Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
It's very hard to understand what's happening in someone's brain and what goes into their experience and their death, and the music has to say a lot.
I'm scared each time I start a movie, believe me. There's always a moment of panic when you're not sure if you're going to be able to meet the deadline.
I know 'Valerian' didn't do very well in America, but I think it's because of the lack of knowledge of these graphic novels which came out in the mid-60s.
I've scored all the movies that Jacques Audiard has directed. It's a long love story between us, trying to find a voice that would belong to his films only.
Mozart for me is the No. 1 composer. His music is not just joy or sadness. It's deep emotion with a touch of lightness, which is the most difficult thing to do.
I'm being offered great movies by great directors and that's what I love, that's what I've dreamed to do, and that's what I do all day long. So I have to do it.
If I wanted an open space, I could do a documentary about fishes. Then I would have an open space to play my music. That's not how I visualize the work I'm doing.
I've loved Japanese culture for a long, long time, from doing martial arts, to the block prints, to the music. It's a country that I love, and a culture that I love.
In a time when directors did not fear composers with a strong voice, Morricone wrote scores like operas or symphonies, with passion, scope, bravura and intelligence.
When you work on animation, the music has a great task: to create a sound and melodies and mood and atmosphere and energy dedicated to these extraordinary characters.
My education as a film composer, you can't not - if you like the orchestra like I do, if you are a symphonist like I am - you can't not listen to John Williams' work.
I usually like to introduce the film and the music with the opening titles. It's a great help for a composer to bring the audience into the work that we're going into.
I've been very lucky early on to be surrounded when I was a child by music from various countries. My parents would listen to a lot of music coming from other universes.
When I was 15, I was not living with my parents anymore. They were on an island in the Caribbean and I was back in Paris, where I lived with my sisters between 15 and 19.
My training in music has been very eclectic - as first a flute player from classical chamber music to jazz, Greek, Brazilian and African music to contemporary concert music.
I don't think I would deliver the best work if I would do several projects at the same time. So it's one at a time, but I work a lot. I work nonstop actually, but that's what I like.
I don't know if I would write an opera, maybe because of the words. But yes, I would be really excited to do it. I would certainly write a ballet or... I've done a lot of stage before.
I always try to develop a good relationship with the director on any film and make sure that we want the same things and we're talking about the same ideas, and that gives me great protection.
Yea, there is no way you can get away from critics. It's all over the net. Sometimes it's useful to read things, good or bad. Sometimes it's painful. Sometimes it stupid because they say stupid things.
On 'The Grand Budapest Hotel' I must insist that the sounds of the instrumentation are crucial to reflect what the movie should convey in terms of energy and emotion. It's not just the melody or the tune.
I'm there to tailor something very precisely and something very subtly to dialogue and the actor's energy. I'm there to bring out something that isn't spoken. 'King's Speech' is the perfect film to do it.
I always wanted to be a film composer. So very early on I started collecting soundtracks and paying attention to how movie music works. Actually I'd like to have the opportunity to conduct for the rest of my life.
Berlin was the first, the very first to give me an award. I am eternally grateful to them. It sits on my desk - the Silver Bear. All the others are stored away. It's the only one I look at. It watches me while I work.
Some directors can become concerned when it comes to music, because it's the end of the process and they're tired. They're worried that the music will intrude or waste something, that a composer will overwhelm the story.
I was raised by women. I have my parents, but I have two older sisters and I would learn from them about what is a female and what is a girl and what is an adolescent and what is a young woman and I was very close to them.
A film is a film and it has to be good to be inspired. That's number one. It can be Italian, French, German, American. It's moving images in front of you and with a strong director who injects his point of view and artistry.
It's not unusual to have only three weeks to score a picture. And that's three weeks from signing on to finishing the last recording session. That's how I did 'The Queen' and, more recently, it's how I did 'The Imitation Game.'
I saw the finished version of 'The French Dispatch' quite a while ago, and it's just amazing. It's so incredibly strong and different... the way that Wes is expanding his talents to another dimension with each film is just wow.
I always tend to think that composing is not playing an instrument, composing is having something in your head that's steaming and it has to go out. It has to become sounds and be written. It's an emotion that you can't repress.
As a child brought up in Paris, I dreamed of America, that lost world my parents had left behind - it was in my genes. Plus, American music has always been close to my own aesthetic, because of the mix of symphonic music with jazz.
It could be sci-fi, love story, historical drama what counts for me is the fact that they're made by great directors with a great point of view who bring the audience to be elevated and at the same time entertained. That's what cinema is.
I remember my sisters, they loved a movie called 'The Naked Island.' And the flute was actually playing the main theme. A Japanese movie. A beautiful movie from 1961. I remember hearing this music with a flute many, many times a day at home.
I guess the passion I have for cinema is as strong as the one that I have for music. And I've always tried to be a character in the film, not just a composer that throws his music to the film. That's the main element that connects me with directors.
Francois Truffaut's 'The Soft Skin' starts with a very mundane scene of a family and a man driving to the airport. Yet the music is like a thriller, and you don't understand why. It's not until later that you learn it's because the movie is a thriller.
I wanted to be a film composer because I heard scores that could stand alone, from 'Vertigo' to 'Star Wars' to 'La Dolce Vita,' because this music has so much history. They're weighed with the history of music. They come from somewhere, they have a past.
I always say that to compose is to think. Playing is good, it's useful, but it's how your intellect puts the ideas together that will bring hands to write or to play. So, it's really a combination of many things; hearing sounds, hearing layers of counterpoints, of chords.
I remember when I saw 'King's Speech' or 'Girl With the Pearl Earring;' there are moments in my life where I was blown away and thought, 'Wow, that's why I chose to be a film composer.' These films are so beautiful and so strong, and the music can be very much part of the emotion.
Even when he transposes Roald Dahl's 'Fantastic Mr. Fox,' he injects so much of his own personality and his own world that it becomes a Wes Anderson story, and you forget that Roald Dahl is behind the story. That's the proof of great directors to be able to digest and recreate sometimes a classic.
There are so many parts of music that it's actually a pleasure for me to work with an orchestra, or a jazz band, or a choir, and use every element that the musical tool box can offer. The world of music I love so much, and I can change the costume depending on the part, and I'm actually in the film.
Because I work so much, people think that I have a team writing for me, but that's not why I chose to write music for films. I chose to write music because I like to write music. So every single note that comes out of my studio is written by me, and I wouldn't be able to do two movies at the same time.
Well I never play back my music, just so you know, it's there sitting in my drawers and what I remember is that, what I can say is that there are steps, you know, moments in my life where I know that one score was a new chapter. I can say that 'Read My Lips,' by Jacques Audiard, 'Sur Mes Levres' was a chapter.
When Wes has a new a project, you know that it's going to be something as different as the previous was from the previous one. Each time, he tries to take you to a country, or a land that is unknown for you and for him, and reinvent this land. That's what he did with 'Darjeeling,' with 'Mr. Fox,' with 'Moonrise Kingdom.'
Composing is to think. It is to have your mind trying to find what is the best sound that the movie is going for: the best melody, the best texture, the best structure and dramaturgic arc for the film. Then you discuss that with the director. He's the leader. He's the one showing you the path to follow to find the soul of the film.
I started piano like my sisters. After one year or two, I didn't like it anymore. Then, because I like trumpet, I played the cornet. When you are 7, you can't play trumpet - you play cornet. And something didn't go well. The teacher was too hard. Too rough. Suddenly, there was this instrument, the flute, that I could immediately play.
It was quite frightening to be asked to write the music of a Western because there are so many things that you can refer to that can be cliche, and that could really poison your mind, from Morricone, to Bernstein, to Neil Young. So much music has been written for Westerns, that you wonder how you're going to find a new or different idea.
I knew how incredibly rich 'Valerian' was visually and the adventures the heroes go through. They are one of a kind. They have nothing that you can compare with DC or Marvel. They're not superheroes they're just heroes but they're also human beings. And there was also something there that I always liked. In these novels, there was a lot of humor.
I lived in the Caribbean when I was a teenager, so I learned about Salsa and Cha-Cha and all these Latin Afro-Cuban music like Gillespie and Duke Ellington, also bridged with Jazz. But my mother is Greek, and so I've also listened a lot to Greek music. And through the years to Balcanic music to Arabic music because my father loved music from Egypt.
That's why I'm so passionate about making music for movies because you dive in and find the best ideas to bring tolife a collective piece of art. ... [Composing] is not a job for me. And that explains why I never stop. Even though it's tough on your body and your brain and the sacrifices you have to make, what can I do? I'm passionate about it so I never stop.