L.A. Phil plays 'Rebel,' 'Casablanca' and 'Waterfront' as the live-to-picture craze grows

By Rick Schultz

Nov. 15, 2016 12:20 PM PT

Call it the beginning of a beautiful friendship. The Los Angeles Philharmonic announced a three-year partnership with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to co-curate live orchestral performances with film screenings.

The partnership begins this week at Walt Disney Concert Hall when the L.A. Phil performs the scores of three classics: “Rebel Without a Cause” (1955) on Thursday, “On the Waterfront” (1954) on Friday and “Casablanca” (1942) on Sunday afternoon.

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Scott Dunn, associate conductor of the L.A. Phil’s Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, leads the Phil in the live orchestra premiere of Leonard Rosenman’s strikingly modernist score for “Rebel,” starring James Dean, Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo.

Composer-conductor David Newman, whose father Alfred (1900-70) is regarded as a giant in the Hollywood film music tradition, takes the podium for two Oscar-nominated scores: Leonard Bernstein’s for “Waterfront” starring Marlon Brando and Eva Marie Saint, and Max Steiner’s for “Casablanca” starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.

Saint, 92, won a best supporting actress Oscar for her role as Brando’s love interest, Edie, in “Waterfront.” She is scheduled to introduce the film on Friday.

For this edited conversation, Newman and Dunn talked about the relatively new phenomenon of live-to-picture scores with full orchestra entering concert halls, how composers for film were once considered sellouts, and why these three scores deserve to be heard live performed by a first-rate orchestra in a great concert hall.

Beyond what the L.A. Phil has been doing to attract younger generations into the concert hall, has a kind of worldwide movement started?

David Newman: It is a trend or movement. It’s incredibly gratifying this is happening now, and I think my father and Max Steiner would have been absolutely flabbergasted. Doing full movies with a live orchestra is more popular than ever. I just conducted Alan Silvestri’s “Back to the Future” score, which has been done all over the world, with the American Youth Symphony.

Scott Dunn: I did Disney’s “Fantasia” at the Konzerthaus in Vienna, and you would think that with their great musical tradition they wouldn’t be facing these same issues, but the director of the house was thrilled because there were all these young kids with their young parents. None of them had ever come to the Konzerthaus before.

Newman: I think John Williams is responsible for this. His stint conducting the Boston Pops was kind of a crusade of little by little trying to bring this music not to the public, because the public loves it, but to the orchestras and administrations. It’s a wonderful gateway to concert music, which is the messianic project of all these orchestras — to get as many people as possible to come and hear live music.

Why were these three film classics chosen as worthy scores for live orchestra treatment?

Dunn: The initial idea with the Philharmonic was to focus on musical high modernism in L.A. Leonard Rosenman was one of the composers who introduced modernism to film scoring. Bernstein was crazy about Len’s score. Also, “Rebel” is [shot] at Santa Monica High School and the Griffith Park Observatory.

Newman: “Waterfront” is an interesting window into Bernstein’s early career. It’s also a precursor to Bernstein’s centenary next season, and the Phil has never done “Casablanca.” Using an existing song, “As Time Goes By,” for the basis of most of the score doesn’t seem weird now, but at the time it was daring. Steiner wanted to write his own original song, but he ended up doing so much with that triple-meter swing tune. What a perfect lyric for Casablanca, where everyone’s waiting while time goes by. The film without that song is inconceivable.

How is Bernstein’s complete “Waterfront” music different from the well-known suite he derived from the score?

Newman: There’s that fantastic ending and beginning in the suite, but the score to the movie is more like chamber music — a lot of soft, bluesy and claustrophobic music. When you hear the score the way it was written in context with the movie, it’s so much more intimate and powerful at the end. I don’t get the same feeling when I listen to the suite.

What were some of the difficulties in preparing the live orchestra premiere of “Rebel Without a Cause”?

Dunn: We were fortunate because the USC/Warner Bros. archives saved every part and short score for every cue. We scanned 4,000 pages, and it was quite a detective job trying to figure out which cue was being used. You had to reverse engineer this big jigsaw puzzle. It was up to me to reproduce a continuous score that actually sounds like what you hear when you watch the film.

What are your favorite scenes in the film in terms of the scoring? Didn’t Rosenman put in a number of classical music references in “Rebel”?

Leonard liked to throw these musical jokes in. When he’s drunk, Dean is humming Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries.” Every character in “Rebel” has a Wagnerian leitmotif. There’s a lot of Alban Berg-like chamber writing, but there’s a fair amount of Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring,” especially in the knife fight and chase scene where Mineo runs into the planetarium. That’s probably my favorite music in the score. It also has this gorgeous love theme that’s played when James and Natalie finally kiss.

Won’t the visuals distract us from the aural experience?

Dunn: Since we’re predominantly wired as visual animals, the visuals do tend to overwhelm the sense of hearing. That said, most people are still able to enjoy the increased presence of the music and the live players on stage. Just hearing the music performed live for the first time brings an incredible amount of color, depth and vividness to the music that’s not necessarily apparent in the usual film version.

Newman: As a conductor, I can bring out more of the score, especially in movies like these that were recorded in mono. There’s a scene in “Waterfront” where Brando’s Terry is talking to Saint’s Edie, and they speak softer and softer while the music wants to build. It’s the love theme. But in the movie, they turn the music’s volume down. We’ll let it play, because it is a live concert.

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Classic films with the L.A. Phil

Where: Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles

When: “Rebel Without a Cause” at 8 p.m. Thursday, Scott Dunn conductor, Andy Garcia introduction. “On the Waterfront” at 8 p.m. Friday with David Newman conductor, Eva Marie Saint introduction. “Casablanca” at 2 p.m. Sunday, Newman conductor, Aaron Eckhart, introduction.

Price: $53-$183 (subject to change)

Contact: (323) 850-2000, www.laphil.org