Music increases longevity of films: A R Rahman

Composer will weave magic through music in forthcoming Hollywood film Million Dollar Arm.

CHENNAI:

For A R Rahman, music and films are virtually inseparable. In the wake of many filmmakers experimenting with ‘no-song’ movies, the double Oscar-winning composer feels that films with songs are more enduring as compared to those with just the story.

Rahman believes that when people watch song and dance in a film, they want to watch it again. “When you see a film with no music, you might watch it just once or twice. There is an element of longevity in a musical as opposed to one that is not,” Rahman said in an interview.



This is why Rahman composes songs even for the Hollywood projects he is associated with. His song Jai Ho for Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire received massive international acclaim. He has continued the trend in the forthcoming Hollywood film Million Dollar Arm, which is a biographical sports drama.

“Million Dollar Arm has about 30 to 40 per cent of Hollywood spirit in the music and the rest of it is how I scored Slumdog Millionaire. Although it’s an underdog story, it has nuances I had to take care of. It has songs too but not like Jai Ho,” he said.

Directed by Craig Gillespie and featuring Mad Men star Jon Hamm in the lead, Million Dollar Arm is about an American sports agent who comes to India in search of baseball pitchers. Although a portion of the film was shot in India, Rahman said, “The film’s music has Indian as well as western sensibilities. The film is not just Indian and, therefore, I had to strike a balance between the two and produce something that could be enjoyed by everybody.”

Explaining why he agreed to compose the music of the film, he said, “I was at a point where I felt I’ve done films in several genres. I did the comedy Couples Retreat, family movie People Like Us, adventure movie 127 Hours and the musical Monkeys of Bollywood. It was like a full circle and I wanted to come back and do something hybrid — both Indian and Hollywood.”

Renowned artistes such as Sukhwinder Singh and Raghav Mathur collaborated with Rahman on this project. Rahman says the film is about “cultural exchange.” “It’s about how a bunch of Indian kids influence an American agent and vice versa. It’s a great story on cultural exchange,” he said.

Working with a brand new team in Million Dollar Arm was Rahman’s biggest challenge. “It was a whole new team. There was a new sound engineer and music supervisor. I was the only common factor in the team. When I started working on this project, everything was very fresh,” Rahman said. “I got to work with some amazing names such as Kendrick Lamar, Iggy Azalea and Wale. In essence, it was completely a new team and to collaborate with them and work was indeed a challenge,” he shared.

Let’s see how the heavyweight weaves magic through music this time. 

Published in The Express Tribune, May 7^th, 2014.

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