Christophe Beck has an enviable career as a composer of film scores. He’s become known for his iconic Disney music in particular.
The native of Montreal was recently back in Canada to attend a screening of the movie Frozen to a live orchestra playing his original score. Before the show, he answered a few questions in an interview with film critic Richard Crouse in the basement of Meridian Hall.
The celebrated Canadian composer has a longstanding association with Disney, and he’s recently crafted music for episodes of the TV series Agatha, and The Instigators on Apple TV. His more prominent projects, along with Frozen and its sequels, have included Ant-Man (and sequels), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the TV series), The Hangover movies, and Free Guy.
Christophe Beck In Conversation
Christophe started playing piano at the tender age of five, but orchestral music, and composing, weren’t on his radar at first.
He began with playing in a rock band through junior high and high school, holding onto the rockstar dream. That ended, more or less, one night during the last year of high school when his band was playing at a local club. A talent agent came backstage to chat with them after the gig.
“And, we went backstage to talk to her and she she pointed to our lead singer who is very handsome and she said ‘You, you are so sexy you are amazing!’ And then she turned to me and she pointed and he said, ‘You, you are so… talented!’ and yes, I’m still bitter to this day,” he laughed.
It was in college that he first began to consider a role behind the scenes, confessing that he’d never felt truly comfortable on stage performing. Writing music alone, in control of all the variables, suited him better.
He was writing musicals with his brother (now known as musician and producer Chilly Gonzalez), and an opera based on a story by Edgar Allen Poe, during his days studying music as an undergrad at Yale University. When he graduated, he went on to attend the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
It was more or less by chance that he signed up for film composition (his first choice not being offered that year). But, it would prove to be a pivotal decision. He enrolled in a course led by famed film composer Jerry Goldsmith, who recognized his talent very quickly.
“It’s kind of like deciding to try out basketball in a summer camp, and then Michael Jordan comes to show up,” Beck recalled. “I didn’t know who Jerry was until I saw his name on the list of teachers,” he adds. “It was an incredible experience working with him.”
One of the things he took from Goldsmith in particular was the importance of writing strong and versatile themes that would reappear throughout a movie score. Every piece in the score has some relationship to that original theme, whether it’s quoted or transformed. He called Goldsmith akin to Beethoven in his genius.
“He was economical, making something great and epic out of ideas that are so, so contained and tight.”
Beck called the first time he had the experience of working with a score, changing minute details to produce different effects that change the way a scene in the movie is experienced. “I remember the first time that I experienced that intoxication,” he said.
It happened while he was watching the movie Die Hard with his college roommates. During the scene where Bruce Willis’ character walks on shards of glass, he noticed there was no accompanying score. So, he began to improvise at the keyboard, and was taken by the power he had to change the mood with a few well chosen chords.
When asked to describe his own music, Christophe mentioned his distinctive melodic style, one that is influenced by 80s pop songs. Writing for film is inherently about creating something according to another person’s ideas. As the years have passed, and the projects accumulated, Beck says he’s become more and more comfortable with injecting his own style into the scores he creates.
Frozen
The opening music for the film, and many of the story setting and details, connect to Scandinavian culture, without referencing a specific country. Disney had sent a team to Norway to research the music. A version was created as a demo, and Beck was asked to compose something similar. After several trials, Beck eventually collaborated with a Norwegian composer who was familiar with the vocal style. That’s the version that ended up in the film.
Beck says he worked on the score for about six months before he saw any of the movie, writing snippets and possible themes. The story itself underwent major changes for a while, including turning Elsa from a villain into a sympathetic character within a story about sisters and their bond.
He was encouraged by the filmmakers to use elements from Scandinavian music throughout, including instrumentation. The culture of the Sami, the Indigenous people of the region, was to be included. Beck incorporated the high pitched female vocal shepherd songs and calls that are common to Scandinavian folk music of various genres.
Elsa’s character proved crucial to his take on the story. As he pointed out in his comments, the music in a film can simply reflect what’s going on in the surface of the story, or it can imply what a character might be thinking or feeling about it.
“It’s all of it as a composer. It’s much more interesting to me. I need to imagine what’s happening inside of the character as I go through the story,” he said.
He enjoyed working with Elsa’s big emotional and development arc from start to finish.
Final Thoughts
Going through multiple versions, even scrapping everything to start again with a new concept — it’s all part of the job. As a film composer, he recognizes the need to be ready to redo anything as per the director’s request, no matter how attached to it he may be to the current version.
“It’s my job to be very chill.”
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