Sunday, February 27, 2005
A PASSION FOR MUSIC…A
BATTLE WITH SATAN
Despite not winning the Oscar for Best Original Score, John
Debney, can be proud of his extraordinary achievement in writing the
musical score for THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST despite the
spiritual battles that he went through
By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries
 HOLLYWOOD, CA (ANS) -- John Debney is used to writing movie
scores for comedies like ELF, LIAR, LIAR and BRUCE ALMIGHTY,
and on Sunday, February 27, and he came close to winning the Oscar at
the 77th Annual Academy Awards in Hollywood for his most serious work
-- composing the original score for Mel Gibson’s powerful movie, THE
PASSION OF THE CHRIST, which he admits was the most difficult
assignment of his life. The winner was Jan A.P. Kaczmarek for FINDING
NEVERLAND. (Pictured: John Debney
talks about his spiritual battle).
In an interview last year, Debney told ANS how composing this
extraordinary score turned out to be a battle between good and evil
that he had never experienced before in some 20 years in Hollywood.
 “I don’t think I will ever be
given the opportunity to write again for a movie as powerful as this
one,” he said during the media interview in Beverly Hills, California,
just before the release of the film. “I was stretched every which way
but loose. I was stretched by Mel Gibson. I was stretched by the Guy
Upstairs and also I was stretched by the guy downstairs. What it did
was completely strengthen my faith and I have realized something very
interesting. I had never before subscribed to the idea that maybe Satan
is a real person, but I can attest that he was in my room a lot and I
know that he hit everyone on this production.” (Pictured: John Debney and Mel Gibson).
Debney said that the battle he felt with Satan as he wrote the music
became “really personal between us.” He went on to say, “I had all
these computers and synthesizers in my studio and the hard drives would
go down and the digital picture that lives on the computer with the
music would just freeze on his [Satan’s] face. Then the volume would go
to ten and it would happen all the time.
“The first time it happened, it scared me. Once I got over the initial
shock of that, I learned to work around it and learned to reboot the
computers and so I would start talking to him.
“There was one day when I had been on the movie for about four months
when it really became bad that day and a lot of things that were
causing doubt in me and I had had enough. The computers froze for about
the tenth time that day and it was about nine o’clock at night and so I
got really mad and I told Satan to manifest himself and I said, ‘Let’s
go out into the parking lot and let’s go.’ It was a seed change in me.
I knew that this was war. I am not a physical person, but I was really
angry on this occasion.
“I am up on the second floor and on the bottom floor of my building
there are therapists and they see patients until midnight and their
windows are right at the parking lot and I was coming down the stairs
and I had had it. I had booted everything down and saved it and I was
walking down the stairs and I was verbalizing and saying to Satan,
‘Manifest yourself right now.’ As I am walking out and saying, ‘Come
on, let’s go now,’ I looked over and I could see someone looking at me
and I realized how silly I must have looked.” He didn’t manifest
himself, but I wished he would have. It changed for me after that.”
HOW HE FIRST GOT INVOLVED
John Debney explained that he was first brought into the movie by
Stephen McEveety, a producer on the movie.
“The way God works is very mysterious,” he said. “This gentleman is
life-long friend who happened to work for Mel Gibson and Icon and he
and I grew up on the same street together in Glendale, California.”
This resulted in Debney writing some special music for the movie and
Gibson then came over to his office to listen to it. The next thing he
knew, he was hired to write the score.
“If you were to draw up a list of composers who would have been perfect
for this movie, I don’t think I would be on it. It is a complete
miracle that I became involved with the project and every day the thing
that go me through was my faith prayer which was, ‘Lord, if you want me
to make it to the finish line, then help me make it to the finish line.’
“That was my journey. I started working with Mel Gibson and I found him
to be incredibly intense,” he said. “He’s incredibly demanding but he
was also incredibly collaborative.
 “When I asked him
what it was like to watch the horrendous suffering of Christ day after
day, he replied, “It was very difficult and I can describe the process
that I went through. I had to at times divorce myself from the visuals
at times. You can imagine, day in, day out, you are watching this
incredibly powerful journey that Christ went through, it was very
difficult for me and I was able to get past it and realize that it was
a movie; that really wasn’t Him there although the movie was very
powerful and beautiful and a wonderful representation of Him, so that
kicked in and it was an intellectual process, although it would
obviously still get the best of me from time to time. (Pictured: Jim Caviezel plays
Jesus in THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST).
“For instance, I would be working on a certain scene, like when Mary
flashes back to the baby Jesus falling down, and I would see it 20
times, and then I would see if for the 21st time I would just start to
weep because it is so elusive, the power of this film. That was way I
would get through it. It was difficult; it was uplifting. I would sit
there and try and write a piece of music on Jesus being hammered to the
cross. So there has to be a little bit of a disconnect. I had to
distance myself enough and trust that He would tell me what to do and
everyone on the music say that day in and day out, it was extremely
difficult.
“I would imagine that we all worked as hard as we ever could. We were
all exhausted as we could ever be, but oddest thing was as exhausted
and physically drained that I was, I never got tired. I would be
exhausted and yet I would find myself in my studio at midnight.
“My studio is a lovely room and I have a work station with my keyboard.
I write everything at a keyboard now. Technology has got so far in the
last few years that I sit at the computer and realize the score. And
what I mean by that is that I wrote and I orchestrate at the same time.
So that when Mel Gibson comes and sits in the room, he will hear a
piece of music that is fully orchestrated; it’s synthesized
orchestrated. He’ll hear the obo, and then the clarinet and the
strings, and so literally, I am composing note for note; instrument for
instrument.”
“So I have the screen in front of me with the visuals and then I have
the speakers and computer screens that have all my synthesizer
information on it. So my virtual orchestra is in a box and I just pick
my instruments.
 “What I was trying to
do with the music was to write first of all the best that I could write
and try to be true to the period, so I tried to utilize instruments
from the period so there are a lot of ancient instruments in the music.
In the bigger picture, I gave it all up to the Lord and whatever came
out. I didn’t have a lot to do with the writing of this music. I have
done a lot of music, but literally things would just come out. (Pictured: John Debney
during the recording of his score for THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST).
“I was tested. I once said to Mel, ‘With every lash that Christ felt, I
was feeling those lashes in my own way.’ I was sorely tested.
He then talked about doubt. “What happened with this movie was that I
started to doubt myself,” he said. “Mel started to doubt me and there
was a lot of it going around. You can imagine how important this film
was to Mel and God bless him for having the courage to do it. But
during my working with him musically, he would say things to me like,
“It’s really good, but I want it to be great.” And I had been up days
and that the kind up for days.”
For those who have seen the movie, we can all say that despite all of
the spiritual battles that he went through, God used John Debney in a
powerful way to bring home the visuals in an incredible way. His
passion for the movie really paid off.
ASCAP TO HONOR JOHN DEBNEY
Despite the disappointment of not winning the Oscar, Debney can feel
good that The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers
(ASCAP) will present one of its highest honors to him at the
organization's annual awards dinner April 27 in Beverly Hills where he
will receive the Henry Mancini Award.
ASCAP President and Chairman Marilyn Bergman said Debney joins such
composers as Quincy Jones, Randy Newman, Alan Silvestri and Howard
Shore as recipients of the award.
As a composer who began his career in television music and scores for
independent films, during the last decade John Debney has become one of
today's most sought-after feature film composers, and is also one of
the youngest to receive the prestigious ASCAP Henry Mancini Award,
Bergman said
For more information on John Debney, go to www.johndebney.com.
Dan Wooding is an award
winning British journalist now living in Southern California with his
wife Norma. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid
to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service
(ANS). Wooding is the co-host of the weekly radio show, "Window on the
World" and was, for ten years a commentator, on the UPI Radio Network
in Washington, DC. Wooding is the author of some 42 books, the latest
of which is his autobiography, "From Tabloid to Truth", which is
published by Theatron Books. To order a copy, go to www.fromtabloidtotruth.com.
danjuma1@aol.com.
|
 |
|
