Want French dance rockers Phoenix to deliver some gorgeous sunkissed ambient score to Sofia Coppola’s L.A father/daughter tale, “Somewhere” starring Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning?
The band once said their atmospheric (and percolating) song, “Love Like A Sunset,” was going to be the basis for the film’s entire score; the song is a lush and evocative number befitting of its romantic title (to be fair, it’s like four instrumental songs in one, but we assume the last 1/4th is the part Coppola zeroed in on). But to hear the band tell it to MTV, their contribution to the film is rather nominal.
“She asked us to do some music, very in the spirit of ‘Love Like a Sunset,’ so we tried to put that track and elements of the track in the movie, and it worked well,” Phoenix guitarist Christian Mazzalai echoed of the earlier sentiment. “And then we wrote very small pieces of ” music, very minimal music for the movie too. … We’re very proud of it.”
Sounds great, but sounds like small cues and one that might not be enough for an entire score disc if that’s what you’re craving (and frankly, we are). This sort of jives with what Phoenix told the BBC earlier this year about the score. “It was more about trying to make a sound that fits with a Ferrari and the city of Los Angeles,” frontman Thomas Mars said. “It was more of an engineer work than a composer.”
Maybe they’re just being modest? Meanwhile, MTV caught up with Coppola in a separate interview which you should read if you’re at all a fan of the director. In what won’t be a shock to any of her ardent followers to know Coppola said, “[scripts are] a blueprint, and I kind of stay open to what could happen. I don’t storyboard everything and have an exact plan… There are always happy accidents because when you’re being creative, it’s always the mistakes or things that you look forward to that make it real.”
Other interesting selects from the interview include why she cast “Jackass” star Chris Pontius: “Part of why I cast him is because he’s great at improvising and coming up with things and he’s really great with kids. So I knew he would have a great interaction with Elle’s character.”
And why she cast Stephen Dorff of all leads for her film (it raised some eyebrows, he hasn’t lead a film in years and doesn’t exactly have huge box-office clout): ” I just felt like he was the right guy for this part and I think he’s a really talented actor and he has a lot of heart and sweetness that I thought was important for this role. And it’s nice to see someone that’s not in a million movies every year. You don’t know everything about their personal life and all that.”
Curiously enough, “Somewhere” is bypassing the entire North American film festival circuit (unless it turns up at Telluride which announces its films the day of, September 3, and our guess is yes, it’ll turn up for those lucky bastards) and only playing at the Venice Film Festival. The film hits North American theaters December 22.