The composer of First Man, Justin Hurwitz, discusses with Damien Chazelle

Damien Chazelle has never shot a film without his reference composer (and former college roommate), Justin Hurwitz. In addition, we could say that Chazelle has never made a film that is in no way sure Justin Hurwitz.

This idea remains with Neil Armstrong's solemn yet clever historical biopic, an intimate epic that can hardly be contained by the IMAX screens it debuted on last week. Another visceral story about a man trapped in his own ambition, "First Man" may not be centered on an obsessional musician – which, at the moment, is enough to describe him as a major departure for his director – but the turtle d & rsquo; Armstrong's journey from the depths of sorrow to the moon's surface nevertheless highlights Chazelle's characteristic affinity for characters who consume only one idea, often to the detriment of their own. welfare. And while it is natural to see these films as the exaggerated self-portraits of a young author, the cinema is a collaborative media and Chazelle's most important collaborator – himself an obsessional musician – might well embody the heroes more clearly. of the filmmaker.

At only 33 years old, and already with two Oscars (Best Original Music and Best Original Song for "The Land"), Hurwitz quickly became one of the most brilliant and exciting composers of the cinema. At this rate, we could talk about the upcoming Hans Zimmer or Alexandre Desplat – the kind of generational virtuoso who could make a fortune writing music for the upcoming Batman saga and / or leaving his mark by forging links with several most famous authors.

We are not Hurwitz, we do not like multitasking. His work is uncompromising and consumes everything. In the same way that Andrew Neiman struggled to find a balance between his drums and his love life, the protagonist of 'The Land', Sebastian Wilder ('Seb' to his friends), could not reconcile the purity of jazz with the commercialism of pop music. Neil Armstrong had to walk on the moon before he could bear the thought of doing anything else, Hurwitz is all about the mission to be accomplished.

This is a good reason why he and Chazelle were such good friends and why both of them felt obliged to leave their university group completely to be able to work full time on films. Similarly, this is a good reason why "La La Land" is Hurwitz's first score after "Whiplash" and why "First Man" is the only score he has written since. This production is almost unknown to the best Hollywood composers (Zimmer works on about three films a year, while Desplat juggles a lot more), but it works for him.

"That's exactly what I am," Hurwitz said in an interview during a rare moment of calm at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. "I am very, very obsessive and I do everything I do, even at the expense of everything that happens in my life." When asked if he could understand the prolificity of his peers Hurwitz leaned over the sofa in the hotel lobby and took a deep breath. "Honestly, I do not know," he said. "I admire the productivity of some people. With my way of working and the time I think I need, I do not like having the impression of having a deadline. That's why I'm starting a film in development or pre-production. It takes me literally months at the beginning of the process to be able to sit at the piano and search for melodies. "

Hurwitz started thinking of "First Man" even before starting work on "La La Land" in 2014 – he finished the final mix of the film less than 72 hours before his world premiere at the 2018 Venice Film Festival. after all this time, he always did it only through the skin of his teeth. "There was no room for error," said Hurwitz, eyes still troubled by those long nights in the studio and the trip to the festival that followed. "At one point, it was even about sifting through an unfinished mix and then coming back after Venice and Telluride to get it right, but we ended up doing it."

As the public now discovers, the result is one of the most complex, majestic and lucid movie scores of all time. It is also the confirmation that "La La Land" was not a miracle, and that to move forward, Hurwitz's music should be as much an event as Chazelle's films for which he composed them.

Of course, these two things are largely inextricable. While many filmmakers believe that music is a garnish to be superimposed during post-production, Chazelle screams the sound directly in the base of his stories, as if the score and the scenario were twins who were living or dying by force . from one heartbeat. "That's one of the reasons I like working with Damien," said Hurwitz, "because he wants music to be a voice in his films, which makes me feel like a storyteller."

Assuming that he and Chazelle would collaborate on each film, Hurwitz knew he would have to run the engines as soon as "First Man" began to take shape. He began working on the film full-time in March 2017, just days after winning his first Oscar. From the beginning, the project was a bold new challenge. "Damien said immediately that it should sound totally different from anything we had done before," he says with a smile. "Obviously, there was no jazz. During all the time that the team was in Atlanta for the preparation and then the filming, I was at home trying to compose the themes. We started as we always do, that is, I compose on the piano and send tons and tons tons demos to Damien. & # 39; What do you say about this? What do you say about that? Agree, how about thisAnd Damien, it's "no, no, no, maybe, no, no, no …" and so on until "oh my God, I like it!"

Of course, the director did not let his right arm just grope in the dark. Well, not quite. Chazelle and Hurwitz would speak at length, but only of the emotion of the story, and the insight that the music should give to the taciturn protagonist of the film. Hurwitz's daunting task was to find a sound articulation of Armstrong's humanity; to build a two-way bridge between Armstrong as a pioneering symbol of American exceptionalism and Armstrong as a grieving father and friend who was to reach the stars to make peace with loved ones he had lost in heaven. Music has always been used to convey the deepest feelings of their characters, but this story presented them with their most injured and withdrawn hero to date – a historical figure, no less – and their first main man who did not did not express naturally by singing.

Hurwitz, who knew that Chazelle could not start shooting before having a main theme and a secondary riff, was guided by a single principle: "Armstrong's sorrow needed to feel like something that transcended his earthly life. " It was at this point that Chazelle suggested the theremin. "We wanted to use some of the most spacious elements, even in the most intimate signals related to the Earth," Hurwitz said, "and the theremin is simply a big crossroads between technology and humanity."

After hammering the basic skeleton of the piano theme (a sad but transcendent waltz that was then assigned to the harp), he was ready for the theremin races. Hurwitz has watched a lot of tutorials on YouTube. "I have studied many videos on modular synths," recalls the composer, and on the operation of the connection of all the cables. I received a metal package in my apartment and I have just started recording them. I also recorded other items such as water and fire, and then composed them into a sound that I turned into an instrument and used throughout the film. Damien probably had in mind the sequence of the moon when he told me to check the theremin, but you can hear it in almost every memory.

The painful tweet of the instrument occupies a prominent place in the moments following the giant Armstrong jump for mankind, but he is also crying in the background of the track that sets the stage. first the wedding of Armstrong with his wife Janet, as an echo coming from the bottom of the hole. . "It sounds like the human voice, so you can almost cry with her and moan with her," Hurwitz said. "Everything is so flexible on the theremin that you always slip and fold in the notes. It's human and not at the same time, so it's no wonder that this instrument has become the emblem of old sci-fi movies. But theremin not only helped Hurwitz connect to the odysseys of space; it also allowed him to get away from them. "There were definitely some tropes we wanted to avoid, a choir of angelic voices leading the way," he said. "The vocal element of theremin allowed us to achieve a similar effect in a different way."

If "First Man" does not always sound like what the audience expects of a film about the triumphs and tragedies of the space race, it's not because Chazelle and Hurwitz were just trying to show or mark their territory. On the contrary, both collaborators felt it was essential for the music to challenge genre and narrative expectations in order to stay focused on Armstrong's emotional state in the midst of his spectacular journey.

Hurwitz said, "In many films, launch sequences and spatial sequences are triumphant and glorious because they reflect the realization of all of this. Damien wanted to recognize this feeling of accomplishment, but also use it as a window on pain under the surface. "When the Apollo 11 rocket takes off, it's carried away by a big orchestra," but it's based on 100 synth tracks, "Hurwitz said." There's so much anguish and pain in the music because of everything. that Neil has lived so far, all that he has left behind and that he may never see his family again.He does this for the whole world, but he is so alone in many regards. "

Sometimes, one feels that Hurwitz is Armstrong 's only companion. Nowhere in the film is his score more present than in the landing sequence on the Moon, a breathless crescendo that embodies the cinematic sound approach resembling Chazelle's synesthesia; the score is so linked to the image that it almost feels like watching the music. "Damien really wanted to direct this sequence with music," said Hurwitz, "and it's such an audacious choice to let the score work that way, as many filmmakers would probably favor sound design, or that the score is felt but not heard. "In a collaboration Chazelle / Hurwitz, the score is never felt but not heard.

"This signal comes from a model I made more than a year ago," Hurwitz said. "It was something that Damien wanted to make before filming. It may be because we just did musicals, but he loves to know what the music will be in advance. The director scripted the sequence and the music was played on the set. "Obviously, I've tweaked the music over time, but Damien and [editor Tom Cross] cut the sequence around this tail, "Hurwitz said. "And then, from a mockup to an appropriate orchestration, I had to move things according to what they had done with the photo. We adapt our parts of the film to each other, and this symbiosis is what I like about our process. "

Despite his fatigue, Hurwitz seemed revitalized by discussing the holistic nature of the film's post-production and how it allowed everyone to work together under one roof. Hurwitz's Universal field office shared a door with Chazelle's mounting combination. "They give me a scene and I give them back some music," Hurwitz said. "We could really see each other's work and make sure the whole team was synchronized." Example: Hurwitz's close proximity to sound designer Lee Ai-ling allowed him to note the specific frequencies used in the launch sequence of Apollo 11 and sure his low-end sounds were not neutralized by these percussion noises.

Needless to say, it was a challenge Hurwitz had not encountered in smaller films like "Whiplash"; The budget of $ 60,000 for "Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench", his debut in 2009, might not even cover an afternoon with the "First Man" orchestra of 90 people that Hurwitz led himself . It was just another part of the process for someone who, in his own words, wants to "give himself totally, totally to the movie. I want to be there for everything. Damien wants me to be here.

If working exclusively with Chazelle means that Hurwitz will have to deliver a new score every two years, that's fine. "I like the pace," he said. "It would be so hard for me to find the type of link I have with Damien, so I'm very worried." He's not opposed to slowing down – in the right context. "Maybe I could try to reduce it to once a year if I found another filmmaker, but" First Man "took a year and a half of full time work and I would not want to do less of it. effort that, he says. "The important thing for me is that I want to look back and have the feeling of having given everything."

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