Max Avery Lichtenstein is a composer who has written scores and songs for narrative features (James Marsh’s The King, Todd Haynes’ Far From Heaven) and documentaries (Mondays at Racine, Very Semi-Serious: A Partially Thorough Portrait of New Yorker Cartoonists, Tarnation) recently worked on The Janes.

Max Avery Lichtenstein

This documentary, which screened at Sundance, is about a group of women who ran a clandestine abortion service in late-1960s Chicago — before Roe vs. Wade made the procedure legal throughout the US. These women risked the wrath of the mafia, the church and (most of all) the state to provide safe, affordable and compassionate services to those most in need. The film’s use of archival footage coupled with honest interviews with the Janes themselves conveys the spirit of revolution in that historic moment.

“The film’s editor Kristen Huntley was just starting to weave together archival footage using my scores from the films Harley and Weed & Wine as temp,” explains Lichtenstein. “The directors Emma Pildes and Tia Lessin really liked the energy and atmosphere that my music was bringing to these vintage scenes, so they reached out to see if I could write some custom “caper”-style themes that they could confidently use to build the cut around.

“I usually score directly to picture, but this early involvement before a first cut had been assembled gave me the freedom to focus on establishing a distinct vibe and energy for the score. I also think it allowed Kristen, Tia, and Emma to quickly nail down the overall spirit and tone of the film, which helped them as they focused on the edit.”

Emma Pildes

Let’s find out more from Lichtenstein…

What direction were you given in terms of the score?
Emma and Tia loved the idea of approaching the score like it was a classic ‘60s heist film — the goal was to highlight the clandestine, risky and rebellious nature of the Janes’ work. There are also a surprising number of funny moments in the film, so they wanted the music to accent these as well. At the same time, the film explores a serious and emotionally fraught subject, so it was important that the score would also respectfully support (and leave space for) the women’s deeply personal stories.

Can you describe the score? What were your influences?
Much of the score is distinctly retro sounding, with a smokey mid-century jazz vibe. There are also cues that lean more into ‘60s rock and soul but are still structured to work as an underscore.

Producing The Janes score was a lot of fun because I was able to really embrace the arrangement style of classic caper scores from the ‘60s. I was inspired by the work of Roy Budd on Get Carter, Lalo Schifrin’s work on Bullitt and Mission Impossible, and Quincy Jones’ score for The Italian Job. Henry Mancini and Bernard Herrmann are obvious influences as well.

Tia Lession

What instruments does it include?
Many of the cues feature prominent bass lines, which is a noticeable component of ‘60s scores. I used upright bass and electric bass and would sometimes include both in a cue to create a unique sound that sits somewhere in between jazz and rock. Drums and percussion also play a key role in the score. The rhythmic elements really help to maintain the film’s forward momentum, even when the cues are tucked under dialogue.

There are other homages to the classic sounds of the ‘60s and ‘70s, including woodwinds, pizzicato strings, Hammond organ, and twangy electric guitar. For the more intimate and emotional moments, I pared things back and relied on a small ensemble of piano, cello and double bass.

Can you talk about your process? What instrument do you start out on?
For The Janes, I generally started each cue by working on the rhythm. Frequently, it would be a brushed drum kit pattern or a repeating bass line that would set the pace. From there I would build up the arrangement with electric guitar, organ and woodwinds. In the early phase of scoring (before I was working to picture), I produced tracks that would build over the course of a few minutes so Kristen could choose excerpts that had the feel or intensity she needed while cutting.

Once the picture was in the fine-cut stage, I went back into each scene where Kristen had used my themes and rebuilt the arrangement to work perfectly against picture. I also developed and expanded upon the thematic material I wrote early to score the scenes that didn’t have temp. Overall, it was a very organic process of evolution that seemed to serve the storytelling well.

Max Avery Lichtenstein

What feedback did you get from the director Tia Lessin? Can you give an example?
Feedback is always helpful; a good back-and-forth really gets the cues doing what they need to. I tend to record my ideas as quickly as possible so I can send them to editorial in a rough-mixed QuickTime for review. That way we can all get an early sense for what works, what needs revision and what needs a totally different approach.

There was one scene in The Janes that particularly benefited from this process. It’s a long segment about the rising women’s movement. My original approach was to highlight the strong-willed attitude of the women protesting in the archive footage, so I gave the music a kind of “let’s get to work” energy. While the seriousness and importance of the movement was reflected in my original cue, Tia, Emma and Kristen quickly realized that we also needed to represent the joy that this rising social movement was instilling in its participants. Tia suggested drawing inspiration from “Brand New Day” as done by The Staple Singers, which really captured that joyfulness. I did another pass from that perspective and hit things right on the mark.

Was there something particularly challenging about this project? If so, what?
The challenge with any documentary is avoiding overt emotional manipulation with the music. In a film about abortion, this becomes essential. The intimate stories that the women share about their personal experiences with illegal abortion needed to speak for themselves, so all of those moments in the film are free of music. Instead, we used the score to recreate the revolutionary atmosphere of the time and to highlight the rebellious cat-and-mouse game these women were playing with the authorities. This allowed the film’s most powerful moments to resonate even deeper.