Summary
-
Screen Rant
interviews
Sing Sing
composer Bryce Dessner. -
Sing Sing
is a moving drama based on a real-life program at Sing Sing prison, blending truth and emotion. - Dessner is also an accomplished concert composer and a member of the hit band The National.
Sing Sing is an A24 triumph that succeeds thanks to an emotional blend of truth and drama. The movie is based on the real-life Rehabilitation Through the Arts program that exists at Sing Sing and tells the story of the production of a play called Breakin’ the Mummy’s Code which was actually performed at the prison in in 2005. The film even features a cast that includes many formerly incarcerated individuals, and its co-star Clarence Maclin even performed in the original run of Breakin’ the Mummy’s Code.
Heralded as one of the best drama movies of 2024, Sing Sing leans into the emotion of its story and characters, which is helped along by a score from musician and composer Bryce Dessner. Dessner is a celebrated classical composer, a member of the rock band The National, and a trusted collaborator by artists ranging from Paul Simon to Taylor Swift. Dessner’s past film work includes The Revenant, Cyrano, and The Two Popes.
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In conversation with Screen Rant, Dessner discussed his approach to scoring what would become A24’s biggest 2024 Rotten Tomatoes success. Dessner reflected on finding the correct tone for his score, which served as a gentle backdrop for many of the movie’s most emotional scenes. The composer also revealed the biopic he’d be most interested in scoring.
“I Have To Work On This”: Bryce Dessner Reflects On Scoring Sing Sing
“It wasn’t the practical thing to do — it was the dreaming thing to do.”
Screen Rant: How this was first presented to you, and what made you want to take this on?
Bryce Dessner: The director Greg Kewdar and his writing partner Clint Bentley… I’ve done two other films with them, so they’re kind of like old friends now, and I really support what they’re doing. They co-write, and then they switch on and off which one directs. I’m actually working on their follow-up already.
Clint directed Jockey, which is the previous film, and Greg came to me about this film. I think I was one of the first people to see a bit of it—they had a five-minute test of some editing that I saw, and then I saw maybe 10 or 15 minutes. It was at a really busy time for me when it wasn’t ideal, but I just dropped everything and said, “I have to work on this.” I think it was encouraging to them. It was really meaningful to work on this, and I was totally blown away by everything about it.
Was it a tight process for you? I know Coleman Domingo was only available for 18 days, so they had to shoot it in that timeframe.
Bryce Dessner: They were applying to festivals, and I think maybe they didn’t get the first one they wanted. So, we were on a tight deadline and then, luckily, it expanded, which gave us more room. They have this really wonderful, equitable, and very original way of funding these films, and because of that, everybody’s kind of on the same playing field. It was interesting with this because the budget for music was small, like the budget for the film. Small budget is not the word. It was really independent.
With the score, I was writing, and it was veering orchestral. Recording an orchestra in a film is impossibly expensive. Even big films struggle to do it. We were brushing up against the music we were talking about and dreaming about and what the picture was saying. It wanted strings, it wanted brass, it wanted wind instruments. That was what was kind of breathing from the film. We just went for it, and we figured out within the model of how they do things how we could make it work. So, in the end, we did end up working with the London Contemporary Orchestra and I wrote a proper orchestral score. It was kind of a beautiful thing that it wasn’t the practical thing to do—it was the dreaming thing to do—but it ended up working out.
Dessner Details Dramatic Challenges And An “Oceanic” Score
“It was the horizon, or the poetry, of the whole thing.”
What were the biggest dramatic considerations you had to take when composing?
Bryce Dessner: The film itself has elements of documentary. It has real-life characters who were in the program, it has a play within the film, and it has a sense of creative freedom or finding your horizon. These characters are finding their humanity, rebuilding themselves through the arts, and dreaming beyond the walls of where they’re confined. The music kind of felt in that space. It was the horizon, or the poetry, of the whole thing. I was relating to that. I wasn’t really scoring tension or drama or the little bits of conflict that happen. There are some darker cues, but in general, the music feels like this sort of river running under the film.
There’s solo cello stuff, a solo saxophone, and solo woodwinds that, to me, lift off a little bit out of this more droning, ambient texture, so you have this feeling of an oceanic kind of score. And the lines are blurred, so it’s also not pointing too hard at the sentiment or the emotional. I write a lot of music for the concert hall that’s not written for image or for film, and this score resembles that music the most out of anything I’ve done. It’s actually being played this week in England by an orchestra without the film, so it’s interesting to have that done.
Did you write a lot away from picture, then, or was it all to the film itself?
Bryce Dessner: There were some bits of that. With some of the more intricate things—there’s a really elaborate cello solo for the cue “Escape”, which has this kind of pulsing, melodic thing about it—we would take it away from picture and work it out, and then I’d come back.
I’ve worked with some very famous, very experienced, directors and Greg and Clint, by contrast, are young. I think they might be 10 years younger than me, or five years younger than me, but they’re really quite talented and very focused. They usually come with a really clear idea of where they want music. They’re also always open to trying things. I never get an email like, “No”. It’s always like, “Oh wow. Amazing. Can you go further?” It’s quite positive, their energy, which I think you feel in the film itself. I’m sure that’s how they are with the actors as well.
This doesn’t feel like a super thematic score in the way that a John Williams score is, but can you talk about your approach to where you wanted to have [thematic] repetition and where you wanted to keep everything more, as you said, ambient or oceanic?
Bryce Dessner: There’s an early moment where all the participants in the program are auditioning—I think the cue is called “Audition”. They’re almost like Warhol screen tests, and each character has a minute or 30 seconds saying something or responding to a question. That might be where [the movie] gets closest to documentary. There were challenges like that, and that piece is probably one of the ones I’m most proud of. There’s an electronic pulse through it, but then there are two pianos that are completely free, a quintet of horns that are sliding off each other, and strings, and it has this sense of multiple horizons. There’s a lightness and a joy in the music that is reflected in the creative moments that you’re witnessing. It’s pretty complex for film music, I would say. It’s not normally the kind of thing that will work. Like you said, very often you just need a simple melody and a counter-theme, and there it is. This music, in a way, has more blurred edges and more complexity in the layering. There’s a lot going on.
“Portal to Portal” or “Perfect Place” have really simple, repetitive piano, and that was partly responding to image as well. That’s just what they needed, and that’s what was sitting against picture. “Sing Sing” or “The Gate” are two that feature the solo cello. The cello, for me, [represents] either Divine Eye or Divine G, the two primary characters, so we have this sense of Shakespearean drama. They’re literally reciting Shakespeare, but it’s that idea of a solo instrument [feeling like] a solo monologue, in a way.
That’s why I wanted an instrument to sit out above the texture at some point. There are two cues that relate to each other, which are “Come Home” and “Lysander” from the beginning of the film. [It’s] a bit more thematic the second time it happens, because there’s a saxophone solo which I was really excited about. [The score] is not just strings. There are strings, brass, woodwinds, saxophone, and elements of electronics playing through. Those ended up being the sounds that felt right for the film.
How The Multi-Faceted Musician Feels “Liberated” In Pairing Past Techniques With Present
There are a number of rules to classical composition. I know that you studied music and are an accomplished concert composer. When you’re writing this kind of music, how much do you want to stick to the classical way of things versus doing your own?
Bryce Dessner: With [things like] counterpoint, we all do that as exercises in school. I take it with a grain of salt because it’s been a hundred years since a lot of those [techniques]. You think about Philip Glass studying in Paris with Nadia Boulanger and studying parallel fifths. Or [you think about] Erik Satie studying composition with Debussy, and Debussy told him to think about form, so he wrote music in the form of a pear. Parallel fifths are quite prominent actually in Debussy’s music, but I think in late romantic German and Austrian music you can hear a period where they were starting to explode the rules.
But with certain things—definitely in my orchestration—I’m watching that. Because I come from a mixed background where I play rock music and I play folk music, those things do factor into the scores. Sometimes I feel pretty liberated in terms of worrying about [that stuff], but I like good recordings. Sometimes you can tell if someone’s just played it something on a MIDI keyboard and then put some strings on without really thinking about contrary motion and things which will make it sound better.
Bryce Dessner Reveals The Biopic He’d Like To Score
You’ve worked with an incredible range of people like Paul Simon, Taylor Swift, and, of course, your brother and bandmates. Whose biopic would you most like to score in the future?
Bryce Dessner: Probably Bruce Springsteen. I would be very excited to score that biopic. I think they made it… I think it might be in the works. I think I heard that.
Who else would be an amazing biopic to score? I mean, there are so many, [but] I think that would probably be my first choice.
Sing Sing Synopsis & More Information
A theater troupe finds escape from the realities of incarceration through the creativity of putting on a play in this film based on a real-life rehabilitation program and featuring a cast that includes formerly incarcerated actors.
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Sing Sing
is in theaters now.
Sing Sing (2024)
4.5
Based on actual events, Sing Sing is a drama movie that tells the story of the Sing Sing Correctional Facility and a group of prisoners within that decide to stage their own musical production within the prison’s walls.
- Director
- Greg Kwedar
- Release Date
- March 8, 2024
- Studio(s)
- Marfa Peach Company , Edith Productions , Black Bear
- Writers
- Clint Bentley , Greg Kwedar
- Runtime
- 105 Minutes
