Programme Notes: CineMasters: Craig Armstrong

Craig Armstrong OBE is one of Scotland’s best-known composers. Born in Glasgow in 1959, he studied at the Royal Academy of Music, graduating in 1981. Since then he has worked with theatre companies including the Royal Shakespeare Company and orchestras including the London Sinfonietta and the RSNO, and with bands and musicians including Massive Attack, Madonna, Texas and U2. He has released several well-received albums under his own name, including The Space Between Us. 

Uniquely, he does not draw a distinction between classical and contemporary music – nor believe one should exist. ‘There seems to be a general consensus in society of what’s good and bad, but in the purest sense there’s no such thing as high art and no such thing as low art,’ he says. ‘[Music] touches you, full stop.’ [1]

It is this openness and generosity of approach that characterises the film soundtrack work for which Armstrong is perhaps most renowned. Whether he is composing music for slow-burn indie hits or spectaculars by the world’s biggest directors, he has a gift for drawing together diverse influences and styles to write music that is always unmistakably Armstrong. His emotive, beautiful work has garnered him numerous awards, including a Golden Globe for Moulin Rouge!, BAFTAs for both Moulin Rouge! and Romeo + Juliet, and a Grammy for Ray.

For this season of films scored by Armstrong, in partnership with Sonica – whose association with Armstrong goes back to 2010 – GFT is screening some of the composer’s most high-profile work alongside some lesser-known gems. Peter Mullan’s Orphans features some of Armstrong’s most moving music, while in Ray, his soundtrack rises to the challenge of complementing the original songs of one of soul’s greatest voices, Ray Charles. His frequent collaborations with director Baz Luhrmann are represented by Romeo + Juliet and The Great Gatsby, whose soundtracks bring together classical and pop in a perfect match for Luhrmann’s theatrical, genre-crashing aesthetic. And in The Quiet American, Armstrong’s versatility is on show as he collaborates with Vietnamese musicians on a score that seamlessly blends music of the East and West – for, as he notes, ‘They are inseparable.’ His democratic, universal vision – his belief that should be no divisions or oppositions in music – is what unites these films, whether historical or fantastical, hard-hitting or swooningly romantic.

Craig Armstrong’s first collaboration with director Baz Luhrmann was a contemporary twist on Shakespeare’s tragedy, fusing the original playscript with pulsingly modern visuals, in a film that made household names of Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes as the doomed young lovers.

Armstrong reaffirmed his association with his home city with the soundtrack to Peter Mullan’s black comedy. The night before their mother’s funeral, her three sons and one daughter reunite in a Glasgow pub for their own private memorial. Simmering resentments and long-held secrets make it a less than cathartic occasion – and the family’s troubles are only beginning. The stories of four siblings ostensibly mourning their mother but troubled by a deeper grief takes some wild turns in this film that is sinister, hilarious and hard-hitting.

Craig Armstrong was awarded the 2004 Grammy for Best Original Score for his work on Taylor Hackford’s biopic of soul singer Ray Charles. Struck blind at only seven years old, Charles nonetheless rose from poverty and tragedy to become one of the biggest soul stars in the world. From his early days living in hardship in Florida to his world fame, via heartbreak, addiction and the fight for racial equality, Ray tracks a life like no other, in which a timeless hit song is never far from a downward spiral. Yet through it all, Hackford’s film shows us at all times Ray Charles’s genius and grace – embodied in a dazzlingly charismatic central performance from Jamie Foxx, heading a peerless cast.  

Michael Caine and Brendan Fraser star in Philip Noyce’s humidly atmospheric adaptation of Graham Greene’s classic novel of love and misadventure, set in the French-governed Vietnam of the 1950s. American journalist Fowler (Caine) finds his comfortable life in Saigon with his Vietnamese lover Phuong (Do Thi Hai Yen) thrown into disarray by the arrival of a second American, Pyle (Fraser), who insists that France’s governance of the country cannot endure, and that conflict is imminent. In truth, Pyle is by no means the ‘quiet American’ of the title, and Fowler is about to become embroiled in a tale of divided loyalties and deadly secrets.

Armstrong was reunited with Baz Luhrmann for the director’s glittering adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s great American novel of the Jazz Age. Naïve Midwesterner Nick Carraway finds himself drawn into the wild lifestyle of his enigmatic neighbour Gatsby – a world of champagne, diamonds, and seemingly endless parties. But beneath this opulence, cracks are showing in the American Dream. Armstrong’s gorgeous soundtrack captures the sense of partying to the end of days, a haunting motif from singer Lana Del Ray presaging the dreams about to break.

Explore the CineMasters: Craig Armstrong programme and book your tickets at glasgowfilm.org/CineMasters

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