Cliff Martinez playing the Baschet crystal
It was very exciting news to hear that Cliff Martinez would be collaborating again with Steven Soderbergh for the score of Contagion. Martinez is having a very busy season with the additional release of Nicholas Winding Refn‘s Drive. Here is one recent interview with Martinez, whose biography and approach are quite unique; two of his finest scores are both for Soderbergh films: the haunting score for Solaris and the Oscar winning Traffic.
I have to add that one of my dream projects for a film restoration would be for Steven Soderbergh to recut and remaster his film King of the Hill. This movie from 1993 features superb performances by Jesse Bradford and the rest of the cast, striking cinematography by Elliot Davis (whose trio of films with Soderbergh are all visually stunning, the other two being The Underneath and Out of Sight), and pitch-perfect direction by Soderbergh; it is a sorely under-appreciated movie. Along with the recut, Cliff Martinez can rerecord some of this score with acoustic ensembles — like the woodwind parts, which are particularly rich — and the resulting version of King of the Hill could be a true revelation. Ah, dreams…
Update 2014: Here is another interview with Cliff Martinez. And King of the Hill did get released on Criterion after all, along with The Underneath!
Update 2015: Thankfully, the Martinez-Soderbergh collaboration has continued with the HBO TV series The Knick, starring Clive Owen. Here is an excellent June 2015 interview with Cliff Martinez in which he discusses his ongoing collaborations with Soderbergh and Refn as well as the challenges facing contemporary composers— summed up in a particularly amusing description of submitting scores to advertising clients.
Update 2016: On his website, you can access a Cliff Martinez Composing Masterclass with BAFTA. Listen to it through Soundcloud!
Update 2019: Really neat video with Cliff Martinez in Rotterdam!
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[…] an earlier post about composer Cliff Martinez, I mused about the (seemingly long-shot) potential of a release of Steven Soderbergh’s King […]
[…] has shared profiles of such classic composers as Henry Mancini and contemporary masters like Cliff Martinez. One of the most interesting examples of an extremely successful and acclaimed musician and […]
[…] have discussed documentaries about film and TV scoring; contemporary composers such as Jeff Beal, Cliff Martinez, and Bear McCreary; current uses of popular music with moving images such as in the work of the […]