How Wes Anderson uses music to bring his films to life

0:00From KCRW Santa Monica and KCRW.com, it's The Treatment.

0:15Welcome to The Treatment. I'm Elvis Mitchell. It's taking my guests and our old friend, Wes Anderson, 30 years of filmmaking to put together three nights of music from the films of Wes Anderson, which will be at the Hollywood Bowl July 10th, 11th, and 12th. Wes, thank you so much for being here. Thank you, Elvis. I mean, this is like an old tradition for us. The music in your film is always, for me, this kind of dreamlike stake for characters of where they are and where they want to be, isn't it? Yeah. You know, I've had so many different kinds of music. It's something about being old. You know, there's just so much variety.

0:56So when we actually started this, I will say this Hollywood Bowl thing isn't my idea. I'm sort of a passenger on this train. The Hollywood Bowl and Randall Poster, who's worked with me since, well, as long as I've known you since the bottle rocket time. They put this together. And I was like, well, can we handle the Hollywood Bowl? But then as we get into it, there's so much music, and I'm kind of surprised to see all this stuff that's been gathered together over so many movies over so many years. I mean, how do you edit? Because, I mean, we can go from the fact that you've had original composers, I think, with that great first piece of music and bottle rocked from Mark Mothersbaugh, which sounds like both like him and a little bit like kind of the open sky jazz of Vince Giraldi to what Alain Zobos done for you.

1:48And I think about when I heard that quote from Drum Boogie in the Phoenician scheme, it made me think back to that Ravel that you used in Royal Tenenbaums that I first heard in Freak and in Sorcerer.

2:29That's right, exact. That's a pretty good reference there, you know? It's not even played that prominently in Sorcerer. Yeah, you know, that Ravel String Quartet in F Major, maybe it's called. I had that CD for a long time. And part of where the movie came from, that's in the Royal Tenenbaums, was that music. You know, I mean, part of envisioning the movie came from listening to this music and sort of seeing something that would go with it. And that piece is meant to be played by the L.A. Philharmonic, conducted by Thomas Wilkins there at the Hollywood Bowl. I mean, we have classical pieces by Mark Mothersbaugh and our, you know, score by Mark and by Alexandre Desplat.

3:14but also we have Georges Delarue and we have Ravel. We have Jean-Yves Thibaudet playing pieces that Alexandre wrote for the French Dispatch, which are some beautiful sort of Satie-esque pieces. Along with Mark's Mother's Balls score for us, we're also going to have Devo there. So Mark's going to be there with his band. And we've had some Devo music in the movies like Gut Feeling, which they'll play. But yes, we've got quite a big group. Yeah, it sounds like. I just wonder, though, when this was first presented to you, what was your thought? This would be an easy thing to put together or, my God, how do I choose?

3:53Because as we're just sitting here, like throwing off things and you're talking about what you've used, there's such a wealth of material to choose from. Well, there's a lot of songs, you know. For me, it was I was sort of I was saying, well, you guys are going to do this. But as it goes along, I've kind of gotten myself a little involved. I mean, in terms of picking which pieces to play and so on. Then one day Randy told me Jackson Brown, you know, we have two Jackson Brown songs that are performed by Nico in the Royal Tenenbaums. But Jackson Brown is going to come and play these songs, you know, these beautiful songs he wrote all these years ago.

4:31He plays the guitar that way, you know, sort of a way not really anybody else plays it for these songs. So, you know, to me, that's just I couldn't believe that. that's quite epic. I'll tell you who I did talk into doing this. Jason Schwartzman, who does not play live often, but has written some wonderful songs. You know, Jason has released maybe three albums, and he's going to play a couple of my very favorite of his original songs for us live on stage. We've got Jeff Goldblum, who has played jazz, who plays the piano, you know, and has played live for many, many years, and he's going to be with us.

5:14We've got Rufus Wainwright, who I always had this, there's a song in Rushmore that is performed by Yves Montand. It's called Rue Saint Vincent, which is the street behind the, it's on the back of Montmartre, next to a little park back there. And it's a very beautiful song. And for years, I've always thought I would love to have rufus play this in a performance and apparently rufus has agreed to do it bill murray's gonna perform and then leading the whole thing is beck with his longtime band beck is is kind of the uh it's kind of the supervisor of the operation i think i can say and i would say beck is sort of the headliner of the thing if i'm allowed to put in that way along with the la philharmonic So that's a bit, that's my promotional speech.

6:09That's a good one. We've gone from Ravel to the Apoot Trilogy with my guest, Wes Anderson, who's giving us three nights of music from the films of Wes Anderson at the Hollywood Bowl on July 10th, 11th, and 12th. I wonder how often do you hear a piece of music and think, I'd love to write a movie around that. Yes, it happens now and then. And even there's some music I'm thinking about for a script that I've been working on for the past year or so. And there's some music that has sort of led us into it. But certainly a movie like Moonrise Kingdom, which must be 15 years ago or something like that, that one was built around Benjamin Britten music.

6:52In The Life Aquatic, we had sequences that were sort of written to, you know, certainly the Devo song in the movie, Gut Feeling, was shot to the music. But there's also score from, I'm trying to think of the name of Sven Leibach, these oceanographic documentaries. Sven Leibach, I think, was the composer of the music for these. For the tailors? Those documentaries that the tailors did? Exactly. Sven Liebeck is the one who scored those with very interesting kind of orchestral score, which we use in the movie. And that inspired something about the tone of these scenes, the way we did them. It's a long list of pieces of music that have kind of inspired writing or how we do the visuals, let's say.

7:47It's funny because you're talking about that. I think about when I was visiting with you and Bill in Italy, when you guys were doing Live Aquatic, and you introduced me to Sajorj, and we just started playing those Bowie songs. I just thought that's something I associate with you too, that there's a kind of an emotional tenor that songs have when they're covered by somebody. And those beautiful versions of those Bowie songs that he did that are in the movie, you play with what we think about music. I mean, so often these pieces are evocative, like I said, with Drum Boogie. I thought, oh my God, it's a Hawks comedy and you're quoting a Howard Hawks thing in that.

8:22But also having, there's that kind of sort of like the melancholy of Bowie, but also I think sort of the joie de vivre, if I may, of Sol George and covering those things, that really gives these songs a new lease on life. You know, with that, we put something in the script, Noah Baumbach and I, when we were writing it, that was a description of this character and the music he's playing. these David Bowie songs in Portuguese. That's in the script. But what's in the movie is something totally different. There's no dimension in the script when we say that. What is in the movie is this guy we met and his vast talent.

9:04I wanted to cast him because I'd seen him in City of God. and George is so wonderful that movie I didn't know he was basically a pop star so I said can he play and he played for me on this uh video and I went this this guy can really play it changed the whole movie we added all this all these songs he created his interpretation of these Bowie songs is I I had no idea what he's gonna do it's just it's just luck really and he made these wonderful versions and even Bowie like them.

10:17I'm sure there are many, many more great stories here with my old friend Wes Anderson, who will get three nights of music from the films of Wes Anderson at the Hollywood Bowl coming up on July 10th, 11th, and 12th. We're going to take a break. It's The Treatment. There's more to come.

10:39Hey, y 'all, each week on The Sam Sanders Show from KCRW, we ask big questions and share hot takes about the pop culture we love. Now that we have YouTube, we don't need any more biopics. If they've been alive such that I can watch them on YouTube, I don't need it. I don't think that music is getting worse. I think y 'all just don't listen to artists who aren't in the mainstream. Taylor Swift, retire. It's time to retire. The Sam Sanders Show from KCRW, wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube.

11:11Welcome back. I'm raring at the bit with our old friend, Wes Anderson. It's a treat. We're talking about three nights of music from the films of Wes Anderson at the Hollywood Bowl on July 10th, 11th, and 12th. And you were talking about Isle of Dogs. And I was going to ask you about that title, Drone, that starts. There's an emotional tone you set at the beginning of the movies with the music. And it's often to say, this is what you think you're going to get. but it's going to be more than that. And I wanted to ask about how you arrived at the music for the animated films, which feel very different musically from the live-action films you do.

11:48Well, the first animated one that I did was Fantastic Mr. Fox. And that's also the first film that I worked with Alexandre Splach to do the score. Alexandre, that's the first time he was the composer for one of my films. And, you know, it was a different voice. and he's a great composer but we play together when we're working on these we we've always had a lot of fun making making the music for these we sort of surprise each other with where where things go and with Isle of Dogs it's a very strange uh kind of mixture of instruments nothing like I expected and he told me we don't we we knew there was going to be a lot of percussion but he had this idea to do a lot of saxophones with the percussion.

12:39And I think it partly comes out of Kurosawa, that we looked at some Kurosawa together and talked about Kurosawa, but it also just comes out of him.

13:16It's the truth. My guest who can't see me nodding in agreement along with him about Kurosawa and saxophones is Wes Anderson. We're talking about three nights of music from the films of Wes Anderson that you will be able to see at the Hollywood Bowl on July 10th, 11th, and 12th. there is something at some point that's kind of dreamy about all the music you choose and then go back to bottle walk but certainly the the the british pop you've often chosen but the covers you've chosen too and the voicings like again between having so george and and nico do them it's it gives a different emotional tenor and i wonder is as you're picking music for films the incidental stuff before you start talking to a composer if you say to yourself this is the emotional tenor I want these songs to evoke?

14:02Well, the way the music gets into a movie, there's no one way. There's music that comes before there's anything and that inspires things or that kind of gives you ideas. And there's music you search for when you're in the cutting room and say, we need something here. In Moonrise Kingdom, we had this Benjamin Britten that's sort of built around. But later we have all this Hank Williams music, for instance, that sort of goes with this character who Bruce Willis plays in the movie. But that came while we were cutting the movie. You know, we sort of found that much later. And then the original score, sometimes we have some score pieces that someone like Alexandre or Mark has or had done early in the process, perhaps before shooting the movie.

14:58But much of that, but there are also, you know, we use, we might use some classical pieces that are then replaced. I mean, when we made Rushmore, we had Vivaldi all through the whole movie. And Mark worked from Vivaldi in a way. And then sometimes there's just, it just comes completely out of nowhere. And, you know, the score for fantastic Mr. Foxford. I don't recall having anything before he said, here's what I've got as a sort of theme for this character. And I really knew nothing. The only thing I'd said was, I think there ought to be a banjo. And he said, okay, I've never used banjo in my scores.

15:40It's certainly not very French. But we, but you know, we did find the great French banjo player. His name is Jean-Yves Bazich, I think is how you say it. Bizarch. We've had Jean-Yves involved with movies for doing things for us here and there ever since he's in Asteroid City, for instance, as a group of cowboys in the movie. The cowboy band in that movie is easily the most international cowboy musical group of all time. We have Sal George. We have Jean-Yves, the French banjo player. We have a Spanish bass player. We have Jarvis Cocker from Sheffield, Yorkshire, is the composer. And we have Rupert Friend.

16:24It's not very Western. Here's something I was wondering, too. When you're writing, do you listen to music as you're writing a screenplay? Sometimes. Not during the writing, writing. but sometimes I find that I want to make a sequence that feels like it could be shaped by music and so I say okay I might try to kind of score it while I'm writing it but it's not usually and it's not usually what we're doing usually the writing writing is kind of in silence because I was wondering because I thought a movie of yours that seems incredibly musical as we talk about this just because it has these rhythms because of the vignettes and the size of them is the French Dispatch.

17:06Because it's such a, for me, maybe my favorite of all your scores, just because it's so much about getting inside that really the psyches of the characters with the music. And I was really wondering how all that was pulled together, how much it was happenstance, as you were saying, versus having concrete ideas in mind during the writing. Well, there's a Georges Delarue piece that we use in this middle part of it. There's a middle part of it that's got Timothy Chalamet and Francis McDormand. That one has this Delarue piece, which the Philharmonic will play at the Hollywood Bowl. And it's kind of part of the center of it.

18:11But, you know, much of that music, much of what's in there is just Alexandre. And he wrote this kind of sort of Baroque piece that is, you know, that sort of that goes with the magazine. Because also there's Swingle Singers in that. I mean, again, that's such a, one hates to use the word eclectics, especially at KCRW, but it's really so much about conveying an emotional tenor for each of the scenes. I just feel like it's you kind of working it in a lot of ways, kind of a peak. We have the Swingle Singers in these Roald Dahl ones, these wonderful story of Henry Sugar, this little collection of short films.

18:53We use quite a bit of Swingle Singers who are kind of amazing.

19:26SONG CONTINUES

19:32And I first heard of them from Mark. Mark's the one who told me about them, you know, 30 years ago. At the Hollywood Bowl, you know the Criterion Closet? They have a mobile version of the Criterion Closet. Do you know that? I know about it. I've been to the actual Criterion Closet. I've never seen the mobile. Yes. Well, I saw it parked in a garage in Williamsburg or around there years ago. I said, well, there it is. But that must be where it lives when it's not busy. But it's going to be there all three days. And Criterion is also doing a pop-up little cinema. We've kind of picked some movies from the Criterion Collection from Janice and so on.

20:12Some classics. What'd you pick? To show there. Well, that's supposed to be a surprise. They're not totally out of left field. They're some of the staples of the Criterion Collection. You're supposed to discover it. We are here to talk, and we have been talking about three nights of music from the films of Wes Anderson at the Hollywood Bowl on July 10th, 11th, and 12th via our old friend who's been doing this show for as long as there's been a show, for as long as the treatment has been in existence. It's 30 years this year. Our old friend Wes Anderson has been a part of it, and I can't thank you enough for doing it again today, Wes.

20:50Thank you. Thanks, Elvis. Thanks again.

21:00Since the start of his career in 1996, writer, director, and Montblanc pen fancier Wes Anderson has appeared on The Treatment, which also began in 1996. His newest project, The Music of Wes Anderson, is a three-day-long affair, running July 10th, 11th, and 12th at the Hollywood Bowl. Joining him is a dream cast of his musical collaborators, ranging from Beck to the LA Philharmonic to host Bill Murray. You can go back to hear our beginnings with Wes Anderson, as well as other talents who've been with us since their starts, including Ryan Coogler at the archive, kcrw.com slash the treatment. You'll find The Treat, our weekly series on creators speaking on their influences, at kcrw.com slash the treat.

21:50and this week is actor, director, and comedian Chelsea Peretti on the universe is found in a play that's both absurdist and grounded in emotion. The show is produced and edited by Rebecca Mooney and mixed by Katie Gilchrist. To better days, everyone, I'm Elvis Mitchell. It's The Treatment.

22:20Thank you.