Now playing in select theaters and available on VOD, Song One stars Anne Hathaway (who also produces) as Franny, an anthropology student who returns to Brooklyn after her brother Henry (Ben Rosenfield) is rendered comatose after a car accident.
After reading his diaries and listening to his compositions, Franny gradually see Henry’s passions with a less judgmental eye, and her bond to her sibling strengthens after meeting his music idol James Forester (Johnny Flynn).
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Director Kate Barker-Froyland enlisted singer/songwriters Johnathan Rice and Jenny Lewis to compose original songs from the picture (the tracks were penned from the POV of James Forester).
“You have to proceed with a certain amount of openness to critique because we were creating these songs based on our idea of this character that Kate wrote. So it didn’t always resonate with her in the right way, and we would send them off in emails to (executive producer) Jonathan Demme who we’re huge fans of and to Adam (Shulman) and Annie (Hathaway), and Kate and (sometimes) the songs didn’t work. And we would have to go back to the drawing board.
But we would (often) start songs separately and then come together with the idea of the character where Johnathan would finish an idea or I would finish one of his ideas.”
The music’s tone is partly influenced by the reflective, acoustic driven musicianship of Elliott Smith. Though “Song One’s” music are unique in their own right, Lewis and Rice chose Rob Schnapf, a producer and former collaborator of Smith’s, to work on the soundtrack.
Here’s a clip of Jenny Lewis and Johnathan Rice collaborating with Ben Rosenfield on “Marble Song,” a track that’s featured on the “Song One” soundtrack.
