#Oscar-ready: Hauschka on his music for LION (& win!)

With his film score together with Dustin O'Halloran for the drama LION, starring Dev Patel and Nicole Kidman, he is widely recognized as one of the best contemporary film composers. LION tells the (true) story of a five-year-old Indian boy who gets lost on the streets of Kolkata, thousands of miles from home. He survives many challenges before being adopted by a couple in Australia; 25 years later, he sets out to find his lost family.

Deb Sinha: First of all: Congratulations on your Critics’ Choice Awards nomination, out of 6 overall for LION! So let's talk about LION. The use of silence in your film score for the film makes a huge impact, playing against the lush images and intense emotion of the movie very effectively. Was this a conscious choice, or did silence as a scoring tool just emerge organically as you and Dustin O’Holloran wrote?

Volker Bertelmann: It really was first the choice of director Garth Davis. We spoke about the options that we have to score not too "full on" and to use a certain sparseness in the instrumentation as our approach. We were very happy and lucky that Garth had very specific spots for music in mind, as this is often the most important decision. This film is so well filmed and told that you can leave scenes without music and they are not boring at all!

DS: The main theme in the opening credits appears in various guises throughout the film. How did this theme come about? Was it in response to the opening images, or did it surface as you were working on another part of the movie, generating sketches to be used in the score? When did you know it would work as a motif?

VB: The main theme came from a scene that we did where the boy is standing facing the river in Kolkata. We felt that it was very strong, and we used it to make a variation for the beginning with the string melodies. The film has these wide nature shots that help establish the theme as an overture -- it sets a certain colour right from the beginning.

DS: With a film such as LION, the incredibly rich sound world of India is front and centre - the sound design is detailed and rich, and the music compliments it beautifully. To me, the music and sound design together were almost another character that we followed as we watched the little Indian boy Saroo grow and travel through his life. How did you manage that collaboration? Were you in contact with the sound department and (supervising sound editor/sound designer) Robert MacKenzie during scoring? Or did you just follow the edits as they came?

VB: Everything was already finished when we came on board, so we mainly concentrated on the music -- but we recorded a lot of sonoric options. That meant we could blend into the sound design, and the lines between music and sound design are blurred. I like this (approach) a lot.

DS: You are known for your use of prepared piano in your solo recorded and live work as “Hauschka”. Did you use preparations in creating the music for LION, and were those preparations designed for a specific effect? Or did you just experiment until you found sounds that you thought were useful?

VB: I indeed used prepared piano, and I just experimented with it until I found the right sound for (the scenes). I watched the movie, and then I use sounds like colours. But instead of searching in a sound archive for a sampler, I am using my fingers and own material.

DS: It is telling that the music is deeply connected to the emotions and story arc of the characters --the inner landscape-- rather than overtly with the physical environment of Kolkata and Tasmania. I was pleasantly surprised that the use of “Indian music” in the score made almost no appearances, save in the scene where adult Saroo goes to his classmate’s party and where it seemed to be a very effective way to highlight his disconnection with India, and laid the groundwork for his crucial epiphany. Was there discussion at any point about incorporating “Indian music” elements in the score, and was it a conscious decision to not use them?

VB: No, not conscious. It was pretty clear though that there will be no traditional music because the topic of the movie is so modern and global that we all agreed that it should be a story in the here and now, even though it takes place in the 80s. The message in the story of searching for home, a sense of home and taking care of family is more current than ever, and it was a good choice to use unique modern compositions.

DS: At the concert you gave during the TIFF premiere of LION, you mentioned something about your compositional work for film being a balance between what is needed and what is required (I’m paraphrasing here). The composer has so many sometimes conflicting requirements in generating a score for a film --the desires of the director, the producers, and their own creative process. How do you manage these demands to create a score that you yourself are happy with? Can you perhaps allude to this process while letting us know what you are working on now?

VB: I think my film work is different work than my “artist” work but at the same time (my experiences) influence my work both ways. I want to see every film score as a new, unique approach and in a collaborative project it is necessary to step back from your ego --you have to do what is best for the project. That is a learning process and learning is one of the biggest goals in my life. It stretches my approach --and at the same time, as Hauschka, I can release records that are only me, I can experiment and do what I want. To me, having all the options is a gift. The work with other artists is always a pleasure.


Interview by Debashis Sinha, a Toronto-based percussionist and award-winning sound designer and composer for the stage and moving image. Hear his work at the Shaw Festival and at Soulpepper Theatre in 2018.


image: Volker Bertelmann, Jutta Brendemühl of the Goethe-Institut, Helga Binder of Film Foundation NRW, Toronto composer/sound designer Debashis Sinha at Goethe TIFF Industry Brunch 2016 c Goethe-Institut Toronto photo Marco Kovasevic/VisualBass