How ‘The Madison’ Found a Voice and a Rhythm for Michelle Pfeiffer’s Emotional Journey

Taylor Sheridan is one of the most popular showrunners in television, with huge hits like “Yellowstone” and “Landman” on his resume. For his latest series, however, he stepped outside his comfort zone to create something completely new. Even longtime collaborators like editor Chad Galster, who has worked with Sheridan on everything from “1883” and “1923” to feature films and the aforementioned “Yellowstone” and “Landman,” were surprised by the direction Sheridan took with “The Madison.”

“It felt wildly different from anything we’ve done,” Galster told IndieWire of the Paramount+ drama, which follows New York City socialite Stacy Clyburn (Michelle Pfeiffer) as she mourns her husband Preston’s (Kurt Russell) death on the land where he was happiest: the family ranch in Montana. Although “The Madison” deals with family and relationships with the complexity and humor Sheridan’s fans have come to expect, this time the filmmaker is working without the safety net of genre or corporate intrigue — “The Madison” is a pure character study that generates drama from its heroine’s internal struggle, not from shoot-outs or oil industry machinations.

That the lead character is a woman also made “The Madison” a departure for Sheridan, and composer Breton Vivian (another frequent Sheridan partner on “Yellowstone,” “Marshals,” “Dutton Ranch” and others) was sure to connect his score to the subtleties of Stacy’s shifting feelings. “Everything was inspired by Stacey’s journey through grief,” Vivian said. “This sound that I’m using that is reflecting her own emotional rollercoaster.” Just as director Christina Alexandra Voros’ images of roads and rivers twisting through the landscape visually expressed Stacy’s circuitous journey, Vivian tried to do something similar with the music.

In the videos below, watch how editor Chad Galster and composer Breton Vivian used the tools of their craft to give voice to Stacy’s silent journey from grief to healing on “The Madison.”

The Editing of ‘The Madison’

Because “The Madison” felt like such a departure from Galster’s other work with Taylor Sheridan, the editor’s first step was finding a rhythm that matched the new series’ voice. “I got the footage, and I started just playing around with it,” Galster said. “Trying to figure out stylistically something that felt fresh and felt different from what we’ve normally done.” Galster had the footage from all of the episodes at once, which allowed for an organic process. “The luxury of having all the footage there is that you could start playing around with ideas and grab things from other episodes, and really start going back and forth instead of being tied into whatever that production day was.”

Although Kurt Russell’s Preston dies in the first episode, he reappears throughout the season in the form of flashbacks and memories. For Galster, it was important that Preston’s presence never be far from Stacy’s mind. “In Episode 1 I started experimenting with the idea of, what if Preston was around somehow in the visuals of the show? What would that feel like? And would it feel corny or would it feel organic, and would it feel interesting?” While landscape is always important in a Taylor Sheridan series, it became even more so on “The Madison” given Preston’s love of the land and its role as a motivating factor in Stacy’s life moving forward without him.

“The landscape is a character unto itself,” Galster said. “It’s a character that we have to meet and that we have to fall in love with as an audience. We don’t assume that people come to our show loving it necessarily, so you have to allow the audience to fall in love with it and find details that Stacy might be seeing for the first time. Seeing a waterfall, seeing a river, seeing some animals that she maybe hasn’t seen before. There’s a strong emotional purpose behind all of those shots and all of the world-building that we do.”

Given that the show exists in two worlds — New York City and Montana — it was important for Galster to find a contrast between them in the cutting. “In New York, it’s faster paced and it’s chaotic,” Galster said. “The environment lends itself to different types of shots. You’re not going to linger on Fifth Avenue for 20 seconds the way you might linger on a river or a mountain.”

In the video above, Chad Galster discusses balancing character, landscape, and tone in the editing of “The Madison.”

The Music of ‘The Madison’

Like Galster, composer Breton Vivian was initially led by Michelle Pfeiffer’s performance when finding a musical language for the series. “I used very slow, sliding glissando strings,” Vivian said. “On the one hand, she’s in this almost fugue-like state of shock, and then also in this kind of dream scenario where she’s in a beautiful land and there’s all this nature around her that is what her husband loved as well. A lot of that nature aspect helped with the choices I made in scoring.”

Vivian felt that Preston needed his own special theme that reflected his love of the land. “It’s this very folk, homegrown piece of music that I wrote that is really simple and really melodic,” Vivian said. Although Preston’s theme was straightforward and simple, Vivian also knew when to go big on the show. “One of the things with Taylor is, he loves putting in moments where he just lets the score do its thing and sing out. One of those big moments was during Preston’s funeral where we really go big, and it’s one of my favorite themes in the show. It’s a long scene, and it’s very quiet, and it allows the music to really play out and take its time to develop and then go really, really big.”

Although Pfeiffer’s performance inspired a great deal of Vivian’s music, which was designed to express many of the feelings she’s unable to put into words, the composer was careful to know when not to score her emotions too explicitly. “The thing with having an incredible actress like Michelle Pfeiffer presenting Stacy’s grief on screen is she’s doing so much of the heavy lifting,” Vivian said. “The last thing I wanted to do was to have score come in and push her out the way. I think a big part of this series was knowing when to step back and to know that everything is being told through her acting. Supporting that and not outstaying my welcome. I think there’s so much you can say with a score with very little — just do simple ideas well and execute them well.

In the video above, watch Breton Vivian explain how he gave a musical voice to the characters and landscape of “The Madison.”

Presented in partnership with Paramount+.