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A few weeks ago, Jonny Greenwood and Paul Thomas Anderson were unhappy to learn that some of their work appeared in Melania, Brett Ratner's recent documentary feature/propaganda piece/expensive corporate favor about current sitting US First Lady Melania Trump. Apparently, the film uses Greenwood's Oscar-nominates score from the Anderson film Phantom Thread. In a statement, Greenwood and Anderson said that they weren't consulted on licensing the music and that its use constitutes "a breach of [Greenwood's] composer agreement." They asked for the music to be removed. Melania producer Marc Beckman has some thoughts on that.
Marc Beckman is Melania Trump's senior advisor and manager. He's not a film producer by trade. Maybe that's why Beckman felt so free to talk to Entertainment Weekly about the soundtrack-clearance headaches that went into the making of Melania. Beckman tells EW, "There was music that we tried to get, but sadly, there were politics to it." Imagine that. Politics.
Regarding the Jonny Greenwood situation, Beckman had this to say:
It's funny — Radiohead is one of my all-time favorite bands. For them to have come out publicly and distanced themselves, I think that's just part of the unfortunate time we're living in. We went out and created a nice film that doesn't get into any kind of political policy or anything like that. The music at that moment is so perfect, honestly, I was so thrilled to be able to use it...
If they're trying to distance themselves from us, for political reasons, that's just unfortunate. But, honestly, I'll still remain a fan and listen to their music every single day.
As it happens, Greenwood expressed similar sentiments in a Times interview last week, saying, "I think music and art should be above and beyond political concerns." That's a funny sentiment when you're dealing with this Melania situation and when you also just scored One Battle After Another, a film that is not above or beyond political concerns. But that's Jonny Greenwood for you.
Anyway, Marc Beckman was nice enough to identify some of the artists who said no to having their songs in the Melania movie. Here's the esteemed list:
Guns N' Roses. "The guys from Guns N' Roses split down the middle politically. There was a beautiful song we wanted to use, and one of the guys — I don't want to name, it's not fair — said, 'You got it. Go.' And the other one was basically like, 'There's just no way.'... Guns N' Roses was definitely a disappointment for us; we all have a lot of respect for Guns N' Roses." (I have a sinking feeling that Slash is the one who was OK with it, but I hope I'm wrong.)
Grace Jones. "There was a song that we wanted to use from Grace Jones; obviously, also a tremendous amount of respect for her. She apparently couldn't get over the political hurdle, notwithstanding the fact that the film is not a political film. So that was disappointing, too. It's disappointing when people put politics so far ahead, and that happened a little bit with the film, for sure."
Prince's estate. "We were ready to go, and this lawyer that manages the estate was like, 'Prince would never want his song associated with Donald Trump.' And we're like, 'But it's not a Donald Trump film! He comes into the movie once in a while, but this is all about Melania. It's not political.' And that guy blocked it. It's so ridiculous." (There have been documentary-related reasons to be upset with Prince's estate recently. In my opinion, this is not one of them.)
Some of the songs that did get clearance to appear in Melania, at least according to IMDB, are James Brown's "It's A Man's Man's Man's World," the Crystals' "Then He Kissed Me," Boney M.'s "Sunny," Elvis Presley's "An American Trilogy," Sylvie Vartan's "La Maritza," Giorgio Moroder's "Chase," Ennio Morricone's "Elegy For Brown," and Aretha Franklin's version of "Amazing Grace." Melania Trump also apparently sings a little bit of Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" in the movie. He's her favorite artist. She listens to "all kinds of music," including Miley Cyrus.
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