Stephen Trask on the Savages
We had the pleasure to talk to Stephen Trask today (01/16/07). Our interview was to take place at 10am but a very happy and proud, but tired, Stephen Trask called us up to re-schedule and to talk about his latest movie.
The composer sounded truly excited about this new film, to be released on January 19th at the Sundance Film Festival, and about how easily the music just kept coming to him.
Director Tamara Jenkins (Slums of Beverly hills 1998) had heard that Trask was in town, and immediately decided to meet with him. The two talked about her most recent project, "The Savages," a dramatic comedy revolving around a modern American family, where two siblings, Wendy (Laura Linney) and Jon (Philip Seymour Hoffman), get together to care of their elderly father (Philip Bosco) after drifting apart. Trask immediately started to have ideas for the film, and soon after the meeting, he turned in a music sample for it.
During our brief conversation on 01/16/07, as a prelude to our interview (scheduled for the following morning), the composer told us how he found himself just standing on the sidewalk with his suitcases ready to leave and go back home, when he received a phone call indicating they wanted him to write the score for "The Savages." He then changed his flight and started to create the music right at that moment. Trask worked very long hours, usually until 3am without ever leaving the studio - he even had all their food ordered in.
Stephen Trask said that this was one of the best films he had ever had the chance to work on. He was amazed at how wonderful and well made the movie was, and again, how incredible it had been for him to create the music. It was also very impressive to hear all the names involved with this piece: among them was one of my favorite directors, Alexander Payne. As a Stephen Trask fan, this means that one of my wishes had just come true: I had always wanted to see some sort of collaboration between Stephen Trask and Alexander Payne.
We closed our conversation after touching other subjects such as the next day’s interview: I told him I would ask him again about this movie, so that I could record his answer, to which he protested “you should be writing this down now!” I replied that I didn’t want to misquote him. It is understandable that he would be so excited about his latest and unplanned project; after all, he just finished it. He mentioned the night before, around 11pm, he’d finally turned in the last piece of music for it and quickly left to come home. I felt that he could have continued to talk about "The Savages" for two more hours; however, it was crucial that he get some rest; he has a very busy week coming up. His parents are visiting today, he has another interview with us tomorrow, and he will be attending the Sundance Festival this weekend (01/19/06).
The Savages 2007
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Plot: A pair of siblings are forced to set aside their discomfort with one another for the sake of their father in this low-key comedy-drama from writer and director Tamara Jenkins. Wendy Savage (Laura Linney) is a struggling playwright living in New York City who works a day job to support herself and can't shake the feeling that she's failed as an artist. Wendy isn't especially happy about her love life either, gaining little self-esteem from her on-and-off relationship with oversexed neighbor Larry (Peter Friedman). Wendy's anxieties about her writing career are intensified by the success of her brother Jon (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), who teaches theater history at a college in Buffalo, New York and has published a number of books. While Jon's life seems fine on the surface, a care of writers' block has stalled work on his latest project, and he's deeply upset that his girlfriend is soon to leave the United States to return to her native Poland. Wendy and Jon don't get along and prefer not to see one another, but an unfortunate circumstance brings them together -- their father Lenny Savage (Philip Bosco). Elderly Lenny has began showing signs of dementia, and when he begins smearing his feces on the walls of his Arizona home, his girlfriend announces she's though with him, shortly before she suddenly dies. Wendy and Jon have little choice but to fly to Arizona and see what can be done for Lenny, but their long-simmering animosity makes it hard for them to deal with the realities of Lenny's condition. The Savages received its world premiere at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
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