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Melania producer Marc Beckman has defended the documentary’s use of music from 2017 film Phantom Thread, after Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood and director Paul Thomas Anderson asked for it to be removed.
Greenwood, who composed the score for the film starring Daniel Day-Lewis, alleged in a statement earlier this week that the usage of the music was a breach of his composer agreement.
In a joint statement obtained by Variety, Greenwood and Anderson’s representatives said: “It has come to our attention that a piece of music from Phantom Thread has been used in the Melania documentary.”
The musician’s attorneys have claimed that while Greenwood does not own the copyright in the score, film distributor Universal “failed to consult Jonny on this third-party use, which is a breach of his composer agreement”.
Beckman has denied the breach, claiming they followed all the requisite protocol and own the rights to use the music.
“It’s a blatant lie. We have a legal right and permission to use every song and piece of music in the film. We have the legal rights to use it. We’ve done everything the right way. We followed protocol. We respect artists. We compensated everyone for their music,” Beckman told right-wing outlet Breitbart News.
“We have legally binding, fully executed contracts in place to use every song in Melania,” he added. “This is just ridiculous.”
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Brett Ratner (left) and Marc Beckman at Amazon MGM’s ‘Melania’ world premiere at The Trump Kennedy Center (Getty Images)
The film includes a long excerpt of “Barbara Rose”, a song the Radiohead guitarist composed for Anderson’s film.
The Independent has reached out to representatives for Anderson, Greenwood, Amazon MGM Studios, and Universal for comment.
The Brett Ratner-directed documentary, which followed first lady Melania Trump in the 20 days leading up to her husband’s second inauguration, has earned $13.35m domestically after two weekends of release, exceeding box office projections thanks, in part, to organised groups of Republican women who have made up a large portion of the audience.
In the film, Melania meets with stylists, interior designers and political allies before she is seen hand-in-hand with her husband at his swearing-in ceremony.
The film has been critically panned across the board, receiving a one-star review fromThe Independent’s Nick Hilton, who wrote: “Perhaps Melania is merely a piece of post-modern post-entertainment. After all, it is transparently not a documentary.”
Hilton continues: “Melania spends most scenes playing a staged version of herself, and shots of the first lady are composed with all the deliberateness Ratner brought to his work on X-Men: The Last Stand. This is somewhere between reality TV and pure fiction.”
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Melania Trump in her new documentary, ‘Melania’ (Amazon)
Although the film has performed better than expected, making $7m at the US box office in the opening weekend, it is unlikely to recoup the $40m Amazon MGM paid for it. Amazon reportedly spent an additional $35m to market the film.
The project marked the return of Rush Hour director Brett Ratner, who moved to Israel following multiple sexual misconduct allegations in 2017. He has denied any wrongdoing and has not been charged with any offences.
According to a Rolling Stone report, two-thirds of crew members asked to have their names removed from the film’s credits.