Elliot Goldenthal received the World Soundtrack Lifetime Achievement Award in 2024, and in the same year’s october the Silva Screen Records released his first film music compilation album. To mark the occasion, we interviewed the Oscar-winning composer, who was asked his latest album, films, theatre works and collaborations.




In 2024 You received the World Soundtrack Lifetime Achievement Award, congratulation for this. Together with this recognition, an album was released with your musics, called Elliot Goldenthal: Music for Film. How selected the medleys and tracks from your filmography? Can you tell us a little bit about this process?

Dirk and the people in Brussels, the people at World Soundtrack Awards, they selected their favorites and they asked me which ones would be appropriate. Unfortunately, they didn't have a chorus, a rock band, a jazz band in addition to their wonderful symphony orchestra, also no pre-records, no overdubs, no electronics, just symphony acoustic orchestra. That means a good third of my work, which includes electronic music, electronic guitars, jazz, saxophones and all of this could not be recorded. So we concentrated on the orchestral music. Maestro Dirk Brosse conducted – he's a great conductor. I was very lucky and very happy that they had the time to record it. And they took a lot of care, a lot of time and a lot of preparation. I'm very pleased with that.


This is your first film music compilation album. Is there anything else you would have liked to see on this disc, but didn't have opportunity?

Oh yes, so much. For example, the whole score to Michael Collins, the rest of the score to Alien 3, the rest of the score to A Time to Kill, The Good Thief, from Drugstore Cowboy to The Tempest... you know, so much. But what I miss was a big score like Michael Collins, but we didn't have these forces available on these sessions.


Are You planning an other compilation – for example Elliot Goldenthal: Music for Film vol.2?

It's very difficult because they don't have a chorus there. But it would be very nice to have an album with my jazz scores and an album with the electric music and guitar music like The Tempest. Also, one third of the movie, like Titus, it has electronic music as well.


Dirk Brossé was the conductor who has worked with you on The Good Thief, the Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within and at the premier of Trumpet Concerto. You also worked many times with Jonathan Sheffer and Stephen Mercurio. What advantages do you see and how important do you consider it to work with someone you have known for a long time?

No, not necessarily, because every score is different and it represents different challenges. And when Dirk and myself worked on Final Fantasy, that was the first time I ever worked with him. And that was very, very smooth, a very wonderful collaboration. And you can't tell how difficult or how easy it'll be, but it's always nice to have a history with the person, but that doesn't guarantee you any more success.


Julie Taymor is also an important person in your life, the most important person. She’s your partner in private life and your partner on the stages and movies. How do you remember for the first meeting and collaboration with her?

Well, we worked from 1981, we met and the first piece we planned was doing a theater experience in the New York City subway in abandoned subway cars with no lights and very strange music. And then we worked in the theater at least fifteen-sixteen different productions, as well as four or five new movies. So we started out in the theater and I was also doing classical music, theater, dance and films. And primarily with Julie was in the theater in the beginning and her first big film, the first film was Titus.


I like it.

My favorite too, it's a great movie with great cast and a very talented young writer, William Shakespeare – he was a young man and it was probably his first drama. It's always a challenge to work with a great language Shakespeare.


All of my editor partners have their favorites music from you. In my case, the first album that contained Your music was The Alien Trilogy in 1996, released by Varése Sarabande, conducted by Cliff Eidelman. After this I bought the official Alien 3 soundtrack, then arrived the Demolition Man, the A Time to Kill, the Sphere and so on. You have unique style and sound what brings colour in the world of the movies, and I love it well. The fans of film musics has call You as the "thinking man's composer".

Well, if it makes you think, it's a good thing. But I don't particularly like the term "thinking man's a composer" because everyone thinks, you know? Maybe the "drinking man's composer" is better. But, you know, you don't have to think to enjoy music. But if you notice that there was a motivic material that you can follow in an intellectual way, that's a beautiful thing. But you don't have to. Music is what touches your heart and makes a visceral impression on you, that might onclude your brain.


For example in my case the „Obligatory Car Chase” from Demolition Man and the „Adagio” from Alien 3 also touch my heart, while they are completely different musics.

I can't describe my style, it's up to other people, but I think I am exposed to a huge amount of stylistic influences from maybe John Corigliano (he was a teacher of mine), Krzysztof Penderecki, classical avantgard music, jazz, all of rock, all of hip hop made a big impression on me. When I was very young to attend the Woodstock Festival of Music, I was very lucky, I was 13-14 years old, and I hear for days that this great rock music. And also Ravi Shankar, the great Indian tabla and sitar player; Alla Rakha, the great tabla player; and attending the musc of avantgarde classical music, and I love it all… John Coltrane. As well I love the cinema, I love the music of Bernard Herrmann and Nino Rota and all these wonderful, brilliant composers. And Miklos Rozsa, he described himself as living a double life, as a classical composer and a film composer. I think I live a triple life in one sense: film music, theatre music and concert music, I feel at home on these different stages.


The work on the Alien 3 was full of adversity, but this is one of your most popular score – the „Adagio” has been performed at several concerts. More than thirty years have passed since the premier of this movie. How do you look back on this project?

I don't listen things from me... unless I have a concert. But I remember David Fincher, the director, gave me an opportunity to work on the music for many many months. And he wanted the whole score to done electronically first. And then he wanted some of the electronic sounds orchestrated with acoustic instruments. So it was a very, very challenging thing. At the time, I was listening to a lot of Penderecki and I was studying recently with John Corigliano, who wrote a beautiful, beautiful score to the movie Altered States. And I was very influenced by his approach to orchestration and composition in that work. So I wanted to continue the tradition of John Corigliano's work in Alien 3, because I thought that approach to film music was missing, and it could be explored. So that's why Alien 3 was a very important score to me.


Pet Sematary is one of the several Stephen King’s adaptations. Would You like interested in writing music for an other King-adaptation? If yes, to which?

It depends on the director. I'm not that familiar, not enough to choose which Stephen King. But there are composers now that is doing wonderful work in the world of horror and that genre: Frederikke Hoffmeier, also known as Puce Mary, composed a score to The Girl in the Needle. I think if I do another horror film, it could be very, very different. Maybe not orchestral, like Pet Sematary. It was mainly strings and piano, and very little electronics. Now I think I would be mainly samples of electronics if I do another horror film. I love it, but I don't want to look at violence.


Joel Schumacher's Batman-movies has a bombastic main theme and colorful, bold melodies. How difficult was it to continue the movie world of this cult DC-character? If I know correctly, you didn’t heard Danny Elfman's scores earlier.

I heard Danny's score in the movie theater once and I like it very much. And then when I was asked to do the movie, Joel Schumacher was listening to Demolition Man. And he wanted more of a comic book, very, very much colorful, childlike approach to Batman. He didn't want a serious approach and he wanted to be more of a disposable culture, very, very not taking it so very serious. So he had a very-very wonderful childlike approach to the movie, that was very different than Tim Burton. At the same time, Joel Schumacher directed A Time to Kill, which is a very serious movie, a very serious subject. And he was a director who was capable of doing different, wide range of styles in movies. So I enjoyed the experience very much of doing the two Batman films. Unfortunately, Batman and Robin wasn't a very good movie, but I did my best.


During the post-production of Heat, your track at the final scene was replaced with Moby's "God Moving Over the Face of Waters". How did you come up the idea, that you used this theme with some modifying for Michael Collins, what is a different type of movie like Heat?

It's not completely different, because the in originally in Heat, it's not unlike Irish, Scottish and English type of violin configurations, that was just luck. But the similarity is both of those scenes, especially in Michael Collins, there's a general theme about death and funeral. It's a funeral scene at the end of Michael Collins, and Heat is also about death and also a death of a major character at the end of the movie. Because it also had that repeating, anthemic kind of music that worked from both movies. I played it for Neil Jordan, and he liked the idea, so I modified the music that was rejected from Heat. But it was very modified.


The next question is also connected to the changes. Originally George Fenton was the composer at the Interview with the Vampire. But he was replaced with You, and this change resulted also to your first Oscar nomination. Have you heard Fenton's rejected music?

I heard it and I liked it very much. And I think Neil Jordan liked it very much also. It was beautiful music. But Neil wanted to go a different way. And the music was slow tempo. It was very beautiful, but I think it might be that Neil wanted more bestead tempos here or there. But he didn't have time to work with George Fenton again, because Fenton was busy on another project. So I enjoyed working with Neil very much, but I only had three weeks to compose this score.


You received other Oscar-nomination for Michael Collins, two for Frida, and you have an Oscar for the score of Frida. Basically to the world this is the highest recognition in film industry, but as composer, what do you think about the importance of the Oscar?

I think the Oscars are very, very important. And especially for editors, sound editors, that never get the public eye or recognition for their work. Especially also because it's international recognition. So it's possible that a movie from Korea could win an award or a movie from France or Spain or Hungary or something. But it's very important to celebrate the work of the people who are involved with the artists and sciences of putting together to the movie. Not just the stars, not just the directors. Also the editors, composers, the sound designers – so I think it's a wonderful celebration, a very important celebration, and not just for the big stars.


Did you receive more invitations after yours Oscar?

No. I don’t know, why. (laugh)


When you receive an assignment, given free hands to you, or they share their ideas and give to you a bunch of temp tracks – for example selected from your previous works?

It changes every time. There's no setting: every director is different and every project is different. Sometimes they prefer to work with temp tracks, sometimes not. Sometimes they have a different opinion on what I should write. Sometimes not. It's no consistency and no rule. It's different every time in my life. It's even different with Julie or Jordan, every project is completely different.


Nowadays film scores have to be made faster and faster, especially the streaming companies dictate a very-very high push. What do you think about this tendency?

I think it was always fast. During the classic movies in the 1930’s and 40’s, they had to do extremely fast work. Some of those composers, like Max Steiner, for example, composed over 120-130 scores. It's unbelievable. It was like every other month they had to compose another score, two scores. The studio system was really, really fast. I think with the development of electronics and samples and computers, it's more tools that a composer could do at home. They expect that the music to be produced faster, not necessarily with a group of orchestrators and with symphony orchestra. Only a few movies, like the big Marvel movies has big orchestras and things like that. But there's always a few movies every year that have beautiful orchestral participation of symphony orchestras as well.


What was the last soundtrack you noticed as a viewer in a movie of tv series?

Well, the last thing I noticed was a movie that I saw last night called Daughters. It was a documentary about prisoners who are meeting their daughters almost for the first time sometimes, and they meet in a dance. They dance with their daughters, sometimes two years old or fifteen years old. They're prisoners in the United States, and it was a beautiful score by a woman named Kelsey Lu. It was a beautiful, beautiful score.


You written music also for theaters, do you have oratorios and concert works – my personal favourite is your Othello Symphony album.

There was a beautiful performance in Helsinki in previous year. It was a live performance at the Helsinki Music Centre three months ago.


It’s great. Could You tell to us, what's the difference between the theater's projects and the film scores?

Well, the theater always changing. Othello was a ballet, so I worked with a choreographer. There was three acts, nearly two hours of music, and my first opera, Grendel, that's also two hours, but it took six years to compose. And other theater works that I did with Julie, for example, we did Titus on the stage – called Titus Andronicus –, before it was a movie. In theater, things are much different because you're dealing with live performances that changes every night. At the film if you do something, that’s it.


At the end, can you tell to us a little bit about your next projects?

My next project is a theater work called The Grand Delusion, doing music theater with Julie. And we workshopped it in London this year, and we're hoping to premiere it in the United States in two theaters in the next few months. And also, I'm working on a recording of the Trumpet Concerto that I did there. Also, I just recorded my third symphony in Gdańsk and Krakow in Poland. I'm planning on recording that in New York with a polish orchestra and polish singer, in polish language. It's about the Russian occupation of Poland in the 1970’s.


To know more about Elliot Goldenthal's work, please visit the composer's official website.

Interview by Laszlo Kulics
Special thanks to Eli Carpenter
March 30th, 2025