NPR’s Audie Cornish has an interesting discussion with director Antoine Fuqua about the making of SOUTHPAW, which opens this weekend.
The course of the conversation turns towards James Horner, who scored the film before dying in a plane crash on June 22. The picture is, evidently, dedicated to the composer.
One snippet in particular jumps out as both an interesting insight into the making of SOUTHPAW, and a testament to Horner’s belief in…and dedication to…his craft.
FUQUA: Oh, wow. James is - he was an incredible human being. He was a filmmaker through and through. He was one of the most gentle people I've ever met. Even the way he spoke was very soft and thoughtful. He was magical. And he had this childlike wonderment in his eyes, but he was an amazing artist, an amazing poet. And I loved him, and we became friends. And James was a family man. He loved his children. He called me on a Saturday, after he watched the movie, and I said I don't have any money because it wasn't a big budget movie. And he said to me, I love the movie. I love the father-daughter relationship. Don't worry about the money. I'm just going to do it. And he did it for nothing. He paid his crew out of his own pocket.
Fuqua's comments unexpectedly veer towards Horner’s interest in the director's remake of THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, due on screens January 2017.
FUQUA: And I just found out a couple days ago his team flew out here to Baton Rouge, and they brought me all the music from "Magnificent Seven" - he had already wrote it for me based on the script.
CORNISH: Oh, my God.
FUQUA: And he did it all off the script because he wanted to surprise me. And I thought it was a gift or something. And they all came out here and they said, Antoine, James wrote the music for "Magnificent Seven" already, and it's just glorious. And that's my memory of James.
It’s important to note that Fuqua stops short of indicating whether Horner’s MAGNIFICENT SEVEN score will actually be utilized (i.e. adapted in some way) for his film. But now that the score’s existence is known, it’s difficult to imagine we won’t be hearing it in some form in the not too distant future. Kind of exciting, touching, and even poetic in a way.
THIS piece at NPR has more of Fuqua interview, which can also be heard via the embed below.
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Glen Oliver
“Merrick”
