s now-suspended travel
ban for seven countries, including
Syria.
“We got our visas yesterday (Friday), but we’re not yet sure if we’ll
be able to travel or not”, Raed Saleh,
leader of the rescue group, told AFP by
phone on Saturday.
“We don’t want to have problems at
the borders or the airport”, he said.
The documentary titled “The White
Helmets”, directed by Orlando von
Einsiedel, was named a contender in
late January in the Oscars short documentary category.
Since it emerged in 2013, the rescue
group has attracted over 3,000 volunteers and says it has saved more than
78,000 lives.
It is named for the distinctive white
hard hats worn by its volunteers and
has gained international renown for its
daring rescues, often filmed and circulated on social media.
The Oscars award ceremony will
take place on Feb 26 in Hollywood.
“With so many people watching, it
would be such an important opportunity to talk about the suffering happening in Syria”, Saleh said.
More than 310,000 people have
died since Syria’s conflict erupted in
March 2011, and over half the country’s citizens have been forced to flee
their homes.
“The documentary took a lot of effort to make and we’ve been working
on it for a long time. People who are
featured in the film have since died.
There’s equipment that you see that
has been destroyed”, Saleh said.
“This film is history for us. We hope
that we win the Oscar, because that
would provide moral support to the
White Helmets and show them that
their sacrifices weren’t for nothing”.
“The Animal” Steele had died. Wrestling
legends mourned Koloff’s death, including Hulk Hogan who wrote on Twitter,
“RIP Ivan Koloff, it’s been a tough week,
Chavo, Nicole Bass, George Steel, Ivan
and Marty Prince, I would feel helpless if
not for my faith.” (RTRS)
❑
❑
❑
LOS ANGELES: Shia LaBeouf and his
artistic collaborators Nastja Sade Ronkko
and Luke Turner released a statement
Saturday that announced that their planned
four-year-long live stream has been relocated from New York to Albuquerque,
N.M. The strongly-worded announcement
disparaged the Museum of the Moving
Image, where the installation was originally
set up.
The project, launched on the day of
President Donald Trump’s inauguration,
was shut down by the museum after three
weeks. The museum cited “dozens of
threats of violence and numerous arrests”
including LaBeouf’s own detention as
its reason for preemptively shuttering the
project.
“From the outset, the museum failed to
address our concerns about the misleading
framing of our piece as a political rally,
rather than as a participatory performance
artwork resisting the normalisation of
division,” the artists wrote in a statement
posted online. (RTRS)