Exclusive Interview With 'Kiss Of The Spider Woman' Editor Brian A. Kates
Image Source: IMDb
At New York Comic Con, CultureSlate had the chance to talk to several amazing artists and storytellers who have worked on Broadway, film, music, and TV in various ways. All of them shared their stories, how they came into their roles, and what their jobs entail in the industry.
This interview is with Brian A. Kates. He is an editor and has worked on movies, such as Kiss of the Spider Woman, taking the meaning of musicals in film to a whole new level.
CultureSlate: What is it like to edit together musical numbers in a thriller setting, since this is not what people normally think of when they think of musical movies?
Brian: I think that's why people like it. We're taking our cues from some of the great movie musicals, mostly Cabaret. In Cabaret, the songs don't only exist if they're being performed in the cabaret or in a beer garden, they need to actually be sung in the world, and in our movie, they need to be sung in the movie. There's no singing in the prison, although there is a number in the prison yard, because people do sing, and incarcerated people will sing if given the chance. But it was really about putting music on the screen and having what's happening on the screen be a reflection of what's happening in the prison between Valentín and Molina, and what's happening between Valentín and Molina is a love story. It's a story of potential betrayal and also a story of heroism and loyalty. And that is also the story on the screen. That is also the movie that Molina is telling in a different context, in the context of an MGM style Hollywood musical. There's a somewhat campier version, and there's an un-campy version, and they talk to each other.
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Image Source: West End Theater
CultureSlate: What is the process like to edit different scenes together for musicals on screen, particularly for Kiss of the Spider Woman?
Brian: Everything in editing is about concision, removing redundancy, energy flow, and emotional continuity. That means that if a song makes a point, but overstays its welcome, then it has to get shorter. If something's confusing, it could be because there are too many ideas at once, and you need to remove some. If something feels too fast, it could be because there's too many things or sometimes just because you're cutting literally too quickly, and you’re not letting things sink into your body as an audience member, they are happening superficially. So, then you have to make things longer.
It's very much like music. For me, the challenge is taking a great score and letting it play, but also tailoring it around what's necessary for this particular context, which is that Molina is narrating a story about a movie. We did cut some stuff. We did extend some stuff, too. What I love about this score is that we're including two songs that have never been seen in any production of physical Spider Woman since the workshop production in 1990. I love those songs. One is called “Everyday Man”. The other is called “Never You”. “Everyday Man” is a beautiful song. It's sung by Diego Luna and Jennifer Lopez. In the workshop production, it was a steel drum number, and now it's a full MGM orchestra number. It really shows what you can do with great orchestration, rethinking of musical ideas, and adapting them for different contexts. Part of what was fun for me on this job was that all of that stuff also went through me. It wasn't just for the music department. It was for all of us, to some extent, to figure out the tone of the movie. And I love working with music, and I loved being able to do it in such a grand way the first time.
Image Source: CPH:DOX
CultureSlate: Did you have a musical or show that influenced you and made you realize this is what you wanted to do?
Brian: The movie I loved is The Wiz. It’s a strange movie. It's very dark. It's a nightmarish movie in a lot of ways. But the music is astounding. It's not just Charlie Smalls, it was Quincy Jones arranging. In a lot of ways I felt a parallel relationship with Sam Davis, our composer on Kiss of the Spider Woman, to Quincy Jones on The Wiz. Because Quincy Jones took an existing score and he expanded it and re-orchestrated it and added things to it. And what Sam Davis did on ours was to take John Kander and Fred Ebb’s score and lyrics and do the same thing and make something entirely new where all of the musical DNA comes from an existing source. I always knew that about The Wiz, and I never thought I'd get a chance to be part of the process of doing that for another classic musical.
CultureSlate: Do you have a favorite project that you've worked on?
Brian: I co-edited with Stacy Goldate the movie It's Never Over. Jeff Buckley, directed by Amy Berg, which is a music doc, a biography of Jeff Buckley. I'm very proud of it. It's hard to tell a story through music. In this case, it's a documentary told through music - through Jeff's songs. It's similar to Spider Woman in the sense that we had access to Jeff's entire musical catalog from Sony. Much the same way that John Kander gave us the rights to any existing melodies of Spider Woman that he ever wrote. I had a palette to work with that was like having a score, but I was able to interpret and analyze where different melodies would fit into the story, in this case of Jeff Buckley's life. Sometimes it was chronological and sometimes it was not. Sometimes it was emotional or it had to do with the lyrics. Jeff's catalog, for someone who died young, at age 30, was incredibly diverse in terms of the types of music. He did folk. He did a lot of acoustic stuff. He also played with some electronic stuff and with Indian and Pakistani instrumentation as well. There's a huge palette that I got to play with to honor him, and also to make his story come alive in many dimensions, not just talking heads, although the people interviewed are exceptional, but also sonically and musically.
Be on the lookout for more interviews in this artist, film, and musician series!
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