Michael J. Fox Requested ‘No Violins’ for Emotional Yet Joyful Doc ‘Still’
variety.comJon Burlingame For a film or TV composer, the most difficult assignments are often documentaries. There is usually very little money, and finding the right tone and musical approach can be a weeks- or months-long challenge.
Three of this year’s entries in the Emmy category for original documentary score are exemplary for their musical depiction of people and places: John Powell’s music for “Still: A Michael J.
Fox Movie,” about the actor and his Parkinson’s condition; Blake Neely’s score for “Pamela, a Love Story,” about former “Baywatch” star Pamela Anderson; and Erica Procunier’s music for the three-part nature series “Great Lakes Untamed.” “Still” was the first doc ever tackled by Powell, whose big-screen scores include the “How to Train Your Dragon” trilogy and the “Bourne” action series, and who wanted to work with director Davis Guggenheim (“An Inconvenient Truth”). “Davis wanted music that was joyful, that was celebrating a life,” Powell says of the Apple+ film.
Guggenheim told him that when Fox agreed to do the doc, the “Family Ties” star insisted “no violins” – apparently concerned that a string section might sentimentalize scenes of Fox’s growing physical difficulties as a result of Parkinson’s disease.
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