Kara Talve (‘The Tattooist of Auschwitz’ composer) on writing music for people ‘in the darkest place of all time’ [Exclusive Video Interview]
“If we are sentimental, we will fail,” reveals twice Emmy-nominated “The Tattooist of Auschwitz” composer Kara Talve about her initial discussions with co-composer Hans Zimmer and the series’ creative team and their shared desire to steer clear of overly sentimentalizing the drama. “The imagery in this show speaks for itself. The story speaks for itself, right? I mean, we know that the horrors that happened at Auschwitz. It’s just unimaginable and because of that, the music itself has to also be unimaginable and unthinkable,” she explains during our recent webchat. “We really wanted to create this abstract environment that subtly supported the characters, let them lead the performance and never be epic because it just immediately feels wrong and disrespectful. And the last thing we wanted to do was overstep, especially in a series like this. It’s not just a story. It’s literally somebody’s truth, so you don’t want to step on it or take away from it.” We talked with Talve as part of Gold Derby’s special “Meet the Experts” Q&A event with 2024 Emmy nominees. Watch our exclusive video interview above.
SEEMaking of ‘The Tattooist of Auschwitz’: Roundtable panel
“The Tattooist of Auschwitz” was directed by Tali Shalom Ezer and written by Jacquelin Perske, Evan Placey and Gabbie Asher, based on the novel of the same name by Heather Morris. The true-story historical drama stars Harvey Keitel and Jonah Hauer-King, as the older and younger versions of Lale Sokolov, a Jewish prisoner in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp during World War II who is given the job of tattooing identification numbers on fellow prisoners’ arms. The Peacock limited series also stars Melanie Lynskey and Anna Próchniak, and received two Emmy nominations this year, for Talve (her third career Emmy nomination to date) and co-composer Hans Zimmer, and for Music and Lyrics for original song “Love Will Survive”, which they co-wrote with Walter Afanasieff and Charlie Midnight and which is performed by Barbra Streisand.
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“It is a love story, and of course we want to honor the love that Lale and Gita found there. It’s an incredible story and we wanted to honor that,” Talve explains. “But we needed to find a way to not do this in an epic or sentimental way. So the balance was really, really hard and that was the most challenging thing about this score. You’re writing music for two people who are in love, but are in the darkest place of all time. So, it absolutely was about finding that balance, and hopefully we achieved that.”
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