Original Music byPaul Schutze

Music Editor Ken Sallows

CD and Streaming Releases:Composer Paul Schutze’s (as per film’s head credit spelling - also Schütze) released the music for the film on a CD (quoted release dates vary between 1994 and 1997 for some reason), as Volume 4 in his series of Tone Casualties. The release included some music that didn’t appear in the finished film.

The score was available for sampling and purchase (at time of writing) here (at Schutze’s Bandcamp site, with the price GBP £6).

Track details (no hot links, screen cap):

CD details:

Review:

William Tilland wrote a review of this release for Allmusic, here.

Another Schutze soundtrack, this is for a relatively big-budget, commercial film, and is consequently one of his most conventional recordings. However, it does

showcase his talents as a composer and a manipulator of synthesized sound. Acting as a studio "one man band," Schutze has created a score which is lush and fully orchestral, with extensive use of string, horn and woodwind voicings, and some fine contrapuntal writing. Several sections even seem to follow traditional classical forms such as fugue and cannon. The subject matter involves a European woman who develops a passion for the desert environment and culture of the Middle East (a female Lawrence of Arabia, in a sense), and so Schutze'smusic slips back and forth between European romanticism and a restrained ethnic exoticism which includes touches of synthesized Middle Eastern oud and modal scales. Several pieces combine the two elements in an ambivalent, unresolved fashion, suggesting the tension that exists in the life and mind of the film's principle character. Although not as groundbreaking or superficially arresting as many ofSchutze's other recordings, this is nonetheless a rich and majestic piece of work.

Composer Paul Schütze:

Composer Paul Schutze’s (as per film’s spelling - also Schütze) was very active working on alternative arthouse shows in the late 1980s, including films such as Roger Scholes’ The Tale of Ruby Rose. He had also worked with director Ian Pringle on earlier features, such as The Prisoner of St. Petersburg.

Schutze was interviewed, with several other composers, by Jenni Gyffn in the May 1988 edition of Cinema Papers, and this is what he had to say on various matters:

(a) Interview:

“I was a founding member of Laughing Hands, one of the more successful experimental Melbourne bands of the early eighties. We learned, while distributing our material around Australia and Europe, that Australia’s population is not large enough to support the kind of work which interested us. We were better known in Europe than we were at home. Towards the end of that period we were commissioned to write a score for Roger Scholes, who was doing post-graduate film at Swinburne. The band admitted general defeat soon after that, though I kept in touch with Roger and worked on his documentaries and shorts. Over the next few years Roger was struggling to get his first feature made (Ruby Rose literally took years to realise), and I became convinced that the only area I could work in musically where the music would be heard and serve some purpose was film …

… I should point out that my experience is pretty limited. It started out ideally because I was involved on Ruby Rose from the beginning. I read the various drafts of the script and talked at length with the director way before pre-production. By the time it was needed, we had a solid basis of common ideas

with which to talk about music. This was very important because it does not follow that a person who thinks pictures will be able to convey subtleties of his vision to a person who thinks musical notes without some difficulty. I went to the locations, talked to the cast, watched the editing, assisted with the laying-up of effects and so on. So I knew fairly well what was required and, more importantly, what wasn’t required. There is not a lot of music in that film because it simply wasn’t appropriate…

… It’d be extremely unusual for a composer to get in before pre-production and be consulted as to, “This is what we think we want in this film. What’s it likely to cost?” What normally happens is they say, “This is how much money we have and this is what we want,” and if the two things are completely irreconcilable you’ve got to try to figure it out somehow. Unfortunately because music is usually the last thing in the chain of production, it suffers badly. Quite often you’ll find that the production has chewed into its contingency budget severely, and will then start using its music budget as its backup contingency, and the music budget starts to disappear.

When you’re raising money for a film, particularly in Australia, you’re basically given a sum of money which is the maximum amount you can credibly raise, and you then have to divide it up. So the amount of money allocated for music is not based at all on practical considerations of what’s required …

…Depending on how you see the role of music in film (and I don’t think it is self-evident or constant), the composer is in the unique position of coming to the film at a point where it has started to exist outside of the director. It’s far enough down the track to have its own logic and style, and that might or might not be what was anticipated in pre-production. If you have a genuine interest in film as a medium then you may also have a major problem. A good deal of music written for film in the eighties is indistinguishable from that written in the last decade because its composers write scores about film music, not scores for or about film itself.

So film changes and develops (however slowly), and the music stays in a sort of loop of dialogue with its own history. You need to know how and why film works.

Most of the films I have worked on have wandered, during production, into different areas from those planned. A good director will realise this and brief you accordingly. When your instructions are inappropriate and based on material which didn’t make it into the darkroom, you have the problem of writing for what you can see and the audience will see, or writing for what only the director can see. A popular solution is simply to write like Bernard Hermann and hope no one notices…

… I really feel that the role of music in film needs to be reassessed. The division between score, ambience, effects and even basic sound editing will (sooner or later) become more blurred, as it has in other music. The speed with which this happens will depend on the ability of directors generally to realise the extraordinary importance of music in film and to become more culturally articulate. Music has changed in important ways in the last five years, particularly in the ways it can be made. Few directors, especially in Australia, are aware of the possibilities, and I think they owe it to their craft to take as much interest in music technology as they do in film stock and camera technology. It is pretty amazing that more skill, ingenuity and general flair is brought to bear in the average throwaway seven-minute dance single than on most modern feature scores…”

(b): CV:

Schütze did a number of film scores for Seon Films and associated film-makers, and then shifted to London, and became involved in a diverse portfolio of work - including, later in life - perfumes.

He has a wiki listing here, and an eponymous website here, which contained this list of his activities:

 2012 -Exhibition of photographs and sound at Maggs Bros, London.              -Release of Filles En Aiguilles, new studio works with Simon Hopkins.              -Release of Europe Concerts. 2011 -Launch of DTA archive project.              -Second leg of Paris residency, Without Thought series completed              -Launch of Twilight Science Editions for print and music              -Release of The Void Yukio, the first project by NAPE2010 -Group show Sea Fever at Southampton City Gallery              -Release of Live In Hamburg              -Release of Third Site Live              -3rd Paris residency at Cité International des Arts.              -Completion of Breach series of photographs              -Duet concert with Simon Hopkins at Gas Festival, Göteborg2009 -Concert performance, Hörbar, Hamburg              -25 Years of Sound-Work -online print editions launched              -Release of Tokyo/Osaka duet concert recordings with Simon Hopkins              -Release of Soundworks 01, collaboration with Andrew Hulme2008 -Island Universe, collaboration with Josiah Mc Elheny, White Cube, London              

-Solo photographic show at Alan Cristea Gallery London              -Sound work commission Roden Crater completed              -New website developed and launched in April              -Collaborative music project NAPE initiated              -Works shown in Chicago, Basil and Bejing Art Fairs, the London                Original Print Fair and the Royal Academy Summer Show.2007 -New video works featured at ARCO Madrid               -Works purchased by British Museum collection              -Photographic project developed at the Paris Observatiory              -Video work in Ojos de Mar, IVAM, Valencia              -Photographs selected for Summer Show at Royal Academy Of The Arts, London              -Works featured at Art Basel and Photo London

              -Second residency at Cité International des Arts, Paris.2006  -Production of Nocturnes photographic edition by Alan Cristea Galleries              -Work featured at Basel Art Fair              -Solo show of prints, video and light - boxes at Galeria Estiarte Madrid              -Final visit to James Turrell's Roden Crater before finishing sound commission              -Publication of Moon Pool light-box series of architectural photographs              -Research and development of Garden Of Light lenticular series.                                    -Awarded residency at Cité International des Arts  in Paris    2005  -Production of first lightbox series published by Alan Cristea Galleries              -Publication of lenticular series by paulschutze.com              -Still:Life project filming and photography              -Nocturnes project photography               -Garden of Instruments website launched              -Back catalogue of musical works reissued2004  -Garden Of Instruments, solo show at Stiftelsen 3,14 Bergen2003  -Vertical Memory, solo show at Alan Cristea Gallery London2002  -Launch of music downloading at paulschutze.com              -James Turrell's Roden Crater project Arizona ongoing commission              -several series of prints published by Alan Cristea Gallery London2001  -Commission by The Gassometer Oberhausen for Blaues Gold              -Commission by Victoria and Albert Museum for Radical Fashion sound design2000  -Commissioned by Hayward Gallery London for Sonic Boom Exhibition              -Commissioned by Cap Gemini for permanent installation work              -James Turrell Eclipse book and solander edition (100) release including sound work               -Performances / Screenings: Nantes, Turin,  Bologna, London, Tokyo, Osaka1999  -Commission by Michael Hue-Williams Gallery to write piece celebrating                 James Turrell's Eclipse project in Cornwall                            -Signed with Ryko Disc              -Performances / Screenings: Berlin, Borgo, Utrecht, Lisbon1998  -Further releases in US               -Performances / Screenings in Utrecht, Tokyo, Tampere, Lanzarote1997  -Signed with Tone Casualties in US              -Nine Songs for organ and percussion recorded in Switzerland              -Performances / Screenings London, Bern, Brussels1996  -Released two new works through Big Cat records.              -Launched 7 Degrees (music editions) with Andrew Hulme              -Performances / Screenings in London, Ulm, Bologna, Leuven              -Formed Phantom City ensemble. Performances in Bern and Tampere              -Further releases through Virgin Records1995  -Released first of five commissioned recordings for Virgin Records1994  -Signed to Apollo in Belgium              -Regular contributing writer for The Wire music journal London1993  -Established base and studio in London               -Began releasing recordings and performing in Europe (see discography)1992  -Film Critic for Kaboom - Radio National1991  -Course Director for film composition intensive at AFTRS Melbourne                          -Seminar Director - Colors: The Sound of Cinema1990  -Work in Tunisia and Paris for Score of Isabelle Eberhardt1989  -Co-editor of Deus Ex Machina (Design theory publication)               -Co-curator of Deus Ex Machina (Multi-media traveling installation)              -Sound Design and composition for Deus Ex Machina1988  -Compose scores for five films including The Prisoner of St Petersburg.1986  -Establish studio for film scoring and continued lecturing and writing1985  -Established Absolute Music P/L (film Soundtrack production)International

(Below: Paul Schütze)