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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