Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/832212
31 Q2 2017 / CINEMONTAGE by Rob Feld portraits by Tony Donaldson M ikael Sandgren likes to keep busy. He straddles the worlds of indie film, studio film and television, major commercial campaigns and even video games. Born and classically trained as a composer in Sweden, where he initially found some independent work outside the government monopoly on television, he came to the US with a scholarship to the Berklee College of Music in Boston. He had experience with early nonlinear editing systems in Sweden, which he credits for his ability to quickly find sound editing work on shows like L.A. Law (1986-94) when he moved to LA. In 1998, Sandgren began a frequent and creatively rewarding collaboration with picture editor Dody Dorn, ACE. With her, he served as music editor on Guinevere (1999), Memento (2000), Insomnia (2002), Ben-Hur (2016) and two seasons of Mike White's series Enlightened (2011- 13), with composer Mark Mothersbaugh from Devo. From his work on Enlightened came another White project with Mothersbaugh composing, Beatriz at Dinner, which had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in 2017 and opened June 9 through Film Nation Entertainment and Roadside Attractions. The film stars Selma Hayek as a holistic healer on an emotional razor's edge, a character with a close affinity to Laura Dern's Amy Jellicoe in Enlightened, which the creators frequently referenced during production. Hayek's Beatriz finds herself stranded at a wealthy client's remote home when her car breaks down, and is invited to stay for the night — a night when the client's husband is hosting a dinner party for his boss, Doug Strutt (John Lithgow), and a colleague. The spiritually focused Beatriz is ill-equipped for the social world of her client (Chloë Sevigny), and perhaps for the world in general. As the evening progresses — and her moral outrage intensifies at Strutt's brand of callous privilege — the film's music must support Beatriz's roiling emotionality without breaking…until she ultimately does. A music editor with a lot on his plate, Sandgren is continuing his collaboration with White on Brad's Status (again with Mothersbaugh), as well as working with the Duplass brothers (and composer Julian Wass) on HBO's Room 104 and with composer Adam Peters on the recent Sundance documentary Icarus — all of which are due later this year. CineMontage spoke with Sandgren in April. CineMontage: Talk about your work with Dody Dorn. Mikael Sandgren: Dody and I have a long, great creative relationship. She actually has a background in sound and music, so she has an inherent sense of putting music to picture. I learned a lot from her. With Guinevere and Memento, it was about not being on the nose with music but just letting it give you a feeling to help underscore something without mickey- mousing the scene too much. Just being an atmosphere or an environment that you live in while you're taking in what's on the screen. We see eye to Beatriz at Dinner. Roadside Attractions