COMPOSER John Psathas is onto something good. He has written his first ‘pavlova Western’ film score for Good For Nothing – a Kiwi style American Western film which is receiving rave reviews in the US.
FOR JOHN Psathas, who shot to media fame after composing music for the opening and closing ceremony at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, he got an opportunity to give film composition a shot.
Local director Mike Wallis had made the movie Good for Nothing in Central Otago and needed a composer  so he approached Psathas.
“The movie was really funny. I instantly wanted to write the score and wanted to use12-string guitars and strings,” Psathas says.
“We wanted to get a gritty, dirty sound. It’s an environment of dirty, unwashed men, so we made a decision to use no electronic music – we wanted to do it acoustically.
“I used grunty guitars and lush strings and a Balkan-style dulcimer which is used here in the Wild West.”
Psathas, who is currently the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra’s composer-in-residence and widely considered to be one of the three most important living composers of the Greek Diaspora, entered the world of “Mexican orchestral classical” in order to write the score, while remaining true to his Greek roots. At Victoria University, where Psathas is a Professor, students once dubbed him “the rhythm man” – an ode to his impressive style of rhythmic, melodic and Greek-influenced composition.
“Greece is the undiscovered melting pot of music. It’s at a crossroads geographically. Everyone moved through Greece so it’s like a musical encyclopedia,” he says.
Without giving the plot line away, masculinity is one of the film’s themes. In ancient Greek music, smaller intervals such as microtones reflected masculinity and the gradual move away from microtones to wider intervals, such as semitones and tones, was perceived as the “feminisation of music” by ancient Greeks, says Psathas.
“I started with every possibility and narrowed it down... The composer helps the audience to understand the story and you steer the viewer towards someone in the movie by using different chords or harmonies”, he says.
“It’s the first time I’ve written for film – and here I sound like I’m an expert,” he says laughing.
Reviewer Jim Svejda, from America’s largest classical music station KUSC, compares Psathas to Ennio Morricone.
“It would be a major achievement for an experienced film composer; as a first film score, it’s a little short of astonishing,” Svejda says.
Psathas’ latest album Helix, which was released last week, uses piano, loops, drum ‘n’ bass, 18th century Italian dance music, strings, ancient Greek music and even a special eulogy to a friend whose son died. Greek music is his thing.
“It’s part of me. Classical music for me is the other music,” he says. “It’s not my world. I mostly listen to world music and improvised music.”
Director Mike Wallis says the film, which features the NZSO, reached a “whole new level” with Psathas on board.
“The soundtrack for a Western is a huge part of it. We wanted it to sound authentic and have a proper score – make it feel like a real Western – not just rock ‘n’ roll guitars,’ he says.
In January, the film premiered at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, with a NZ release planned later this year. Both the film and score have had rave reviews internationally from film blogger Leonard Maltin and The Hollywood Report. Some stereotypically savvy Los Angeles movie buffs couldn’t wait to get their hands on the new boy in town. Wallis’ plan is to sell the movie and go from there.
“Westerns are the cornerstone of cinema,’ says Wallis. “People are attracted to it because it reflects society trying to come together before the introduction of law and when you wore a gun on your hip. There is instant drama and there is something appealing about how things are resolved quickly. Then you can get on a horse and go in any direction. You aren’t limited to the direction of a road,’ he says.
“I thought if the Italian filmmakers of the 1960s could make the great Spaghetti Westerns in Italy and Spain, why couldn’t we here in NZ.”
Wallis came up with ‘pavlova Western’.
“They have curry and noodle Westerns. There is always a culinary tradition so I thought rather than kiwifruit it should be pavlova.”
Wallis has spent years working in the film industry. He was a Weta Digital animator for The Lord of the Rings and Avatar, before leaving to complete Good For Nothing. His fiancé and South-African born lead lady Inge Rademeyer, who also works at Weta, helped to fulfill Wallis’ childhood dream of making a movie when their bid to buy a house fell through.
“I said to her as we were driving away: ‘I don’t even want to buy a house’ and she said: ‘I don’t either’. Then I said: ‘I just want to make a movie’ and she said: ‘So do I’,” he says.
They spent the next five years pouring everything they had into self-funding and producing their first feature film. Executive producer Jamie Selkirk, the Academy Award-winning editor of Return of the King, stepped in with $250,000 to complete the film with additional funding for recording and scoring from Victoria University. Initially the film was turned down by the Film Commission.
Making a movie is challenging and complicated, says Wallis, but shooting a movie in Central Otago and the Mackenzie Country plains with 20 cast and crew and a self-built white trailer, made it all worthwhile.
He wants to bring the movie home for release this year. It will feature at another ‘big wig’ US Film Festival before decisions are made.
“I would tell them to watch this space,” says Wallis, with a twinkle in his eye.