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MUSIC AND THE MOVIES<br />
Mychael Danna, Film Composer<br />
They Shoot, He Scores<br />
BY PAUL ENNIS<br />
Moments after winning a Golden Globe for his score to Ang<br />
Lee’s Life of Pi, Toronto-based Mychael Danna is answering questions<br />
from journalists backstage in the Beverly Hilton Hotel. I’m<br />
watching it all on YouTube. It’s been only three days since he was nominated<br />
for two Oscars.<br />
“Ang is the master of subtlety,” Danna is saying. “He wants emotion<br />
to be built up and held and held and then at certain very key moments,<br />
released. And that’s something that musically I’ve also worked on,<br />
that sense of holding back emotion that becomes submerged and then<br />
released at the right moment and effective that way.”<br />
The 50-something Danna fell into his career as a film composer by<br />
accident. While studying composition at U of T he got involved in theatre<br />
where he met Atom Egoyan. Danna’s scored all of Egoyan’s films<br />
beginning with 1987’s Family Viewing. He’s worked on dozens of movies<br />
since, from Girl, Interrupted to Capote, from Little Miss Sunshine<br />
to Moneyball, from Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm and Ride with the Devil<br />
to Deepa Mehta’s Water and three films by Mira Nair.<br />
He has an uncanny, but totally unforced, ability to combine Western<br />
and non-Western music seamlessly in his scores. And he’s someone who<br />
loves being part of the filmmaking process, who loves being a member<br />
of the team serving its master, the film. He brought a scrupulous sense<br />
of responsibility to Life of Pi.<br />
“I read the book [by Canadian Yann Martel] years ago and loved it.<br />
I felt very obligated to bring [its] essence to life,” he answers another<br />
journalist. “I worked on this score for over a year because we had to<br />
Danna with his<br />
Golden Globe.<br />
do the wrong thing many times before we could do the right thing.”<br />
In fact, he told Movie City News’ David Poland recently that he<br />
worked four months solid on the Twentieth Century Fox lot from morning<br />
to night with two assistants. The process was so efficient that Ang<br />
Lee was less than 100 yards away editing. They recorded the orchestra<br />
right on the lot.<br />
Back at the Beverly Hilton the press wants to know more, about his<br />
relationship to India and about his musical background. “I’m very familiar<br />
with India,” he says. “I’ve been there many times. I’m married to<br />
an Indian. We have family there. It’s like a second home. It’s a place<br />
where anything is possible except what you expect.”<br />
continues on page 62<br />
February 1 – March 7, 2013 thewholenote.com 11
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