New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Lakeshore Records will release MERCHANTS OF DOUBT - Original Motion Picture
Soundtrack digitally on March 3rd and on CD April 7, 2015. The album features the original song "You Fooled Me" by Eg White and original score by Mark Adler (FOOD INC., BOTTLE SHOCK), which earned the Hollywood
Music In Media Award for Best Score for a Documentary in November of 2014.
Inspired by the acclaimed book by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, Merchants of Doubt takes audiences on a satirically comedic, yet illuminating ride into the heart of conjuring American spin. Filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the curtain on a secretive group of highly charismatic, silver-tongued pundits-for-hire who present themselves in the media as scientific authorities - yet have the contrary aim of spreading maximum confusion about well-studied public threats ranging from toxic chemicals to climate change.
Adler and the film's director Robert Kenner have worked together for over 20 years. "As a composer, I most often respond to picture but here I began writing before much of the picture was shot--so, my earliest musical sketches were primarily based on conversations with Robby," Adler explained. "He always felt that the subject of the film (global warming and the disinformation campaigns surrounding it) was so dire that there was a danger of losing our audience under its weight, and he told me a number of times that one job of the music would be to help keep that from happening."
"Mark helped create an irony and humor that were essential to the film's ultimate message," said Kenner. "Not only was his score a fantastic addition to the film, but it stands alone as a truly evocative and entertaining collection of musical pieces."
Mark Adler brings to his work as a composer a broad background in both film and music. He graduated from film school at UCLA, where he studied film scoring with
David Raksin. During the 1980s the San Francisco Bay Area film documentary renaissance and Adler scored many projects. He also worked briefly as a music editor for such directors as Milos Forman,
David Lynch, and Francis Ford Coppola (on films including Amadeus, Blue Velvet, and Godfather III). His feature film scores include the Oscar-nominated Food, Inc., directed by Robert Kenner, and Bottle Shock.
A regular at the Sundance Film Festival, Adler has scored ten Sundance films over the years. including the Audience Award-winning Miramax film Picture Bride. Mark won a Primetime Emmy for his work on HBO's The Rat Pack. He wrote and produced source music for the Philip Kaufman films, The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Henry and June, and was involved as a producer in the recreation of indigenous Brazilian music for the Saul Zaentz production At Play in the Fields of the Lord. He composed original music for The Road To Memphis, directed by Richard Pearce, as part of the
Martin Scorsese-produced series, The Blues. Mark is a former vice-president of the Society of Composers and Lyricists and has served on the Board of Governors of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
"A lot of the ironic tone in the score of MERCHANTS OF DOUBT comes from the unexpected," said Adler. "I used a mandola in a number of places where we were going for an off-center and quirky feel. There's a kind of a B-Movie sci-fi sequence in the film in which I played a cheap analog synthesizer with a bit of distortion to create a cheesy faux-Theremin voice."
Adler continued, "Because the back-story of these merchants of doubt begins in the 1950s, I went for a retro-jazz feel in some of the cues. And some have the quality of retro circus music as well."
MERCHANTS OF DOUBT is presented by Sony
Pictures Classics, in association with Participant Media and Omidyar Network, a film by Robert Kenner, produced by Kenner and Melissa Robledo, executive produced by Jeff Skoll and
Diane Weyermann of Participant Media, and
Pierre Omidyar of Omidyar Network, and co-produced by Brian Pearle, Taki Oldham, Dylan
Nelson and Youtchi von Lintel. Directors of Photography on the film include Don Lenzer, Barry Berona and Jay Redmond, with music by Mark Adler, in theaters March 6, 2015. MERCHANTS OF DOUBT- Original Motion Picture
Soundtrack will be available digitally on March 3rd and on CD April 7, 2015.
