Check out Sucker Punch director Zack Snyder, music director Marius de Vries and composer Tyler Bates talk about how the soundtrack (which is #1 on iTunes!!) plays a vital role in the new movie.
Rolling Stone raves “Sucker Punch brings back the event soundtrack” while Artist Direct adds “its not only one of the best soundtracks this year, it’s also bound to be remembered as a classic.”
Also check out the in-depth conversation below with Snyder, de Vries and Bates.
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Sweet Dreams (Just Might Be) (Made of This):
The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack from “Sucker Punch”
By David H. Ferguson
To underscore director Zack Snyder‘s visually arresting film “Sucker Punch,” an equally distinctive soundtrack had to be created-it isn’t every day that a movie self-described as “Alice in Wonderland with machine guns” comes along, so every effort was taken to fashion a soundtrack that was as intense, sexy, edgy and highly imaginative as the film.
More than two years in the making, the WaterTower Music soundtrack is the brainchild of Snyder, his producing partner Deborah Snyder, four-time Grammy-nominated composer and music director Marius de Vries (“Moulin Rouge!”) and composer/arranger/producer Tyler Bates (four-time collaborator with Snyder).
The resulting soundtrack features of-the-moment, artfully reworked versions of classic songs, along with an original mash-up of two air-fist-pumping arena anthems.
Looking at a list of the soundtrack’s vocal artists, amidst the legendary (Queen), the Icelandic royalty (Björk, Emiliana Torrini), the regrouped (Skunk Anansie) and the musically gifted (Alison Mosshart, Carla Azar, Yoav) is one never-before-seen on a CD of recorded music: Emily Browning, who plays the lead of Babydoll, the young girl whose dream world provides the ultimate escape from her darker reality, in “Sucker Punch.”
How she got in such esteemed company is a story worth hearing.
Browning relates, “Music was always going to be a big element in the film. When I originally auditioned, [producer/director] Zack [Snyder] asked me to put myself on tape singing, which I’d never done before-singing, I mean. But I really wanted to work with Zack and I really loved the script, so I did it. He liked it-I’ve no idea why!-and decided that I was capable.”
The initial meeting between Browning and Zack and Deborah Snyder was to consider her for the role of Rocket (later filled by Jena Malone), not Babydoll. But afterward, Zack swore that there was something about Browning’s face that made her a perfect choice for the central character in the piece, whom they had always envisioned performing a single track within the film. Their request for her demo produced a cover of the Roberta Flack standard “Killing Me Softly,” with Browning’s vocals accompanied solely by a friend on a lute. “It was so cool,” exclaims the director.
Once cast, the actress’ work with the soundtrack team began:
“When I got the part, we talked about the Smiths always being my favorite band, and Zack said, ‘Oh, I know Morrissey.’ I thought that was the coolest thing I ever heard and, of course, I bugged him to tell me everything about him. Later, he mentioned that he had gotten the rights to a Smiths’ song, ‘Asleep,’ for the soundtrack, and asked me if I wanted to sing it. I was terrified, of course, because there was so much pressure there, but I couldn’t say no. The fact that Zack trusted that I’d be able to do it was flattering, and an honor. So I recorded the song with Marius de Vries, and it worked out. Then Zack asked me to sing another song [Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)"], and then another [The Pixies' "Where Is My Mind?"]-it all happened pretty organically.”
Deborah Snyder adds, “It was almost a case where every time Marius went into the recording studio with Emily, he came back with more ideas of how to further use her on the soundtrack.”
De Vries had joined Zack in January 2009, when the “long process of drafting and redrafting, testing and, sometimes, abandoning song choices” began, with “a lot of debate and a lot of experimentation.” At the beginning of the process, the soundtrack team started with a consideration of the film’s period (“a loosely defined, sort of timeless 1960s,” explains de Vries). “Our initial trolling through pop music led us to that period-Jefferson Airplane’s ‘White Rabbit’ had always been conceived as being in the film. So we sort of started there, and then expanded our search…considerably,” recounts de Vries.
But why opt for covers, as most of the tracks in “Sucker Punch” are?
De Vries offers, “The vast majority of songs on the soundtrack are covers-we felt that it would be pretty much impossible to take any of the original productions and just needle-drop them into these scenes and have them tell our story in as sophisticated and precise a way as we needed them to. Almost every song has been specifically re-recorded and retooled to accomplish this.” (In addition to “White Rabbit” and the songs Browning sings are Iggy Pop’s “Search And Destroy,” the Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows” and Roxy Music’s “Love Is The Drug.”)
Later joining de Vries was composer Tyler Bates, who had previously collaborated with Zack Snyder four times. Bates remembers that de Vries had begun working with Snyder as they were finishing up on “Watchmen,” and that he himself had come aboard about a year later as “a bit of a mash up” with Marius, “mostly to handle the scoring elements and help transition in and out of songs seamlessly. But what ended up happening was, over time, the songs and the score just began bleeding into one another so much so that we both ended up working together on just about everything.”
Initially, Snyder had a vision of the songs playing in “real time” within the film, but once they were handed to de Vries and Bates, the song/score lines blurred, with “a specially created version of a song playing in the consciousness of a character going into scoring-or scoring that then goes into the song playing in the consciousness of the character.”
Bates also reasons, “In discussing covers, if you look at the history of Zack’s movies, his casting has always been really interesting actors that are not larger than the material. Being able to tailor these songs to where they fit comfortably and naturally into the film…well, ‘Watchmen’ was an iconic novel to begin with, with regard to characters and imagery, so Jimi Hendrix is okay in that movie. ‘Sucker Punch’ is Zack’s original story, and I think he didn’t want the songs to overpower the movie as much as lift it and support it. This also gave us the opportunity to tailor specifically to the style Zack was looking for, to match what he was showing on the screen.”
Weaving Browning into the sonic tapestry of the film, per Bates, “particularly at the beginning of the film, really helps get the audience into the story, with her singing of ‘Sweet Dreams.’”
As with “Sweet Dreams,” the songs function not only as soundscape, but also as signposts, bringing the moviegoer into the multi-levels of fantasy at play; without pedantic commentary on the exact place/time/action on the screen, they are musical touchstones which enhance the kick-ass action and fantasy being served up fast and hot.
“Adventurous and experimental” is how de Vries feels director Snyder went about picking the tunes for his film. Unintentionally demonstrating this, Snyder offers, “I had ‘White Rabbit’ when I was writing, because I had one segment in World War I, and I thought, ‘Woo-hoo, psychedelic freak-out, why wouldn’t you?’ We also had Björk and ‘Army Of Me’ early on.”
Producer Deborah Snyder recounts, “We had a CD with a bunch of songs that we gave to each of the girls and the department heads before we started shooting. We had first picked the songs and had Marius and Tyler do arrangements before we even shot-Marius is so great at taking songs, twisting them, mashing them up. So we had that going in, using them as a basis to edit the action sequences. Once we got the editing squared, then we could go a little further with the arrangements. When those were locked, then we had meetings to discuss the vocals for each song.”
Says de Vries, “I feel one of the strongest decisions we made, architecturally, was the female voice telling the story through song in each of the four big action sequences and, in some of those, having that female voice in place of the memorable original performance, which was male.” These voices had to be special enough, distinctive enough, to “come out from under the shadow of those iconic performances.” (The one-of-a-kind vocals of Björk remain intact in “Army of Me”-”that performance was so empowering and indelible, we felt it worked beautifully.”)
And while Browning doesn’t consider herself in that league, she did have the confidence to add “singing” to the list of formidable tasks asked of her by Zack Snyder, even if that confidence was founded on a story possibly too good to be true. Browning explains, “Zack told me that Morrissey had heard my cover of ‘Asleep,’ and that he was ‘happy with it.’ And I hope that’s true, because that would be the biggest compliment of all time…but maybe Zack just wanted to make me feel a little less nervous about my singing.”
So, it turns out that Browning may have learned an invaluable lesson (one that her onscreen character knows all too well): never underestimate the power of believing in a dream.
“Sucker Punch” Original Motion Picture Soundtrack:
“Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)” – Emily Browning; “Army Of Me (Sucker Punch Remix)” – Björk featuring Skunk Anansie; “White Rabbit” – Emiliana Torrini; “I Want It All”/”We Will Rock You” Mash-Up – Queen with Armageddon Aka Geddy; “Search And Destroy” – Skunk Anansie; “Tomorrow Never Knows” – Alison Mosshart and Carla Azar; “Where Is My Mind?” – Yoav featuring Emily Browning; “Asleep” – Emily Browning; “Love Is The Drug” – Carla Gugino and Oscar Isaac.
David H. Ferguson is a freelance writer who lives in Los Angeles, California.
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