“TRUTH is an exploration of the often fragile and tense relationship between journalism and politics and the humanity of pursuing the truth,” explained Tyler. The film is based on Mary Mapes' memoir Truth and Duty: The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power detailing the 2004 CBS 60 Minutes report investigating the military service of then-President George W. Bush – a report which would ultimately cost her and anchor Dan Rather their careers. “The music strives to explore the tones of the newsroom, the politics of war, power, and the personal side of these elements.”
Brian Tyler is a composer and conductor of over 70 films and recently won Film Composer of the Year at the 2014 Cue Awards. Tyler composed blockbuster hits AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON, FURIOUS 7, IRON MAN 3, as well as THOR: THE DARK WORLD. He conducted the London Philharmonic at Abbey Road Studios for both films. He also scored EAGLE EYE for producer Steven Spielberg, and the box office hits FAST FIVE and FAST & FURIOUS for director Justin Lin. He was nominated for a 2014 BAFTA Games Award and was inducted into the music branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2010.
Tyler began scoring features shortly after he received his master's degree from Harvard University, as well as a bachelor's degree from UCLA. He is a multi-instrumentalist and plays piano, guitar, drums, bass, cello, world percussion, synth programming, guitarviol, charango, and bouzouki, amongst others, many of which were showcased for the 2013 retro heist film NOW YOU SEE ME. He scored THE EXPENDABLES films, and RAMBO, directed by Sylvester Stallone; LAW ABIDING CITIZEN, starring Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler; the Keanu Reeves thriller CONSTANTINE and the science-fiction film BATTLE LOS ANGELES. Tyler’s score for Bill Paxton’s FRAILTY won him a World Soundtrack Award in 2002, as well as The World Soundtrack Award as Best New Film Composer of the Year. He has received three Emmy Award nominations, ten BMI Music Awards, five ASCAP Music Awards, and recently won 12 Goldspirit Awards, including Composer of the Year.
Recently, Tyler scored the Michael Bay-produced TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES, the action-packed disaster thriller INTO THE STORM, and the epic adventure THE EXPENDABLES 3. Tyler also created the new theme music for ESPN’s NFL studio shows, representing the first updated original score for ESPN’s NFL shows since 1997. In 2015, Tyler created a new groundbreaking musical theme for the 115th U.S. Open Championship on FOX broadcast network and FOX Sports 1. Tyler arranged and conducted the new film logo music for Universal Pictures and composed a theme for the 100-year anniversary of the studio, as well as composing the music for the Marvel Studios logo which now plays before of all of their films. For television, he scores the series SCORPION, HAWAII FIVE-0, and SLEEPY HOLLOW, for which he received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Original Main Title Theme Music in 2014.
“I wanted to make some connection with the essence of journalism,” Tyler described. “For instance, the sound of journalistic investigation is often the piano ostinato combined with harp since these instruments most closely resemble the act of typing. It has a metric, deliberate sound. And the plaintiff trumpet represents the militaristic and political narrative of the film. The horns have a noble, lion in winter quality for Dan Rather. And the strings tie everyone together emotionally.”
On the morning of September 9, 2004, veteran CBS News producer MARY MAPES (Cate Blanchett) believed she had every reason to feel proud of a broadcast journalism job well done. By the end of the day, Mapes, CBS News, and the venerable CBS News anchor DAN RATHER (Robert Redford) would be under harsh scrutiny.
The evening before, 60 Minutes II had aired an investigative report, produced by Mapes and reported on-air by Rather, that purported to reveal new evidence proving that President George W. Bush had possibly shirked his duty during his service as a Texas Air National Guard pilot from 1968 to 1974. The piece asserted that George W. Bush had not only exploited family connections and political privilege to avoid the Vietnam War by joining the Texas Air National Guard, but he had failed for many months to fulfill his most basic Guard obligation-showing up on base.
Mapes and her team of researchers had scrambled under a tight deadline to pull together both on- air eyewitness testimony and newly disclosed documents to make their case, and they felt confident that their story was solid. In the lead-up to the 2004 Bush v. Kerry presidential election, the "Bush-Guard" story could have had profound ramifications.
But within days after the story broke, George W. Bush's military service record was no longer the focus of media and public scrutiny. Instead, it was 60 Minutes, Mapes, and Rather who were under question: the documents supporting their investigation were denounced as forgeries, and the 60 Minutes staff was accused of shoddy journalism or, perhaps worse, accused of being duped. Eventually, Mapes would lose her job and reputation. Dan Rather would step down prematurely as CBS News anchor.
How did attention end up focused on the journalists who questioned the official version of the story? How did the minutiae of document typefaces, line breaks, and superscripts become seemingly more important to the national discourse than the question of whether the President had failed to fulfill his military obligations? Have journalistic integrity and independence been fundamentally altered in today's newsrooms and boardrooms?
“I first scored the scene where Mary Mapes (Cate Blanchett) receives the secret documents from a deep throat confidant played by Stacy Keach,” Tyler explained. “It felt so conspiratorial and is the turning point that sets the entire story in motion. When I first saw the film, from then on I was hooked!
Sony Pictures Classics and RatPac Entertainment released TRUTH in theaters, showing now. Varèse Sarabande will release the TRUTH – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack on CD December 4, 2015.
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