Michael Giacchino Used ‘Society Of The Snow’ Music To Give Voice To Victims Of Tragic Andes Plane Crash – Sound & Screen Film
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Society of the Snow tells the story of the rugby team whose plane crashed in the Andes mountains in 1972, the incident made famous in the book and 1993 movie Alive. But whereas Alive focused on the survivors, who had to resort to eating the dead crash victims to survive, J.A. Bayona’s Venice Film Festival-closing movie focuses on the ones who did not make it.
“This one is really about a more internal conversation with the folks who weren’t able to make it, who aren’t here to tell their story,” Giacchino said after a performance of the Netflix film’s score at Deadline’s Sound & Screen: Film awards-season event.
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The score includes a vocal choir that sings in the language of Mapuche. an indigenous language of the Andes.
“To me, that was the voice of the people who didn’t come back,” Giacchino said. “It’s really talking about Mother Earth and nature and all the things they were surrounded by at the time.”
Giacchino has scored Pixar movies like Ratatouille and Up, and live-action films like Star Trek and the Jurassic World trilogy. The composer said he felt the gravity of writing music for a true story.
“I always say it doesn’t matter if it’s a rat cooking in a kitchen, or if it’s Captain Kirk on the Enterprise, they’re all real people to me,” Giacchino said. “This film, they were real people.”
Giacchino met with two survivors of the crash. He was especially struck that Gustavo Zerbino could maintain a sense of humor about the ordeal after all these years, especially when others expressed a fear of flying.
“Gustavo’s like, ‘What are you talking about? Nothing ever goes wrong on planes,’” Giacchino said.
Despite the joke, Giacchino said, “You could tell they’re carrying the weight of their friends that didn’t make it.”
Giacchino admitted the score for Society of the Snow at times can be bleak, but “it’s not just filled with sadness and pity the whole time — it is also about how am I going to survive this?”
The composer’s scoring career began working on video games for DreamWorks in the ‘90s. Steven Spielberg himself heard some of Giacchino’s music and ordered a full orchestra to record it. Giacchino credits Spielberg with launching his career.
“If he had not said we have to do this with a live orchestra, they never would have paid for a live orchestra for a video game,” Giacchino said.
Society of the Snow hits Netflix on January 4.
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