After two Oscars, three Césars and forty years of career, the composer Alexandre Desplat, guest of honor at the La Baule film and film music festival, is still trying to “put in danger“. Since his first composition for a film in 1985, signed Frank Le Wita, the musician has moved from one universe to another, from intimate films by Jacques Audiard to super-productions HHarry Potter Where Godzillapassing through the fantasy of Wes Anderson.
“Runderground rivers“
“I don’t want to always make the same music. I like movies that put me in danger, that excite me or tickle me“, says the composer, sure value of Hollywood Oscar winner for The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Shape of Water“to whom the eighth edition of the La Baule festival pays tribute on Sunday for his entire career.
“I don’t have favorite themes because I can’t know in advance what will move me“, tells AFP Alexandre Desplat, 61, in a midnight blue suit and a white scarf. To compose his music, he prefers to wait to see the images shot than to rely only on the script: “I need to observe how the camera moves, how the actors take the light, how they say their lines.”
The soundtracks are like “underground rivers” which “accompany the film without us always knowing where they pass“and whose absence”would dry out the work“. But sometimes the magic doesn’t work: “It happened to me to accept films which were failures, it is like that. It’s a job, you can’t change your mind for a failure.”
An essential teacher
Sunday afternoon, the violinist Solrey, whose real name is Dominique Lemonnier, to whom he has been married for nearly four decades, will conduct the tribute concert dedicated to him in La Baule. Solo violin of her first feature film, Solrey has become her “daily musical companion“, at a time “first ear” and advisor. In the orchestra for the concert, Alexandre Desplat will take up on the flute the themes he had composed for “The speech of a king” and The Ghostwriterhe who does not play “almost more” for pleasure.
Raised by music-loving parents, he learned the piano very early, then the trumpet, and fell in love with the flute at the age of 9. “I met a teacher who was like a second father. With great gentleness and great kindness. When you come across a teacher who detects a sensitivity and helps to develop it, it’s fantastic“, recalls Mr. Desplat.
As a teenager, he discovered the cinema “in a more passionate way“and remembers an attraction”instinctive“for the meeting of images and music. At the time, it passes”hours“in front of his VHS to understand how the melodies”appear“in the soundtrack,”without realizing it or on the contrary with sudden violence“.
The American dream
After twenty years conquering French cinema, the composer began an international career in 2004, propelled to the forefront of the American scene by his nomination for the Golden Globes for the soundtrack of “The Girl with a Pearl Earring“.”This film opened up another field for me, which I dreamed of, that of American cinema. My parents met in California and it remained paradise lost. That, plus my fascination with the cinema of Scorsese, Coppola and Spielberg.”
In the United States, music has a more important role in films.narrative“, expressing “more feelings” than in France, where the cinema cultivates a “cculture of words“, theorizes Alexandre Desplat. Composer “loyal“, he makes it a point of honor to follow in their projects the directors who trusted him, such as Georges Clooney, Wes Anderson, Stephen Freas and Greta Gerwig.
“Proud” of the homage paid to La Baule by “music freaks“, the composer smiles: “It’s always moving to be recognized by your peers.”