By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com
James Marsh replies to Godfrey Cheshire's score-bashing
At House Next Door, Godfrey Cheshire recently expressed disdain for Man on Wire because of its use of Michael Nyman’s back catalog, leading him to walk out. Marsh replied; excerpts below. “I don’t want to get into a protracted debate about Man On Wire – I think it’s right to keep some separation between critics and film makers and I also think it is unseemly to whine about perceived critical slights. So, whilst I had 
no objections to [Godfrey] Cheshire’s comments, I just wanted to correct some of the false assumptions he made about the process of making the film… [I]t was a perverse pleasure to see him getting so worked up about Greenaway’s legacy and the sacred documentary tradition and protecting them both from ignorant & lazy philistines like me… Cheshire manufactured his attack on the movie (or what little of it that he saw) from a series of hypothetical speculations (you might even call them dramatic reconstructions) so for the record, I’ve attached a short essay that I’d written by way of liner notes for the soundtrack CD of Man On Wire… Like many people, I first encountered the music of Michael Nyman in the films of Peter Greenaway. No one who has seen The Draughtsman’s Contract could possibly forget the way the music defines that film – it is mischievous, eccentric, achingly melodic and it serves to make the film emotionally accessible. But it was the score for Drowning By Numbers that completely bowled me over – almost all the emotional life of the film was expressed in Michael’s music and he found an uncanny depth lurking in the chilly narratives of the movie… The idea to use Michael’s music in Man On Wire actually came from the impeccable source of Philippe Petit himself… Philippe and I had just begun working on the film and I used to go and watch him as he performed his daily practice routines on a purpose built wire in his back yard. He likes to rehearse to music and amidst an eclectic soundtrack of classical pieces and gypsy music, I was ambushed by Michael’s stunning ‘Memorial,’ originally composed for the Greenaway film The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. It was familiar but I couldn’t immediately place it – it seemed so perfect for the grace and energy of Philippe’s tight rope routines that it was hard to imagine it ever had any other purpose. And for Philippe, of course, it really hadn’t. I finally realised what it was – but I didn’t care at all that it was embedded in another film. Philippe had completely dislodged that association and reinvented its meaning. It’s a testament to the music’s power and mutability that this theme has now come to define Man On Wire, too… Mercifully, but perhaps not unexpectedly, [Nyman] loved Philippe’s fairy tale story and then literally opened up his entire back catalogue – both film scores and operas and other pieces he has written over a prolific career – for us to ransack with his guidance and support… [A] lot of the musical decisions were driven by cost and budget. The film was originally being made as a documentary for British television and we hadn’t factored in the massive costs of an original score or music clearances for theatrical. Recycling Nyman (and hopefully making it our own for the duration of the film) was the most effective way of scoring the film – and given Petit’s affection for it as performing music – it felt more than right creatively… [I]t’s worth pointing out: Michael constantly re-works, re-orchestrates and re-cycles his own music without shame or embarrassment. He doesn’t feel any of it is ‘owned’ by Greenaway or anybody else.”
