Words by Joe Williams

It’s rare, somewhat strange and yet incredibly exciting when a filmmaker is both director and composer on a project — particularly when that person is Viggo Mortensen.

Back in 2020, after two decades of leading both gargantuan Hollywood epics and auteur-driven, indie masterpieces alike, the actor, writer, publisher, singer, painter, photographer and musician added another craft to his resume: directing. Falling, a deeply intimate portrayal of a gay man’s relationship with his prejudiced (yet increasingly dementia-ridden) father, marked Viggo’s debut as a writer and a director, as well as boasting his first original film score. But it certainly wasn’t the first time he’d made music, nor even the first time he’d contributed music to a film.

Almost twenty years earlier, the artist lent his vocal talents to ‘The Return of the King’ on the third Lord of the Rings’ soundtrack by Howard Shore — and the keener LOTR nerds will remember Aragorn’s on-screen singing in the extended version of The Fellowship of the Ring. You might not know, however, that Viggo’s put out multiple albums through his publishing house Perceval Press (you can add publisher to the resume, too).

These contain a mixture of solo projects, like the most recent release, 2018’s Godzilla Sleeps Alone, and collaborations with other artists — particularly with acclaimed guitarist virtuoso and musical maverick Buckethead. In short; music is the man’s veins as much as filmmaking is. Cut to 2023, and whilst developing his achingly beautiful and intentionally “Classic” Western drama, The Dead Don’t Hurt, a project was born that seemed to embody both his long-standing spirit of collaboration and affinity for sonic storytelling.

As a standalone film, The Dead Don’t Hurt is a uniquely old-fashioned spin on the genre that features a great performance from Viggo and even greater performance from Vicky Krieps (Phantom Thread, Corsage). But viewed as a project by Viggo, with a musical score developed as meticulously and instinctively as the screenplay and direction, it becomes something else entirely; a bonafide fusion of all types of storytelling, where every element is as important as the other.

Speaking with Viggo, who dials in over Zoom from the church/recording studio that doubles up as accommodation for his London stay, we explore the process of scoring as a form of narrative, why sound in general and other filmmaker’s relationship to it is of great interest to him, and what the future holds for the 65-year-old as a fully-fledged film composer.

At what point in developing The Dead Don't Hurt did you know that you'd be also contributing the score for it?

Pretty early, actually. It first happened during the process of making Falling, the first movie I directed. Once I had the script ready, and I had the actor I wanted, it took me another four and a half years or so to find the money to actually shoot it. So, during that time, I was thinking, ‘What else can I do?’ I started to wonder if it would have music, and if it did, what kind? I discovered it partly by accident. That thinking became like an extension of writing the screenplay. In a way, it became part and parcel of the process — I would sit down with the script and start trying to come up with melodies, or just musical ideas which might be useful for certain transitions. I gradually started piecing that together, and ended up coming up with a lot of it — more than half of it, actually — well before we started shooting. It sounds sort of counterintuitive, sort of backwards, but it ended up being useful.

It was then during post-production that I realised that editing images wasn't that different from editing music. It all involved watching, listening and paying attention to duration, pacing, rhythm, and tone. I got comfortable editing images because, in a certain way, it felt very much like editing music, which I’m familiar with — so that was really helpful. Then, having realised that by accident for Falling, I did it intentionally with The Dead Don't Hurt. I just sat down with the script and the piano, and I started thinking about the period historically; what would the music be this time? I knew I wanted to make what looked like and felt like a ‘classical’ Western, with proper attention to period detail. I knew everything would look and sound historically correct, and that the camera work would be simple and elegant, and not draw too much attention to the mechanics of the filmmaking. And I knew it should be the same for the music.

What exactly were you looking for in the music?

I wanted it to be original music that felt like it was from that time — with influences in American music, classical music, Celtic music, Appalachian sounds, and so forth. So I just started putting it together as I was looking at the script. I’d imagine the edit, and was thinking ‘I don't need it here for this scene, I don't think this transition needs it’, etc. I was looking to come up with music that would support and complement what was to be shown, rather than standing apart from the image. I'm not a big fan of music that deliberately tries to tell the audience what to feel or think, any more than I am of screenwriting or acting or camera work that does that same thing. It’s just not my taste. So I ended up coming up with the music, and we recorded practically all of it many months before we started shooting, and it also served as a guide. This time around, I did share it, and I played quite a bit of it for the cinematographer, the producers, some of the actors and my first AD, because sometimes with music you can explain an idea better than you can with words. And I would say, ‘Okay, this is what this scene should feel like’.

To what extent did the writing of the screenplay and the score inform each other? Was there some sort of creative dance involved there?

Yes, and particularly because of the film’s nonlinear structure. There are these ellipses, these big time jumps — especially involving Vicky Krieps’ character, Vivienne. I knew that the music would really complement these moments and the themes relating to her childhood, and her own sense of motherhood, so that the leaps through time would be more organic and natural. I think the music was pivotal in shaping the edit, so that it wouldn't feel jarring.

Usually a composer would just submit demos to the director, but seeing as you were operating as both, what did the journey of integrating the music with the image look like?

Well, I basically had all of the music ready, and [the editor] Peter Pederson is just really, really good at cutting images to music. He's incredibly gifted in that regard, so he understood right away. I shared tracks with him as he was getting the dailies while we were shooting, so he could get a start on starting to assemble with music while we were shooting.

I said, ‘I've already composed it. Now we can alter these and tailor them to some degree, but in most cases, the music should be dictating the rhythm of the scene.’ So then, when we properly sat down together, it was incredibly helpful because he had already gotten a head start on using finished music with the images. Which is certainly not always the case with filmmaking.

Not every film has such an organic relationship with its music.

No. I was reading the other day about Robert Altman's McCabe & Mrs. Miller. Apparently, before shooting, he was listening a lot to these Leonard Cohen songs. I think it was those three that he used in the movie: ‘The Stranger Song,’ ‘Sisters of Mercy’ and ‘Winter Lady.’ He was apparently listening to it a lot while shooting, but in editing, he was listening to it all the time. I don’t think he even knew at that point that he was going to be able to get this music, because it would have been really expensive. In any case, he eventually connected with Leonard Cohen, and Cohen facilitated that being used. And anyone that’s seen the film will know just how emblematic of that movie that music truly is. I found that very interesting, and even though that wasn’t original music made specifically for the film, he was actually doing what I was doing, which was allowing it to shape his idea of the narrative and edit.

Altman had such an amazing relationship with sound in general. Apparently, when he showed Warren Beaty the full film for the first time, Beaty turned around within the first few minutes of that crazy sound mix and said, “Is it going to sound like this the whole fuckin’ time?”

(laughs) He didn’t love it? That’s funny. Well, I mean, Altman had done that in M*A*S*H,  and used that style in pretty much all his movies. That was this style, that sort of ensemble acting, with overlapping storylines and overlapping dialogue. It was his signature.The only actor/director I can think of who did that as well, or even better, was a Spanish director and his name is Luis García Berlanga. He did The Executioner. He was a master of that type of filmmaking, too. Everyone should check him out — not enough people watch him.

How much of a factor did period authenticity play a part in your score for The Dead Don’t Hurt?

Well, I thought a lot about what classical music was being played at the time, what music was listened to in the saloons at the time, and what sort of music generally was being played live at the time, y’know — what was somewhat popular? And also, what do we think of, historically, when we think of the sounds of the 19th century? What were the musical influences in the US then? On this score, Scarlet Rivera played violin sometimes in a straight way, but she also played a sort of Appalachian style, using a different kind of bowing in some sections. That’s repeated again in the final long piece, where we revisit some of the themes you've heard throughout the movie but with slightly different instrumentation.

Cameron Stone played the cello, which is the heart of the score really. He used lots of different techniques, but played on this beautiful old cello — it's like a 300-year-old cello he has. His cello playing and Scarlet’s violin really complimented each other so much. Once we had the melodies learned, I said, ‘Okay, here's an idea that I haven't completely fleshed out, but let's sit down, let's just try it and see what happens.’ And there is an instance of a piece that turned out really well because we left it to chance. But all of this was informed by constantly thinking about the performance.

Where did you record the soundtrack?

The Travis Dickerson recording studio. He's the guy I've always recorded with, having initially done things with him and Buckethead and other musicians. I've recorded a lot of stuff over the years there — I did the score for Falling mostly there, with two extra days of recording in a London church. In this recording studio I’m now, actually. But for this one, we recorded everything well before the shoot, in Chatsworth, California. However, there are some things in the movie recorded in the actual location. With the saloon scenes, what you're hearing is actually played by Rafael Plana on that upright piano in the saloon, so you hear a different kind of sound. Of course the piano itself isn’t perfectly in tune, which is just right for it. So that's a sort of organically different sounding type of instrumentation and recording. There’s also a scene with live music in a restaurant and an art exhibition, where we cast two players from Durango, Mexico, which is where we were shooting. As it turned out, they were husband and wife — a cellist and a violinist that played together. Some of that stuff isn’t on the soundtrack, but it’s in the film, and it’s important.

There’s a balance on your soundtrack of richly melodic tracks and parts that wander more into ambient, abstract sound design. And then moments of profound silence. What was the thinking behind this?

Well, even the abstract stuff was done like the cello or the inside of the piano or something, y’know? Not that I have anything against this at all, but it wasn't electronic music or anything like that — it made sense, for this film, to always be using actual instruments to create those sounds. Those more abstract sections of music were laid down months before shooting; a bunch of things that I knew would work as transitional pieces of music. There were some things we did make during the editing, where I might realise, ‘Okay, I need one more little piece here to stitch things together and try some different things.’ And then, of course, there's plenty of sections where there's no music at all. You just don't think about it. So when it comes in, it feels right.

It’s just like with the screenplay itself, and the scenes you shoot as a director. Even though there are scenes or performances or pieces of music that are beautiful, and that you love, you need to know when to sacrifice them for the sake of the film. In the end, you have to be cold about it and go, ‘If this is not moving the story forward, if it's not complementing, or if it's just too much additional information, then it's got to go’. And maybe we'll use them some other way, some other day, for something else. But there really were a couple pieces that I really liked that we just took out and said, you know what, it's actually much better this scene with no music at all.

What compositional tools did you find most useful for this score?

Just for me, it was very simple. It was the piano, and then in some cases, singing out loud parts of melodies to tie it all together. That's how Cameron and Scarlett (the cello and violin players) learned the melodies from me. I would play for them, and then we would talk about it, and then they would work it up and come to an agreement on exactly how to proceed, and then we would just record it. Being able to talk about it, too. Articulation. And the actual screenplay, of course. The screenplay fed the music, and the music fed the shooting and the editing of the film.

Beyond the sheer joy of making music, why did it feel important to you to score it? Was it just simply a case that ideas were coming to you?

That was it. I mean, I'd be the first one to say, ‘You know what, I'm not sure what to do here. I know what kind of sounds I want, but I just don't know how to do it.’ But the ideas did come to me. I don't know if the next movie I’ll direct will even have music, and if it does, it's probably not going to be me. Because I don't think I'd be the best person for it. But it just so happened that, in this case, I had a very clear idea of what the music should sound like — and how to do it. Maybe it was just luck, you know, sometimes things fall together that way, but I'm not assuming that's always going to be the case. I’m also excited by the prospect of another composer showing me ideas. It’s like how I enjoy being surprised by the actors and by the film crew.

A good idea can come from anywhere, and many times someone will come up with a thought that you didn't have, and it will make better what you had set out to do. That's true even of doing the score for this movie. Cameron might say, ‘Well, what about this? Instead of going down here, what if we go up a little longer and try this?’ Then maybe that stimulates another idea. I mean, that’s collaboration. It’s the most fun part about making movies. It's a very complete and creative universe, and you get better results. It’s a team sport.

Does it feel more like a team sport on that side of the camera, as opposed to being an actor?

You know, it depends on the actor, and it depends on the director. I've always, as an actor, been interested in what the other actors are doing and what everybody in the movie is doing. I love the whole process of going from a screenplay to a big screen. It's a long, complicated process, and I've been lucky to work for some really good directors and good actors who are really interested in the collaborative aspect of filmmaking.

I've seen people who are really efficient and inclusive get the most out of the people that are working on their team. And then I've seen a few directors who are, either out of pride or insecurity, not open to input. Sometimes they still make good movies, but I think maybe they would have been even better if they'd been more open to unexpected ideas from others.

If there was any film — or even a specific scene or sequence — in your entire filmography that you could rescore with your own music, what would it be and why?

It's a good question. I never thought of that. I guess, to some degree, it's just about personal taste. You know, there's some movies that I've been in where there have been amazing scores, but where it's kind of wall-to-wall, start to finish, y’know? And that's just not my taste. I would have maybe had less music. Just generally less of it. So it’s less that there’s a film or scene I'd like to score, and more: ‘What if there had been less?’ Just some more musical restraint.

Do you think you would ever score a film by another director if they came to you?

Well, I did do that for Alonso and Jauja. There's a couple of pieces. He'd made four movies before that and had never had any music. Then, suddenly, in the editing, he said, ‘I'm hearing music. I'd like to have music in two places here.’ And I said, ‘Well, we don't have any money to, but… what kind of music? Does it have to be from this period?’ No, it could be anything. I said, ‘Could it have piano, or could it have electric guitar? He said, ‘It could be anything.’ So I sent him five or six tracks that I'd done with the guitarist Buckethead. He picked two he liked a lot, and they fit perfectly, even without re-editing the movie where he wanted them — they sort of flowed magically somehow. So I did that. But yeah, I'd be open to it. I don't know if anybody would want me to. Maybe they just think that the soundtrack that I've made for both my movies are particular to my kind of filmmaking? Or would they like my approach? I'd want to sort of see the screenplay and start doing it beforehand, and then be willing to rework stuff afterwards as well… Yeah — why not? Who knows?

The Dead Don’t Hurt releases in UK cinemas on June 28th. The soundtrack is available via Sony Soundtracks / Milan Records.