When composers Jerskin Fendrix reunite with his “Poor things” and “Kinds of Kindness” director Yorgos Lanthimos for “Bugonia“, he had the luxury of time. “The beauty of having a relationship with a director like Yorgos is that you get a lot more lead time than I think you get on a conventional score,” Fendrix told IndieWire. “The first conversation we had about this was in mid-2023.”
The first call also turned out to be the last, as Lanthimos gave Fendrix a very brief set of instructions and then let him loose. “Yorgos said, ‘I don’t want you to know anything about that,'” Fendrix said, recalling that Lanthimos simply asked him to think of three words — bee, cellar and spaceship — and told Fendrix he had a year.
So while the composer had the luxury of time, he didn’t have the luxury of actually reading the script of the film he was about to shoot—or of watching any film while doing so. “The contract was that I would finish writing all the music and then he would let me read the script and see film“, Hendrix said. “I did very detailed orchestral demos so I didn’t go in (to the studio) and spend $150,000 a day on something he hated. I’d send him a bunch of music and he’d say “Yeah, no, that’s my music, record it for me.” And then when I did, he said “Okay, here’s why you did it.”
The great thing about Lanthimos and Fendrix’s approach is that it produced a score that feels completely integrated with the film, and specifically with the character of Teddy (Jesse Plemons). An unhinged conspiracy theorist who kidnaps a CEO (Emma Stone) believing her to be an alien. Teddy is alternately anxious, funny, touching, frightening and disturbing – just like Fendrix’s music. Looking back, Fendrix realizes that Lanthimo’s approach was designed to put him in the same headspace as Teddy without his knowledge.
“The theory I’ve developed is that he gives me three words,” Fendrix said. “I go off, I start researching these words. He knows I’m going to do this myself, shut down. Get a little weird with it, go down these rabbit holes. I might forget to shower for a couple of days, it gets intense, and I know there’s all these pre-production meetings going on and I get paranoid, that I’m getting into this thing without actually getting into this thing, but I’m not getting into this thing. That.”
Fendrix describes his state during the process as “getting a little fat, a little isolated” – something that took on a different meaning when he finally saw the finished film. “I watch the movie and Jesse’s character does all this research,” Fendrix said. “He’s lonely and he’s paranoid and he really hopes that what he’s doing is correct.” Fendrix realized that without realizing it, he was writing music – teenage, thrashing, bombastic music – that reflected Teddy’s angst.
“I spent a lot of time thinking, ‘Why is he doing this to me?'” Fendrix said of the process. “I would have written a completely different score if I’d known what the film was about. If I’d known there was a lot of the film that was dialogue-heavy and required space for the actors to have this really important discussion, I probably would have pulled back to a certain degree – and he obviously didn’t want that.”
In fact, the grandeur of Fendrix’s score comes largely in its scale, giving the film’s mostly intimate tale of three people engaged in psychological warfare within the confines of a basement an epic grandeur. Fendrix recorded the score with an orchestra of 90 people, all in one room, because he did not want strains that would give certain instruments more emphasis than they would have organically. “We had the London Contemporary Orchestra, a phenomenal group of musicians who are at the conservatoire level but also very willing to embarrass themselves and to try things that aren’t really possible on their instruments.”
This involved exploiting odd “mistakes” that would generate unusual discordant sounds perfect for the disjointed state of emotions rattling around in the characters’ heads. “You get woodwinds out of their reach and they’ll blow over or they’ll crack,” Fendrix said. “It often sounds bad, and that’s what I’m looking for to some extent. I want a different perspective on how orchestral music should be played, this kind of very exacting, precise standard. I go in there with a more open mind.”
Fendrix credits the orchestra with sharing the open approach. “They wouldn’t say, ‘No, that’s not working,'” Fendrix said, admitting he had to work to get the musicians into that headspace. “The difficult thing about an orchestra is that you have centuries of repertoire weighing you down. You have the ghosts of Beethoven and Mahler, and Stravinsky hovering over you, so you have to figure out how not to make this pastiche? How do I do something different with this?”
Although Fendrix was nominated for an Oscar for his ‘Poor Things’ score, he is as well known for music outside the film world as his new album ‘Once Upon a Time… in Shropshire’ as he is for his innovative work with Lanthimos. Fendrix has found that the differences between the two types of work have led to interesting discoveries.
“The reason I like doing the movies as much as the songwriting is because it’s a good balance,” Fendrix said. “Songwriting can be very autobiographical and very self-centered and narcissistic. And then when you’re writing film scores, you’re supposed to provide these characters and stories with music. You have to be very empathetic and you have to completely wipe your ego off the desk. If any of your experiences start to separate these stories that you do and what you don’t do completely.”
Writing music for other characters while working on “Once Upon a Time…in Shropshire” helped Fendrix find new depth and textures in his more personal work. “Writing so much music for other characters and then having to come back to finish this album in the fallow periods between films has hopefully given me a greater sense of empathy,” Fendrix said. “I wanted to cover these heavy things that have to do with grief and loss with a broader and more generous lens than the tunnel vision of what I’ve experienced. I’m really grateful to have that balance.”
