Alexandre Desplat "A Fast Moving Train"

Previous Desplat Goodies: "Breakfast with... Desplat", "How to Watch Movies" and Random Quotables

As promised here's the profile and interview I did for Tribeca Film...

If you're a regular moviegoer, you're familiar with his work. Even if you only get to the movies on special occasions for an Oscar hopeful like The King's Speech or an event film like the latest Harry Potter, you’ve heard it. Alexandre Desplat, the gifted 49-year-old French film composer is in demand. He scored five movies this year alone, with just as many on the way in 2011.

I had first scheduled an interview with Alexandre Desplat a full year ago, when he received his third nearly consecutive Oscar nomination for the whimsical score for the animated film Fantastic Mr. Fox. One year later, his voice finally materializes on the other line...

Read the rest at Tribeca Film

Wherein Desplat talks about his crazy workload, collaborating with Roman Polanski and composing around brilliant performances like Nicole Kidman (Birth) and Colin Firth (The King's Speech).

Alexandre Desplat Interview Part 2

Part 1 "How to Watch Movies... with Alexandre Desplat"

Part 2 Excerpts
Alexandre Desplat is the busiest composer in film but he made time to talk a few weeks back. My profile will be up at Tribeca Film in January but for now I thought I'd share a few unused excerpts from our conversation whilst Academy voters are presumably scribbling down his name on their ballots for Best Original Score. But will they vote for The King's Speech or The Ghost Writer? [We discussed both movies ~ coming in Part 3.]

We'll know which score the voters preferred on January 25th unless, who knows, maybe they'll both be nominated? A double dipping wouldn't be unprecedented in that category and considering Desplat's workload it's bound to happen eventually.

On Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
official soundtrack page

Nathaniel:  Is it difficult to take over something, a franchise, with ten years of pre-existing themes like Harry Potter? Did you have a lot less freedom?

Desplat: Well, John Williams, being one of the best composers of last 50 years, if not the last master of them all; I was more than happy to use some of his themes. The only theme that was meant to be reprised was "Hedwig's Theme" which has become kind of the Harry Potter main title. As I was starting work on the film I let my imagination go in many territories around this theme. When I was spotting the movie and started diving into the film it occurred to the director [David Yates], more even to me, that the theme did not have much left to do in this story because they're away from their school and the heroes are now grownups and this lovely world of fantasy is not their world anymore. So we used it two or three times early in the film almost to get rid of it, like they're getting rid of their childhood. It's part of their childhood to which they say goodbye. And the theme just vanishes for the same reasons.

On Process and Inspiration

Nathaniel: Is your process different for each film? How do you even begin the work?

Desplat: It differs for each film. The King's Speech I was shown the movie almost on its final cut. Some other films I get the script beforehand -- I got the The Ghost Writer script a year before. It's all very different which is good because you have to find different energies and different ways of getting inspiration. The main issue is how do you get excited, how do you get your cortex in movement? It could be from reading the script, it could be from seeing the images. Watching the images remains what I prefer because it has what the film has become. Reading the scripts it still belongs to literature so I am almost in favor of watching the first edit.

On Composing For International Cinema
I was struggling with a question about Jacques Audiard's The Beat That My Heart Skipped (one of my favorite Desplat scores) and he saved me by predicting the question and jumping in.

Desplat discussing Benjamin Button with David Fincher

Desplat: You know the only difference is the language because the directors have the same obsessions. Even though they have their own grammar it's always the same vocabulary: closeup, wide shot, tracking shot, overhead shot, aerial shot, whatever. How many actors and the way you put them in the frame? So it's just a matter of communication for me to be able to translate in music what the director wants. Again, If the director has a strong point of view I enjoy the process that brings the music into his films. It's just a matter of spending time together, exchanging ideas.

I would always choose to work on a project that the story or the director resonates with me. With Ang Lee, Jacques Audiard or David Fincher, I found the same notion of exchange. These filmmakers have actually a huge cinephilia behind them. They know the history of cinema as well as I do. So we are in the same territory in a way.

Nathaniel: You're speaking the same langauge.

Desplat: Exactly.

On Oscar Ballots

You know I had to ask him about this.

Nathaniel: In addition to enjoying Oscar nominations, you've been a member of AMPAS for the past few years. When it comes time to judge other composers and fill out your ballot, what are you looking for?

Desplat: I want to see what the composer brings to the film that was not there -- what else is the score bringing? Is it just following the action or opening a dimension of emotion that only this score could create? That's what i'm looking for, to be moved and surprised.

And also I'm interested in the instrumentation, if the composer takes chances, puts himself in danger. Comfort has never been good to artists. I don't mean every day comfort. It's good to eat and have hot water but I mean the artistic comfort zone where you repeat yourself... [he spoke at length about why this happens and that you must avoid it]

Desplat admires Maurice Jarre's experimentations in the 80s.

So when Maurice Jarre in the early 80s stops doing orchestra scores and dives into the electronic and makes, with Peter Weir, almost a revolution in film scoring, that's a great move. I'm always impressed by these kinds of actions.

But at first I look at the movie. I'm trying to be like a sponge just waiting for the emotion to overwhelm me. And if the score is good, it will.

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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

Oscar's Music Branch Might Need Some Fine Tuning.

As you may have heard the Academy's music branch has made some rulings about this year's original score eligibility issues. Variety reports that Clint Mansell's Black Swan score (too much Tchaikovsky), Carter Burwell's True Grit score (too many Protestant hymns), and The Kids Are All Right and The Fighter scores (too many pop/rock songs) are officially out of the running.

All of these rulings make sense if you skim the surface, but as is usually the case with eligibility rulings, they make less and less sense the more you think it over or the more you notice the inconsistencies in Oscar rulings. The King's Speech, which has an original score by the brilliant Alexandre Desplat, but uses a lot of Beethoven for its finale was not ruled ineligible. And a few years back Gustavo Santaoalalla won the Oscar for Babel despite quite a lot of music used in the film that he didn't write.

The larger problem is simply that film scoring has changed quite a lot over the years and it's rare now to hear a movie, that doesn't use a mix of pre-existing and new material. Oscar might want to think of a way to incorporate the changing aural landscape of movies into their awards. Should Mansell and Burwell be penalized for doing right by their film's? Should Jonny Greenwood, who wrote one of the best and most innovative scores of the past decade  (There Will Be Blood) have been ruled ineligible because he was smart enough to use some previously written stuff of his own with new stuff that worked so perfectly for the movie?

But back to this year: How exactly do you do a psychological riff on Swan Lake without using Tchaikovsky and why on earth wouldn't you use Protestant hymns for True Grit. We suspected when we broke the news online that Burwell was planning on hymns for the score, that it would feel just right in the movie and it does.

One score that might be snubbed (Eek!). One that just might win.

So where does that leave this year's Oscar race for Best Original Score? It was never a done deal that Clint Mansell would be nominated for Black Swan despite the critics awards. Oscar's music branch is notoriously insular and Mansell, one of the movie's most provocative composers, has been shunned before for brilliant work. Who is to say whether his luck would have changed this year? The other film winning "best music" awards is Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross's The Social Network but that's always felt like a long shot for a nomination, however deserving. It will be quite a shocking new time in AMPAS history if they embrace it. It's so very different than what they embrace.

Score prizes for far this year.

• The Social Network won 4 prizes (Boston, LA, St. Louis, Vegas) 
• Inception won 3 prizes (D.C., Houston and Golden Satellites)  
• The Ghost Writer won 2 prizes (LA, EFA)
• Black Swan won 2 prizes (New York Online and Chicago)
• Never Let Me Go won 1 prize (San Diego)
• films that have been precursor-nominated: The Fighter and True Grit (both now disqualified), I Am Love, Burlesque, The King's Speech, How To Train Your Dragon, Alice in Wonderland, Tron Legacy and 127 Hours.

What kind of future do you see for Oscar's Original Score category?
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How to Watch Movies (With Alexandre Desplat)

I'll be sharing a two part interview with the three time Oscar nominated composer Alexandre Desplat soon but I thought I'd give you this off topic teaser during this week of heavy awardage. It's a handy salve.

During our conversation, I broached the topic of Desplat's time on the Cannes jury this summer and I asked a rather awkward question about how he judged the films, implying that he has a different experience than the rest of us being regular ol' moviegoers, since he's part of the production process and constantly seeing movies in unfinished form.

"Well, I've been to the movies before," he began and we both laughed suddenly at the obviousness of it.  Of course!

He went on to tell me about his teenage cinephilia. He'd go to 5 to 10 movies a week before he started writing music. He dropped several wondrous names of filmmakers he "watched and chewed" (I love the phrasing!) from Kurosawa, Ozu, Monicelli, Scola, Coppola.

"So I arrive on a jury like Cannes with only one thing in mind: wanting to be surprised and watch with a very wide open mind because each cinema is different, because each director is a different person. And whether a film comes from Asia, Europe or America, all these cultures have something different to offer. I look at the film like a child with an educated brain. I try to be surprised and happy and enjoy the moment. That's the only way to do it I think."

But he added one more perfect thing.

"And also: watch movies with benevolence. When you're a young man or a young woman -- 18 to 25 -- your judgments are always a bit tougher. You learn through the years how difficult it is to make a movie not only on the artistical level, it's a difficult task in every way. Watch movies with more respect and benevolence."

Beautifully stated don't you think? And a damn good reminder during awards season when opinions can get so heated and the politics of it all can sometimes overshadow our deep love of movies.  Let's all watch movies like children with educated brains, with respect and benevolence. Let's be ready to be surprised and happy. Let's enjoy the moment.
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Breakfast With... Alexandre Desplat (Magnificent Film Score Repurposed.)

Press play for the musical accompaniment to this post.

Have any of you seen the new "wake up" commercial for Quaker Oats? It's one of those commercials that would look right at home during the Olympics, as it's full of gorgeous images of Americana, sunrise, sports and other daily wholesome endeavors like the building of skyscrapers. If I hadn't been looking away from my telly when it aired, I doubt I would have made the connection but the entire commercial is scored to the opening theme of Birth (2004). Alexandre Desplat is arguably the best movie composer working so why shouldn't his scores live on past their movies?

The commercial voiceover goes like so...

Wake up America. It's morning and morning is amazing: it's when we charge into the future, when we blasted off for the moon, scaled the heighest peak, and flew for the very first time. Morning starts and changes everything. It's a clean slate, a fresh start.

So come dreamers and trailblazers, champions ...come builders. It's morning. Wake up and be amazing.

Does your breakfast make you amazing?

You know what's amazing, oatmeal eaters of the world? Watching Nicole Kidman as Anna fall under the spell of a 10 year old boy who may or may not be her dead husband reincarnated. That's what's amazing. Though, I have to admit Anna's "trailblazing" does not exactly provide her with a clean slate or a fresh start.

And she does need to wake the hell up.


Wake up Anna. Wake up.
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The Twilight Saga as interpreted by the Cannes Film Festival

Behold, the Cannes jury!

from left to right: Tim Burton (Jury President and Johnny Depp's #1 Fan), Alberto Barbera (Italian film festival biggie), Victor Erice (Spanish Director of the acclaimed Frankenstein picture The Spirit of the Beehive), Giovanna Mezzorgiorno (Award-winning Italian actress, Vincere recently boosted her international profile), Emmanuel Carrere (French writer), Alexandre Desplat (composer and last minute juror... this man must never sleep or have several clones of himself given his workload), Benicio del Toro (Oscar winning Puerto Rican actor and werewolf), Shekhar Kapur (Indian director of Elizabeth fame), and Kate Beckinsale (British hottie, vampire who hates werewolves).

Danger! Benicio's getting way too close to Beckinsale.


You know Tim Burton wants to direct this battle. Or at least art-direct the buildings and landscapes surrounding the battle. And though Desplat sorta already scored it (The Twilight Saga: New Moon) he'd have to toss that out like a temp track and find Danny Elfman for the real thing.

This jury is positively supernatural... frankenstein, werewolves, vampires.

<--- But monster mash aside, Kate Beckinsale knows how to make an entrance, doesn't she? It looks like she's stepping out of a technolor musical and floating seamlessly onto the most prestigious of film festival red carpets. Or like she's a model in one of those color fashion interludes in a black and white comedy like The Women (1939), maybe.

Tell Me Alexandre ...?

I hope to be interviewing Alexandre Desplat shortly and thought I'd enlist your help, dear readers. I can read music and play the piano but that's about the extent of my musical ability / knowledge. What would you ask the arguably busiest film composer? He's up for an Oscar this year for Fantastic Mr. Fox (his third nomination) with a trail of brilliant scores already behind him. There's so many to love I bet none of you will have the same favorites. Mine are Birth (2004) and The Painted Veil (2006) thus far... but there's yet more to come next year.

What would you ask him... and which other composers do you love?

My Ballot: Best Original Score, Twice Over

Jumping back into the FiLM BiTCH Awards now. They're my long running personal awards for best of any given year. I usually try to wrap up the exact-correlative Oscar categories before the Academy's nominations but obviously that didn't happen this year. Oops.

Herewith the next couple of awards: Best Original Score and Best Adapted/Mix or Song Score.

I have two categories since so many films these days use a mix of original and previously recorded material for their soundscapes. You'll find that animated films are well represented in one category or another. Mr. Fox is Fantastic, everyone agrees. Coraline and Up are not just eye candy but ear candy, too. And then there's Karen O's work on Where the Wild Things Are which I like to think of as a hipster remembrance of the mysteries of childhood rather than a child-like score. Even with all the kiddies singing.

You'll find that my score nominees have a greater overlap with Oscar's choices than usual. I still can't believe The Hurt Locker got nominated in this category. That's not the type of score they go for, no matter how expressive, worthy and helpful it is to the film. To my mind that out-of-character nomination is a sure indicator that they really love the film. I liken it to that "costume design" nomination for Avatar from the Costume Designers Guild or that make-up nomination for Avatar from the BFCA which had to be mad declarations of love for the Na'Vi rather than a reflection of the, you know, costumes and makeup, animated as they were. I realize this is a bad likening since Marco Beltrami & Buck Sanders aren't exactly unworthy for their contribution to The Sexy Locker. It's just the out-of-character bit is all.

Finally, two questions

1. Is Alexandre Desplat the hardest working man in Hollywood? He scored seven... that's right SEVEN motion pictures this year: Julie & Julia, Twilight: New Moon, Coco Avant Chanel, Chéri, Fantastic Mr. Fox and two over in his native France Un Prophete and L'Armée du Crime.
   
2. What are your favorite films, musically speaking, this year?
   

Salt N' Pepa N' Linkerella

mmmmmANGELINA. Mangelina. I'm so curious to see Salt now that Jolie is staring me down from the poster (she does so more intimidatingly there -- the gaze is more benevolent in real life) and I'm reminded that Salt was originally written for a male star. Will we see any telltale signs of that gender-switch in the movie?

Oh link it, link it real good
MovieLine awesome composer Alexandre Desplat doesn't believe in holding his tongue. Doesn't approve of Quentin Tarantino's music
Old Hollywood Hedy Lamarr in ecstacy
Nicks Flick Picks finally gets around to "best actress 2008", both his own and Oscar's, but hot damn it's a good read. Plus: awesome comments section with heated / lucid opinions
In Contention Mélanie Laurent promoted to Lead Actress for Inglourious Basterds campaign
Cinema Blend Katey dives into the Screenplay categories. Cheerleads In the Loop
Cinematical maybe you missed my tweet on the Tim Burton exhibit at MoMA? Here's a whole interview.


C'est La Gêne I can't read French but I can read enough French to know that any post where you admit you saw Batman and Robin six times in the theater is a fun one. For French readers only I suppose.
i09 More Black Cat rumors for Spider-Man 4 and the internet's tendency to freak the hell out over them. It's gotta be that plunging neckline because white-haired heroines don't work out so well onscreen [cough*Gwen Stacey/Storm*cough]
mainly movies a personal top 100 of the decade
Birth of a Notion remembers Ben-Hur today, which happens to be its 50th anniversary

LinkyDee LinkyDum

le cinema
StinkyLulu investigates Cher's work in Silkwood. I just watched this again and I love this performance. In fact, I love every turn in the film including Kurt Russell's. I wish Mike Nichols would make something this humble but stirring and potent again.
New Yorker Evan Rachel Wood takes trapeze lessons. Fun piece... though I'll believe Jodie Foster's decades-delayed Flora Plum circus project -- not mentioned but why else the trapeze lessons -- when I see it.
In Contention A Christmas Carol sneaks.
Score Enthusiast on Alexandre Desplat's work on Chéri
Nick's Flick Picks a beautiful even handed tribute to Meryl Streep's career and its foibles, triumphs and unique pleasures

It's gay pride week in NYC
FourFour has a great post on the documentary Ask Not on gays in the military and Brüno's comedic use of homophobia
Boy Culture takes justifiable aim at Will & Grace creator Max Mutchnick who has been dredging up the ol lame chestnut 'these people don't represent me'. When will people learn that wedge politics are not helpful for minorities?

miscellania
Toys R Evil Marilyn's Mickies - a cheesecake mashup [not really SFW]
Blog Stage Sarah Jessica Parker is making a reality show American Artists. There's a reality competition for just about everything now 'cept blogging. It's hard to dramatize typing, isn't it?

i challenge you...
to beat my score on Cryptic Canvas. It's a really hard but fun movie naming painted puzzle (all films from the past 20 years). Thanks to In Contention for pointing it out. I only got 27/50 answers in 20 minutes. Challenging stuff. I'm still so confused by the three pony-tailed girls in the graveyard.

Tuesday Top Ten: Alexander(s) The Great

Tuesday Top Ten! ~a new weekly feature. For the listmaker in me and the list lover in you

Ten Alexanders You Should Love
10. Alexandre Despatie well he's not in the movies but he does win gold. Plus he looks like this...

so you know...

09. Jane Alexander. A solid four-time Oscar nominated actor. Last seen as Nicole Kidman's icy mother-in-law in Fur. When is she going to have a comeback?

08. Aleksandr Sokurov Because the Russian Ark is a neato cinematic trick. I regret to inform that I have not seen anything else he's done. Anyone care to make a 'first things first' viewing suggestion from his catalogue?

07. Lloyd Alexander His fantasy series The Chronicles of Prydain is great fun and quite wonderfully cinematic. Disney gave it a bad rep with their awful adaptation (The Black Cauldron) back in the 80s but given that lengthy fantasy adaptations are all the rage ... Hollywood execs: get on this one!

06. Alexandre Dumas He wrote The Three Musketeers and who doesn't love swashbuckling? Oh and Queen Margot. Merci --I love the 1994 movie version.

05. Alexander Graham Bell. I hate talking on the telephone. But I like having one. Thanks.

04. Alexandre Desplat. The best new film composer in the world. Two years ago he won a devoted small army of fans for scoring the haunting Nicole Kidman flick Birth. Yesterday he won his first Golden Globe for The Painted Veil. It's a truly lovely film score.

03. Alexander Payne He hasn't made a bad movie yet. Famous last words, I know, but Citizen Ruth, Election, About Schmidt and Sideways? That's a grade A filmography.

02. Alexander the Great (2008never) by Baz Luhrmann. This movie does not really exist but I love it anyway. Because I love Bazmark movies as a general rule... principle. calling (?)


01. "Xander" Harris Willow's best friend. Buffy's ever faithful righthand man. Anya's true love. Cordelia's boytoy. Because he was always something for everyone and never anything for himself. But mostly because he was hilariously clueless (Season 1), looked great in a speedo (Season 2), lost his cherry to Faith (season 3), fell hard for Anya (Season 4 & 5), saved the world (Season 6) and lost his eye in (Season 7). I love you Xander!


Previous Tuesday Top Tens (New Series):
Best 2006 Movies from The Departed (sure) to Marie Antoinette (you heard me)
Movies by The Three Amigos Best of Cuarón, González Iñárritu and Del Toro

The Painted Veil

OK, so here's why I apologize to Naomi Watts for ragging on her so much in the past. For threatening to take away her Mulholland Drive gold medal and give it to BFF Nicole Kidman for Moulin Rouge!, etc...

Because, for her efforts in The Painted Veil, she is back in my good graces. Naomi and I run very hot and cold, see. Hot: King Kong, Mulholland Dr, I Heart "ffffuckabees!" Cold: practically everything else 'cept maybe Tank Girl just for nostalgic 'I saw her first' reasons.


Turns out that The Painted Veil is pretty damn good. It's an adaptation of the W. Somerset Maugham novel of the same name which concerns the (very) unhappy marriage of Walter Fane, a bacterialogist, and his spoiled society wife Kitty Fane in 1920s England. The miserable couple travel to China to fight the cholera epidemic. If you're thinking 'hey, that sounds like a Merchant/Ivory plot where British people are transformed by leaving their country!' you'd be exactly right. It's decidedly of that genre. But, it's also a solid involving movie that doesn't trip itself up as much as The White Countess did last year in its busy third act.

Here's hoping director John Curran stays period because this romantic drama is a far more successful and less facile than his previous exploration of marital dischord, We Dont Live Here Anymore. It helps that Watts is terrific, she makes specific choices about her character work and underplays her character arc, making Kitty's various changes of heart feel more genuine than many a movie transformation. It also helps that her co-star Edward Norton seems far more invested in his character than he has in recent films (added bonus: This is the best he's ever looked onscreen). The movie is gorgeous, too --particularly the Oscar nomination worthy costumes from Ruth Myers and the freeze frameable beauty from The Piano's cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that the score by Alexandre Desplat (of Birth reknown) is the best thing about it. I'm hoping this film provides him his first Oscar nomination rather than his less impressive work in the Queen, which is more likely to corral multiple Oscar nods.

I wish that the movie didn't hedge its bets about the audience intelligence in a couple of key sequences (yes, it does employ my least favorite filmic device: the flashback to something you'll remember instantly before the flashback even begins) but overall this is a sensuous well acted success. B+

The Painted Veil opens in NYC and LA on December 20th for Oscar eligibility. The rest of you will have to wait.