Los Angeles Times - 31.10.2019

S12

THE ENVELOPE LOS ANGELES TIMES THURSDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2019

S

pain and glory

BEST ACTOR

Antonio Banderas

“ANTONIO BANDERAS

IS A REVELATION.”

Joe Morgenstern, WALL STREET JOURNAL

“RANKS RIGHT UP THERE

WITH ALMODÓVAR’S GREATEST!

HAUNTING IMAGES THAT

TAKE YOUR BREATH AWAY.

ANTONIO BANDERAS IN THE

PERFORMANCE OF HIS CAREER.

THIS IS ACTING OF THE

HIGHEST ORDER, SUBLIME IN

EVERY DETAIL, A TRIUMPH OF

SUBTLETY AND FEELING.

A SUPREMELY LOVELY

SCORE BY ALBERTO IGLESIAS.”

-Peter Travers, ROLLING STONE

WINNER

BESTACTOR

CANNES FILM FESTIVAL

WINNER

HOLLYWOODACTORAWARD

HOLLYWOOD FILM AWARDS

sound good, I will be shot. It’s a bit like ‘Ab-

bey Road’ in that respect,” he says of his re-

cent remix of that album.

Although he mixed with Prestwood

Smith in post and worked with Margeson

and the sound editors in London for a good

three months to make the songs and the

underscore “melt into the other,” according

to Margeson, Martin says the music always

came first as the team moved through pro-

duction and post. “I had to come up with a

lot of the soundtrack stuff before we even

began filming, so we could shoot to the mu-

sic,” he says.

Working from storyboards for the film’s

big production numbers like “Saturday

Night’s Alright for Fighting,” “Rocketman”

and “Pinball Wizard,” Martin built out his

lush, rock-inspired arrangements “a bit like

doing an animation,” he says. For most of the

other numbers, all sung by the cast, he

would record demos of the vocals in the stu-

dio to bring on set for playback during re-

hearsals and filming.

Taron Egerton, who performs the lion’s

share of the film’s songs in a feisty, star-mak-

ing performance as John, recorded every-

thing in the studio before filming started

and continued during post when the film-

makers decided to add more of John’s songs

to the underscore.

A large part of Martin’s role was to mold

the actor’s vocal technique. “Taron’s work

ethic, in all honesty, was incredible,” Mar-

tin says. “He can sing, but phrasing is what

you have to learn. But he was so keen to

learn. He would just do things again and

again until he got them right.” Sometimes

the pair would hunker down “with an Elton

original on multitrack and just listen and

work our way through what Elton was do-

ing.”

The aim was always to resonate with the

story’s emotional drama without creating a

carbon copy of John’s records. “I was lucky

we didn’t have to think about overdubbing

the actors in the beginning,” says Martin,

“and with Taron, we captured him live on

set quite often, which as the technical guy I

initially thought would be too tricky, but it

was great.” Having both live and studio re-

cordings gave the mix team and editors

more options later on.

Not everyone was as willing, at least ini-

tially. “Game of Thrones” actor Richard

Madden, who played John’s manager and

[‘Rocketman,’from S10]

COMPOSERMatthew Margeson

says the music always came first.

Christopher ProctorFor The Times

TARONEgerton’s performance

guided mixer Mike Prestwood Smith.

Paramount Pictures

GILESMartin built his arrange-

ments “a bit like doing an animation.”

Gavin Bond