Eastwood: Style trumps art in music

By Borys Kit
The music industry is so focused on visuals that it is shortchanging music, filmmaker Clint Eastwood argued Wednesday.

Eastwood -- who also acts as composer on many of his movies, including his latest, Warner Bros. Pictures' "Mystic River" -- made the comments during the opening keynote of the second annual Hollywood Reporter/Billboard Film and TV Music Conference, where he appeared in a conversation with The Hollywood Reporter editor-in-chief and publisher Robert J. Dowling.

"I grew up in the '40s, and when I look at today, I think I was lucky to be in that era," said Eastwood, who also oversees his own record label, Malpaso Records, at Warner Music. "There were some wonderful musical innovations at the time."

Of today's music scene, Eastwood said: "The music part of it is leaving. It's becoming more visual."

Speaking at the beginning of the two-day conference held at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel, the director contended that the industry is becoming preoccupied with show at the expense of music, hoping that maybe "the act" -- an emphasis on style and spectacle -- will help get the industry through this difficult time.

"The record executive is sitting there hoping something will fall out of the sky," Eastwood said, noting that it would take a visionary to lift the business out of its current quagmire.

Before anyone could label Eastwood a fuddy-duddy, however, he volunteered that he admires certain aspects of rap, particularly its lyrics, except for those of the "your mother is a bitch" sort.

Dowling asked Eastwood how film scoring has changed over the decades. "I notice there's more songs and less full scoring," Dowling said.

Eastwood agreed. "Sometimes it looks like they're looking for a hit record," he said. "They think, 'If the movie tanks, maybe we can at least get a hit record out of it.' "

But Eastwood added that the use of songs really depends on the film. For example, he used songs in his "Bridges of Madison County," though in that case he used obscure songs to highlight how the two main characters -- an immigrant housewife and a loner photographer -- were outsiders.

Eastwood discussed his approach to music in his movies as well as how he moved from acting and directing to composing.

"The disadvantage of doing several jobs is that you're a jack of all trades and master of none," he said. "But one of the good parts of that is that you see the big picture."

Eastwood also criticized the common practice of hiring composers after the movie is shot, saying he likes to discuss the characters and the look of a film with composers early on, even showing composers the script. He also likes to get the sound designer and composer together so all are on the same page.

"The movie business is very fad-oriented," Eastwood said about the state of music in film. He said that movie executives ask themselves, " 'What is the music that was in the movie that made $100 million in the first week?' That's how they judge good music. But we all know that a lot of bad movies make a lot of money, and a lot of good movies make no money. It's a crapshoot."