Much has been written (and continues to be should). It’s not a perfect imitation, of course, but it feels like what the best adaptations do: an interpretation that draws us into the world of Studio 8H.
Another important element of the film reflects the actions of the cast, both in the way it was made and in the way Jason Reitman operates within the film. Created live on set by composer Jon Batiste and the band he assembled for the film, the score embodies the clock ticking closer to showtime. No matter how much Dafoe’s NBC executives dislike him, Batiste told IndieWire that he’s the true villain of this story in the minutes. But Batiste’s music embodies a collaborative creativity that verges on improvisation, and there are also plenty of playful attempts to recreate the past. His work is also a reminder of his own predecessors.
“The African diaspora tradition of learning music and passing on wisdom from elders is an oral tradition. Yes, we learn music from pages and books, but we also learn it orally by sitting in a circle with our elders." Batiste told IndieWire. Batiste studied at NOCCA (New Orleans Center for Creative Arts), where Wynton, Branford Marsalis, and Harry Connick have also advocated, and he grew up in New Orleans, where oral traditions of education have been passed down. It is a practice that is poured into learning. Junior Terrence Blanchard participates as a graduate.
“The same teachers that were there, the late great Alvin Batiste, the late great Ellis Marsalis, the late great Kid Jordan, those are the people who taught us this way and stuck with each generation. You know. Like, four or five of those elders have been there for 40 years and dedicated themselves to teaching us this oral music tradition,” Batiste said.
So it wasn’t too far-fetched for Batiste to go back 40 or 50 years to find the perfect sound for “Saturday Night.” During filming, Batiste and the band would return in the evening after a day’s work (wearing street clothes, as opposed to the fly purple suits he wears as musical guest Billy Preston on SNL). Worked for several hours. Sequence clues loosely put together by Reitman and the editorial team. Sometimes the cast would just hang out and watch together.
With time being compressed, Batiste often had to take several minutes to formulate an idea in his head, communicate it orally to the band, and then come together to perform. “I was basically showing music to musicians the same way I learned music from my elders. It was like a flashback, but I never changed it for years. . I still use that approach,” Batiste said.
“Saturday Night” ©Sony Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection
It felt perfect to sonically complicate the chaos of Saturday Night, and I’d be excited to see Batiste try it in more films. “We usually think of a score as something orchestral and compositional,” Batiste says. “There, string instruments and timpani and all these other devices tell us how we should feel, and they cue us in ways that we know well.” And whenever someone breaks that paradigm, it’s so great. ”
That’s nothing new — Batiste has worked with American Graffiti, Duke Ellington’s sophisticatedly immoral music for Anatomy of Murder, and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s cortisol-spiking “Social”. He said that he was inspired by a variety of music, including the music of “Network”. ” — but it provides “Saturday Night” with a much-needed edge.
“This is a pressure cooker, and New York City, with its eclectic wonders, is the backdrop for everything that’s happening right now. One of the leading percussionists in New York City, Cory Henry is an organist in the Brooklyn church tradition in New York City. There’s a lot of musical tradition that I draw from when it comes to expressing myself," Batiste said.
The watch is the most important character. Batiste told IndieWire that the point is not to line up all of the film’s elements neatly, so the sharp, sometimes dissonant, sometimes howling cues can still work in tandem with the rhythm of the film’s sound design and editing. He said it was sexual. “What we learned is that the balance of sound effects, dialogue, and music can break that convention. Sometimes the dialogue doesn’t have to come first,” Batiste said.
“Saturday Night” ©Sony Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection
But what was special about the scoring process for “Saturday Night” was the immersion of being on set and surrounded by the environment. “The sounds and the room atmosphere in the scene are the same as the score and the room atmosphere, so it all feels very magical and integrated,” Batiste says. “You’re connecting with the energy of the day and creating music with the cast, crew and director.”
The bespoke environment was special, but so was the sense of impermanence. After that particular shoot on that particular day, the same musicians, cast and crew will never be together again. That was reflected in the music as well. “Everything feels very, very present in a powerful way,” Batiste said. “That’s what I love about this work, and I want to bring it to other films, because you compose (try and find) what that pocket of presence is, so it feels It feels deeply integrated into the way it was created. Even if you don’t know how it was created, you can feel its presence.”
The miracle of “Saturday Night” is that the collective experience comes together at the end, and the miracle of “Saturday Night”‘s music is that the presence captured in the on-site recordings of Batiste and his musicians… That it persisted even after everything was put together. edit.
“We were watching the footage and Jason was editing the final version, and I was listening to the score and observing how it fit into the final version of the edit. And It all came together beautifully,” Batiste said. “Usually the first take (recorded) is the cue take you hear in the movie.”
Therefore, the score for “Saturday Night” is truly live.
