Hi Rappers, I saw this article (below) about
Lisa Gerrard who wrote the music for Whale Rider and
thought you'd be interested to learn more about her. I had no idea she also
wrote the music for Gladiator (directed
by Ridley Scott). Best wishes to all – and thanks again for all those
really good questions. Jane Mills
'Lisa
Gerrard's scores are on the board' By Garry Maddox
Sydney
Morning Herald, June 16, 2005
Ridley
Scott wanted her for Gladiator and Black Hawk Down, Michael Mann wanted her for The Insider and Ali and Niki
Caro wanted her for Whale Rider. It
didn't matter that Lisa Gerrard lived in a Victorian rainforest, composing and
singing ethereal music around her other obsession, horseriding with her
daughters.
The
results have been widely acclaimed. Gerrard, who is part of the band Dead Can
Dance, won a Golden Globe for Gladiator with
Hans Zimmer and was nominated for The Insider and
Ali with Pieter Bourke…
There
have been other musical projects, too, including a European tour with Dead Can
Dance, a children's initiative to raise funds for African schools and a
possible album with Dave Gilmour from Pink Floyd. Tonight, it's a talk about
her work at the Opera House that Gerrard hopes will inspire young artists
charting their own path.
"There's
something uniquely amazing about artists," she says. "They're either
trying to plan a party or they're thinking about killing themselves."
Gerrard
is talking from her rainforest home, where she claims to be hiding from the
British filmmaker Clive Collier, who is making a documentary about her work.
Her passionate conversation jumps quickly from her grief about the war in Iraq
to growing up with abstract ethnic sounds in suburban Melbourne, the "big
soul" of Russell Crowe that should be protected rather than prosecuted,
films as global campfire stories and the need to appreciate Aboriginal culture.
Lately
she has enjoyed working on albums. "There is a kind of cyclical process
that takes place with cinema," she says. "You cannot stay there
permanently. You have to go back to that source material that is the work that
led you there."
Gerrard
believes the artist's work is to maintain sanity in the world. "Take art
out of the equation - the art of love, the art of communication, the art of
music, of poetry, of absolutes on any level - and we have just the mechanisms
that are based on greedy, selfish, materialistic behaviour. Our art brings us
to a state where we can actually make decisions based on unselfish
interests."
Two
films are her favourites. "Obviously Gladiator was
the most successful, which is the one that comes back to haunt me the
most." But she thinks Whale Rider is probably her most important film.
"I believe that Whale Rider
opened up our eyes to indigenous peoples around the world. That they still have
a strong community and are still able to exist with their spiritual
infrastructures."
Gerrard
says that when she is approached about composing for a film, she responds to
people rather than scripts or issues. "When it comes to making music, we
have these invisible ears that are capable of hearing a language from an
individual simply by them being in the room. [When directors come for a
meeting] there is definitely a spark that grows organically in the ether
between you."
Like
many artists who struggle to explain their work, Gerrard says much of what she
does is automatic rather than conscious. "Because it's based on a purely
emotional sensibility, combined with deeply touching images, people immediately
come to the point where they cry or they slow down and they look inside
themselves and they connect with the character."
