Interview: 'Devotion' Composer Chanda Dancy on the Heroic Score and Larger Impact of the Film
CHANDA DANCY TALKS DEVOTION’s PULSING and emotional score
Devotion is a high-flying war film that encapsulates the valiant combat sacrifices and devastating emotional sacrifices made by Ensign Jesse Brown and his fellow pilots during the Korean War, in a bold and memorable adaptation of the book of the same name. Many of the film’s feats would not hold the same weight without the epic score by Chanda Dancy. Dancy was kind enough to take the time to talk with FilmSpeak about her creative processes, what drew her to the story, and what she hopes audiences take away from Devotion.
On what the process of developing the score was like:
“J.D [Dillard] and I wanted to make sure we had a big, sweeping Hollywood score, but infused with some modern elements. J.D told me to be unlike any other war era score that we’ve heard, and to set ourselves aside from any other war movie. I was hired from the scripts stage, about two or three months before they started shooting, and I wrote one of the main themes based off my reading of the script, so the composition process started really early. J.D was really great to collaborate with, I think our sensibilities are closely related, and it was a very painless process, it was awesome.”
On balancing the various action-heavy and emotion-heavy beats of the film through the score:
“Just making sure that the themes were able to speak on behalf of the characters, musically, so Jesse [Brown] has his own theme, and Tom [Hudner] has his own theme, which was also known as the Friendship theme, Daisy [Brown] has her theme, the VF-32 regiment have their own theme, which was the patriotic theme, and then the hymn to positive masculinity of it all, the Devotion theme, the main theme, which is most prominent in the scene where Tom is crashing his plane to save Jesse. As soon as all these themes, speaking for the plot beats, were in place, the score was in place. Having these themes, they were the foundation of the score.”
On which less talked about era of history she’d like create a score for in the same light as Devotion:
“I would love to talk more about our Black heroes in the late 1800’s, because there were a lot, that I was not educated about growing up, and showing how integral the reconstruction era that a lot of African-Americans were a part of, really was, I would love to help bring their stories to life through music.”
On what kind of conversations she hopes audiences have after seeing Devotion:
“We need to continue conversations on trying to get Jesse Brown back home. His remains are still in North Korea. They have a general idea of where the remains from the crash are, but it’s a matter of being allowed to go there, and to try to recover his remains, if possible. It’s something that we should definitely keep talking about, because the Brown family deserves their grandfather back, and with so many people now seeing the movie and Jesse’s story, I hope it raises awareness.