Ray Pride

For whatever mysterious reasons, the alchemical miracle so far in 2005 has been the American version of "The March of the Penguins." One key factor is the rich, intelligent score by former Chicagoan Alex Wurman, whose other scores include "13 Conversations About One Thing," "Criminal" and "Anchorman."

Wurman spent afternoons as a boy at his father's studio, attended Chicago's Academy of Performing Arts High School, later studying composition at the University of Miami-Coral Gables and then the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago. A move to Los Angeles led to commercial work, scoring AFI student projects, and a fortuitous meeting with Hans Zimmer ("The Lion King," "Gladiator").

Writer-director Jordan Roberts ("Around the Bend") wrote the narration for "Penguins," and Roberts has said, "It doesn't make any sense. We should have screwed it up. This should have been a big mess. But we didn't. And it wasn't. And that's a miracle." In an interview, Wurman adds that "there was some pressure because we had a quick deadline and we were traveling untraveled territory in terms of the way we were collaborating. We had never met and had never worked together before. We had no idea of each other's style. What kept us together was Luc Jacquet's initial inspiration; the way he shot it, the way he cut it and the story he was trying to tell."

An important choice was to not dwell on the original version, which includes dialogue for the penguins and love songs, too. "I watched it one time to get the idea and then I reinterpreted it for myself," Wurman says.

Wurman's Chicago background includes more than classical studies. "I did play in some very out-of the-way places," he says. "I remember playing for a 10-year-old Michael Jackson imitator on the South Side of Chicago where I was the only Caucasian man to be found. It was at a YMCA. I learned more on that gig with those guys then anything I can remember. Those are some great, uneducated musical experiences--uneducated in terms of your typical institutional type of experience. That, for me, was so important."

His family's steeped in music, and his father owned a recording studio, and was a composer of electronic music. "I'm the youngest of four kids. The next youngest is eight years older than I am, so when I was hanging around, there was a well-developed musical atmosphere [with] every single relative of mine. My mother was a violin teacher, teaching the Suzuki Method. She was an advocate of environment over genes. My father is a proper classical guy from Vienna, Austria, who was all about the genes. He thought there was nothing you can do for anyone if they don't have musical talent. So those two philosophies were clashing above my head, but in a great way for me. My father had a recording studio and his partner somehow created a relationship with Robert Moog [the synthesizer pioneer who died on Sunday]. Moog started sending parts over to my dad. My dad was like a mad scientist putting these parts together. He was one of the first musicians to apply any kind of musical endeavors to the Moog modular system synthesizer. It was serial number 2. Walter Carlos had serial number 1."

Wurman began watching his work with audiences while working on "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy." "There's a real difference in seeing a comedy with an audience. The most valuable thing for a comedy is to know how long the laughter is going to last before you start your next idea. In this case, comedy [played] into it as well. I had no prior notion that penguins were perceived as funny until I saw the movie with an audience. I'm glad that I didn't know that while I was writing music because it might have influenced me to put a little comedy in it, which is better off not there."

There were conversations about the sorts of emotions to avoid, and the sort of feeling that would elevate the film. "I was sort of given carte blanche to be as emotional as I wanted to be. If the music is beautiful, it can be a beautiful image and not a beautiful comment, although some people feel differently. The practice is to have sort of an abstract conversation and then try to go off and come back with something that clears it up. If it remains abstract throughout the whole process, that's not necessarily a bad thing."

"The March of the Penguins" is admirably reticent about anthropomorphizing or making these magnificent creatures cute. "Anthropomorphizing is a big topic with this film. I have a 4-year-old son and when the fathers go off and leave their sons? For me that was an unbearable process. How can you watch a documentary and not anthropomorphize, not project your own emotional response to a situation into what you're seeing? That's what connects you to the documentary. So what I was responding to were the beautiful visuals and the struggle of the penguins in what I imagined was a tough situation. Also, the beautiful way they interact with each other is so graceful and pretty that, whether they're feeling anything or not, that gave me a feeling."

"The March of the Penguins" continues the eternal cycle to the sea.

(2005-08-23)

Also by Ray Pride

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