Interview: Composer Colin Stetson on The Incredible Score of ‘The Menu’
FilmSpeak exclusively speaks to composer Colin Stetson on working with director Mark Mylod and crafting the “essence” of The Menu.
The Menu is one of the biggest surprises of the year. Its script is razor-sharp, taking multiple surprising twists and turns as Chef Slowik (Ralph Fiennes) serves up one hell of a night his guests will never forget. And one of its best aspects is Colin Stetson’s incredible score, which builds up the right atmosphere that accompanies the film’s multiple tension-filled scenes. Speaking with Stetson via Zoom, the composer talked about how the film’s uniqueness drew him into wanting to be a part of the project:
“The movie plays out in a way that you haven’t seen before. And when I read a script, that's what I'm looking for. For this one, it was clearer than anything I'd ever read before. It’s a beautiful read. It’s entirely fun, and unique. Its structure is very orderly and concise. There are definite on and off switches, and it was a no-brainer for me to be a part of it.”
On approaching a movie that consistently shifts tones and surprises audiences, Stetson talked about how the film has its own rhythm:
“It's got its bases in a very bubbling, burgeoning way. At first, it’s delightful, and then much more anxiety-inducing in its second and third acts. I would use the percussive nature of the pizzicato strings, piano, and percussion going through the score. That was the main way I used to propel and eventually subvert the audience's expectations. There are particular polymeters with different metric modulations that you can use to subvert certain rhythms, especially if you're trying to direct the music into more of a horrific moment. And if you're trying to land a joke, certain things lend themselves to both because you're abruptly pointing at a particular moment in time and space. A few other major elements orbit around it and give it in flat flush it out from what it needs to be from the beginning, middle, and end.”
For Stetson, the biggest challenge on this movie was trying to figure out how the music would effectively blend into the action of The Menu:
“I find it's a challenge to figure out how best to do it in the most efficient way possible, really honoring the narrative and the picture. Doing it in a way so that you're being supportive and enhancing what's there already. It’s hugely time-consuming. The biggest challenge for something like this is to create a pretty concise sound world and a character for the whole score., so that it’s not just this bulbous thing that goes off in every direction. But it was also tons of fun. It was as fun to make the music for this as it was in watching the film.”
The Menu has lots of string-heavy compositions, particularly during the movie’s first half, and it was important for the composer to establish the world’s space via strings:
“I think having a pretty strong string presence, in the beginning, was more important for me as using a more conventional means towards getting your foot in the door, so to speak, with the audience, being presented a familiar space. The strings, and in particular, these very bubbly, prancing, percussive pizzicato strings, in the beginning, are an element that invites and delights. There is a sense of familiarity with the pomposity, and poshness of the subject matter. The strings interact and adhere to that in a way that I wanted to utilize, so that later on when there are particular moments where the movie introduces a completely different aesthetic, that juxtaposition is as disparate as it can be.”
On collaborating with director Mark Mylod, Stetson explained how the director’s vision for The Menu helped him in crafting the score:
“It is always an integral part of any score. Ultimately, you're making the film that the filmmaker is making. These things always play out in a way where I read the script, I have an intuitive reaction, and I break that down to its essence, in terms of figuring out a way to best represent that in as clear of a way as I can make, verbally, to someone who isn't a musician. That's where the conversation starts. Hopefully, in that conversation, the director and the filmmakers see eye to eye and agree with the initial pitch, and then from then on, it’s more or less a seamless collaboration, of moving that initial vision into the practical and executing it into the movie. And so that was very much how this unfolded, as well, we had a shared vocabulary, concept and intuition, which is not always the case in these films. It was a very positive experience working with Mark and the whole team.”
In establishing a sense of tension as Slowik’s menu progresses to darker territory, Stetson explained how using multiple instruments with “harsh” sounds helped him set the atmosphere of the film’s latter half:
“There are multiple ways to introduce and utilize tension, and you can use it with all sorts of instrumentation. In this particular instance, you peel away many of the layers and expose a kind of raw, aggressively plucked sound through naked pizzicato strings and aggressively played Nyckelharpa. This instrument has a harshness, or a grotesque severity to how it’s performed, captured and then mixed. In the film, there are particular moments wherein all of a sudden, things get to be very different in all ways, through the narrative and in the music that supports that narrative. Washing out much of the middle, and supportive tones by having something be very stark, aggressive, and biting to drive these moments of tension, that's the basis for much of the tension building in this film.”
In trying to figure out a theme for each characters of the film, Stetson wanted to capture what he believes is the “essence of the menu”:
"The preconceived plot we, as audience members, are stepping into at the beginning of this film has already been set in motion. We are injected into this and then whisked away into it, and then we get to see it unfold. I was thinking of the menu as the unseen character or seeing the character unfold. Much of the music interacts with the people in the movie. There are moments where it sings through them. Everybody has their moment, but they'd be certainly no one more so than the chef and Anya Taylor-Joy’s character, Margot. But it’s Chef Slowik’s show. We get to see the more reverent, sacred, and loving aspects of the menu through him. I wanted to make sure to have that sincerity built into the essence of this score as well as all of its horror intention and comedy beats. That's what's tying the room together, the driving force, and the main motivation of the film.”