Nathan Halpern is an Emmy-nominated composer (Soundbreaking: Stories from the Cutting Edge of Recorded Music), who scored two films that premiered at this year’s Sundance — Emily the Criminal and Watcher. Both have found homes at Roadside Attractions and IFC, respectively.
In Watcher, a young American, Julia (Maika Monroe), moves with her fiancé to Bucharest, Romania. With the city in the midst of a panic over an active serial killer, she becomes tormented by the feeling that she is being stalked by an unseen watcher in an adjacent building. Emily the Criminal follows Emily (Aubrey Plaza), who gets involved in a credit card scam after being saddled with debt and is pulled into the criminal and deadly underworld of Los Angeles.
Nathan Halpern in his studio
We reached out to Halpern to talk about his work on these films…
Were the films alike in any way?
It’s interesting, because on the one hand, these films could not be more different from one another in terms of subject matter, story, cinematic style and musical score. But one common thread is that each film combines subtle use of genre elements, powerful cinematic aesthetics, and provocative socio-political insights to create a really powerful experience.
How early did you get involved with each project and how did that help?
For Watcher, I had an early conversation with writer/director Chloe Okuno before she went into production that was very inspiring. I was excited by her aesthetic and cinematic vision for the film, which would be quite stylized and draw on classic and European influences. And I was thrilled to discover that some of the classic psychological thrillers that she was drawing some spiritual inspiration from were some of my absolute favorite films of all time.
She went on to tell me about provocative ideas about the male and female gaze that run through her work that she was going to explore here in greater depth. Another exciting aspect of our conversation was that she was in the process of re-writing the film to be set no longer in an American city, but in Bucharest, Romania. She would use this change in locale to bring out even deeper layers of interest and meaning in the film, especially in terms of the environment and alienation of the protagonist. This was a really intriguing new dimension to the film and we discussed early on that this could also have some influence on the music, a very exciting idea.
My agent sent me the script for Emily the Criminal, and If you’ve seen the film, you know that the narrative and emotional drive of this piece is just incredible, and my heart was pounding just from reading it. I had several wonderful conversations early on with writer/director John Patton Ford, about his vision for the film, which had a strong overlap between the personal and the political. We discussed some of our favorite music and songs, etc. And even at the script stage, we began discussing how the music might not only support the thriller aspects of the story, but also find ways to support some of the deeper emotional themes of the film.
What direction were you given in terms of the score for each?
For Watcher, Chloe Okuno and I discussed the idea that the score should be influenced by the protagonist Julia’s emotional state — her solitude and feeling of being watched. We agreed that the music should draw to her subjectivity and paranoia. As we developed and refined each piece of music, our conversations always went back to keeping the music authentic to her emotional point of view.
Watcher
In Emily the Criminal, the film has a gritty, realistic style that shows us modern-day Los Angeles, and we discussed the idea that the score needed to dovetail elegantly with this authentic aesthetic. Aubrey Plaza’s lead performance as Emily is powerful and enigmatic, and we discussed the idea that the score should honor and support this, subtly connecting the audience to her inner emotional life. The music would be subtler and more internal in moments of quiet tension, and then bigger and more stated in more pronounced moments of emotion.
Can you describe both scores? What were your influences?
Chloe described our opening title theme for Watcher as having the vibe of a “warped fairytale.” There’s a heightened, slightly European quality to the piece — inspired by the Bucharest location — and it combines both classical instruments like strings and piano with bowed glass. The piece is at once romantic and menacing, with a shifting tonal center that implies the film’s pervading sense of paranoia and uncertainty.
Elsewhere a theme for bells and dilapidated Soviet-era synths expresses Julia’s boredom and alienation in this unfamiliar city; pieces for warped strings and waterphone express moments of sheer terror; and bits of distorted driving synth pulse express key moments of assertion as she turns her gaze on “the watcher.”
Nathan Halpern
For Emily the Criminal we discussed the idea that the score would speak to some of her anger at the personal and economic injustice she has faced — and a lot of the music is percussive, driving, dirty, distorted, and aggressive. Our opening cue begins with more introspective music for warped drones and piano, speaking to a sense of personal pathos and pain at her current situation. As the cue progresses, aggressive drums and distorted sounds enter, speaking to these darker emotions.
In scenes of tension, dark and defamiliarized pulses and textures keep us present with her, but always with the idea that these are more internal, connected to her subjectivity — never so over the top as to break the sense of realism. I worked closely with my frequent collaborator and score producer Chris Ruggiero on these pulsating pieces.
In some key moments, a more explicitly emotional theme speaks to the timeless, universal, and mythical aspect of this story. This piece for strings, vocal textures, and electronics, speaks to what John described as a more “ancient” arc towards transcendence and the realization of selfhood.
