SPOTLIGHT MAX RICHTER
The Richter scales With dozens of memorable film scores to his name, WSA guest of honour Max Richter is also a trailblazer in the world of aural experimentation. Dan Jolin meets the man behind the music ax Richter has been professionally creating and experimenting with music since the mid-1990s. As well as scoring dozens of films, including Haifaa Al Mansour’s Wadjda, Scott Cooper’s Hostiles and James Gray’s Ad Astra (see boxout), his influential blend of classical and electronica has resulted in a number of lauded solo albums, such as 2004’s The Blue Notebooks (his response to the Iraq War) and 2020’s Voices (a celebration-cum-elegy for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights). One heartrending piece from The Blue Notebooks, ‘On The Nature Of Daylight’, has featured in several movies and TV shows, including Shutter Island, Arrival and The Handmaid’s Tale. In short, Richter has much to be proud of, and the fact he is a guest of honour at this year’s World Soundtrack Awards (WSA) should come as no surprise… except, perhaps, to the man himself. “I always assume no-one’s ever listening to anything I do,” Richter says. “So when a thing like this happens, you realise that maybe some people are listening. Which is really nice.”
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This should not be mistaken for false or even misplaced modesty. “For a lot of years it was true,” he laughs, speaking from his UK studio, where he is preparing for his first post-Covid live performance the following day. “I would make a record and then no-one would hear it. Composing is not a career which makes any sort of rational sense. I just internalised the attitude that I’d work on a project, release it and no-one would care.” Mood music
For years, music was something that just happened inside Richter’s head. As a child growing up 45 miles north of London in Bedford (where he moved soon after being born in Hameln, Germany), it always circled his mind. Occasionally, he would have what he describes as “an intense musical experience”, where he would hear a composition and realise he was relating to it differently than anyone else around him. “I was physically moved, affected, changed by pieces of music I was hearing. Maybe it was obvious all along that I would be some way involved with it.” Music is deeply personal to Richter, with his own work frequently described as ‘moody’ or
‘I was physically moved, affected, changed by pieces of music I was hearing’ Max Richter, composer
‘introspective’. A fair appraisal, he agrees. “The music I write is the outcome of my experience of being in the world. If we look around ourselves, we can agree that the world is not in great shape at the moment. So it’s perhaps inevitable that a kind of melancholia is going to creep in.”
October 2021 | Screen International | screendaily.com
