BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
Joy is the last thing you might think about when considering dead animals being stuffed.
Taxidermy is certainly a practice that hides under the radar, perhaps because the overt connection to death is too confronting, or perhaps because it seems…well, gross.
The new film Stuffed challenges this stigma and introduces taxidermy as a true artform for highly skilled practitioners. But beyond this, it offers a surprisingly uplifting tale of life itself.
American composer Ben Lovett wrote the score and — probably just like you — had absolutely no idea what taxidermy was all about. Here’s what he learnt along the way.
Ben, in the trailer to Stuffed, a taxidermist says that when she tells people what she does for a living, they think she’s joking. Did you have the same experience when telling your friends what soundtrack you’re making?
Generally speaking, I’m fascinated by subjects I know nothing about. As a storyteller, that can be the best point of entry into something you hope to objectively explore and discuss.
When I was approached about Stuffed, they had not yet shot the film and I remember thinking: ‘Is taxidermy really compelling enough for a feature-length film? Is there enough there to make it interesting for people who don’t already have an interest in it?’.
Once I started seeing footage and interviews, I quickly realised how complex and detailed and nuanced the artform is, and how interesting and passionate the characters were about it.
Despite the obviously macabre subject matter, Stuffed also seems to be about respect for life. How did you work to produce an uplifting score to a documentary dealing with some dark themes?
There’s a line in the film from one of the characters that explains that best, which is: ‘Taxidermists do what they do, not because they see death; they do what they do because they see life.’
Their affinity is for life, and in the same way, I never really saw this as a film with dark themes, but a story about a unique subculture of artists with a profound love for preserving the beauty of the natural world.
Talk me through your composition itself. Because taxidermy is so much a visual art, how did this affect the instruments you chose or motives you created? Did you ‘reimagine’ the craft of taxidermy into musical form, or did you represent the human stories rather than the taxidermy itself?
It’s visual art, but it’s not static. It tells a story. Taxidermists want to do more than simply reassemble the pieces of a dead animal: their goal is to create a work that captures the spirit of that animal in the imagination of the viewer.
In the same way, I hoped the music could describe the passion these people have for that challenge; something that captured that distinct child-like wonder that comes through when they talk about animals.
Some of your music has an acoustic and even folk-like vibe. Is this representative of taxidermy as being a traditional craft? Or more about creating a happy feeling to represent the artists’ joy?
The first thing I was connected with was the detail and complexity of the work, and specifically the tools these taxidermists used to create it. In all of the footage, I noticed the process seemed to involve a variety of very small tools and an endless series of tiny, very precise movements. That inspired the instrumentation for me, and I gravitated towards a lot of very tactile, small-sounding folk instruments in the beginning, which became sort of a through-line for the score.
It was certainly a goal of the director Erin Derham to capture that taxidermy is rooted specifically in the love these characters have for the life of these animals. Erin wanted music that was upbeat and fun; something that brought out that joy the characters embody.
There is so much music in the documentary, and its shape changes along with the different stories within. What are the things that go through your mind when scoring a film of this form?
Usually, I’m trying to convince the filmmakers to take music out. As the composer, I’m not really in charge of where the music goes, so much as what it is, and often there’s just too much of it. There’s probably too much of it in Stuffed, but the huge variety of styles and sounds in this score did seem to really help communicate that we’re not telling you one specific story revolving around one specific character, but rather it’s a journey into a diverse subculture that’s full of many different species of human personality.
These folks are all very different from one another, but they all that share that unique and powerful obsession with animals and nature. So there was a focus for the music to try to capture these different personalities in their natural habitat, and give each a distinct feeling, in a way similar to what they aim to achieve with the animals in their work.
To people who might feel taxidermy is too weird a subject to explore, what would you tell them? How will they be enlightened by this film?
Well as a film, it’s surprisingly upbeat and cuddly. It’s not dark and morose at all. Just poke around on the soundtrack for a moment and you’ll pick that up. As a subject, it’s infinitely more fascinating than you might imagine, and the film is full of surprising revelations about the community of people surrounding it and the connection taxidermy has to nature conservation.
I went into it thinking taxidermy wasn’t much other than hunters with deer heads mounted on their living room wall, and I was blown away with how little I really knew, and how wonderful and valuable I now consider this work to be.
Parting words?
Never be afraid to open your mind to things you think you might not enjoy or understand. Allow artists and storytellers a chance to share their perspective on things you know little about, because it might change how you think about them.
I love when things come along and challenge the preconceived ideas I might have about an idea or subject, because it tests the foundation of what those ideas might be based on in the first place. You don’t always have to agree, but it’s good to give those things a chance, because you might be surprised by how much you learn or take away from it.
You can even learn a few things about yourself in the process.
Images supplied.
