Interview: Marco Beltrami (composer, LOGAN) (8th March 2017)

The latest installment of 20th Century Fox‘s X-MEN franchise is a radical departure from the past cinematic adventures of the mutant community – you could say that James Mangold‘s LOGAN is a departure from the superhero movie genre as a whole. Meditative, emotional, visceral and very, very violent, it acts more as a discussion on legacy and not-so-much as the passing on of a torch as how it feels to know that your flame is inevitably dying, especially one as seemingly inextinguishable as Hugh Jackman‘s Wolverine.

One of the key elements to the film is the sharp and angular composition of Academy Award-nominated Marco Beltrami who has come up with something entirely unexpected for LOGAN: a score that swings between delicate and haunting themes, harking back to cinema past, to vicious and dirty experimental tonal pieces which certainly gets as under your skin as Wolverine’s adamantium claws.

AEISD’s Leonard Sultana was incredibly lucky to get the chance to talk to Marco about the production of LOGAN, about the collaborative relationship he had with his director, and about what it took to put the steel back into the superhero movie…

LOGAN is directed by James Mangold, co-written by Mangold alongside the writers Michael Green and David James Kelly, and produced by Lauren Shuler Donner, distributed by 20th Century Fox. Set in a near-but-not-too-distant future, Logan and Professor Charles Xavier must cope with the loss of the X-Men when a corporation lead by Nathaniel Essex is destroying the world’s mutant population, with Logan’s healing abilities slowly fading away and Xavier’s Alzheimer’s not only forcing him to forget, but also making him a distinct threat to himself and others. Logan is trying to care for his frail mentor on the fringes of society, when he is trust into looking after a young girl named Laura Kinney, a new mutant with the abilities – and attitude – of the Wolverine himself. Stars Hugh Jackman (Logan), PATRICK STEWART (Charles Xavier), Sienna Novikov (Laura Kinney), Boyd Holbrook (Pierce), STEPHEN MERCHANT (Caliban), and RICHARD E. GRANT (Dr. Zander Rice). The film was released internationally on 1st March 2017.