An Interview with Michel Legrand

An Interview with Michel Legrand by Stéphane Lerouge and Pierre Achard
Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.14 / No.56 / 1995
Text reproduced by kind permission of the publisher, Luc van de Ven

In this anniversary year commemorating the first century of cinema, it was urgent for us to pay tribute to one of our most brilliant composers for the screen: Michel Legrand. This year, he is in the spotlight with 3 films announcing his return to the big screen: Robert Altman's PRÊT-À-PORTER, LES ENFANTS DE LUMIÈRES (a film montage celebrating 100 years of French cinema) and a cartoon, SHELM; various reissues and numerous projects on the dynamic Play Time label; and last but not least, a concert of his film music in Seville last October. Michel Legrand is a highly sought-after musician, but he's not always available, so we weren't able to meet up with him. In fact, he had just answered questions from our colleagues in the SACEM journal Notes, which no doubt also explains his lack of motivation to undergo yet another interrogation!

Many thanks to Pierre Achard and Stéphane Lerouge for once again agreeing to have their work published in our journal, and for allowing me to modify it. Certain questions have been removed to lighten the content of this lengthy interview, forcing me to change the form somewhat. In addition, some questions not included in the Notes edition have been reported or expanded upon here, giving this publication an exclusive and unpublished character. - Yves Taillandier.

Did you experience any cinematic shocks during your childhood?
When I was four, my grandmother took me to the movies. I was just beginning to learn the piano and discover music. We saw a film in which Tino Rossi played the role of a composer. I was literally fascinated: he was walking through the cornfields, in the middle of summer, raising his head to the sky, from where sublime music fell to him. Cut! Then we'd see him writing three notes on parchment with a feather. Cut! He would conduct an orchestra and win a triumph. In my little head, I said to myself: "This is exactly the job I want to do! All you have to do is put your ears to the ground, write down three things on a piece of paper, stand up in front of the musicians and that's it! So that day I decided to become a composer. Later, I learned the hard way that composing music was unfortunately a lot more complicated than that!

How did you approach your film career?
It was in the early fifties... I'd just graduated from the Conservatoire. Back then, my calling card was arranger and accompanist. Not as a composer. I made my living playing piano all over the place, accompanying Henri Salvador, Maurice Chevalier and Jacqueline François. I also helped my father Raymond with his orchestrations. He'd often call me at two in the morning: "Hello, Michel? It's a disaster! I'm recording a film score tomorrow at nine o'clock, and I've still got nineteen numbers to write. Come quickly!" I put on a tracksuit to get there as fast as I could! We were really working in a hurry.

One day, in the early hours, with three-quarters of an hour to go, Raymond said to me: "To go faster, I'll write the pages on the left, you write the pages on the right! Tell me which chord you're going to end up with! I replied at random: "Half-finished!" In half an hour, surrounded by an army of copyists, we came up with the credits, which were recorded fifteen minutes later! It was madness! All this work allowed me to start working for the cinema, but without ever knowing the sequences for which the music was intended. I worked for the image without ever seeing it! With Raymond, I collaborated on a whole series of films, including MEURTRES with Fernandel and Marcel Pagnol's MANON DES SOURCES.

In 1958, you scored two feature films: Pierre Chenal's RAFLES SUR LA VILLE and Jack Pinoteau's famous TRIPORTEUR, starring Darry Cowl. Would you say that this was the start of your career as a film composer?
No, I wouldn't say that at all. In my mind, these were one-off jobs, totally incidental. LE TRIPORTEUR, for example, is a film I owe to Darry Cowl's friendship. I'd known him since the early fifties, when we were both piano accompanists. (...) For me, my career as a screen musician really began with L'AMÉRIQUE INSOLITE, François Reichenbach's famous documentary. I had already worked with him on two short films. VISAGES DE PARIS and L'AMÉRICAIN SE DÉTEND. But this was an adventure of a different dimension: François had brought back six hours of astonishingly powerful rushes from the United States. Unfortunately, he couldn't edit them. The basic material was there, but it was impossible to structure it, to give it a framework! People like Frédéric Rossif and Henri Colpi intervened, but without achieving satisfactory results. Things were difficult for me too. Sometimes I'd start writing certain themes, when François would call me up and say: "It's no use continuing, we've just changed the editing again!" We'd go round in circles, wondering if we'd ever find a way out.

How did things turn out?
Finally, François asked Chris Marker to edit the film. And then, after two years of uncertainty, the miracle happened! (...) He gave us a perspective we'd lost by wading through the rushes. His editing solutions enabled the film to take shape, to find a logic, a coherence. I quickly recorded themes, which he then edited into certain sequences, giving them even greater force. In a documentary like L'AMÉRIQUE INSOLITE, music is crucial, as there is almost no voice-over or dialogue. My score took the place of traditional commentary, sometimes taking the side of the image or playing with it with irony and distance. (...) It was 1960, at the height of the French cinema boom. Something new was happening, things were in motion. Many young directors saw the film and asked me to work with them. Thanks to L'AMÉRIQUE INSOLITE, I became one of the official composers of the Nouvelle Vague.

Is this how your collaboration with Jean-Luc Godard began? Under what conditions did it take place?
Yes, he contacted me to suggest UNE FEMME EST UNE FEMME after seeing Reichenbach's film. At the time, Jean-Luc was a revolutionary director who everyone was talking about. He'd just made A BOUT DE SOUFFLE, which had been a film event. Jean-Luc took a staggering liberty from the traditional syntax of the Seventh Art. With his keen intelligence, he was constantly breaking the rules and inventing new things. With me, he was never directive or interventionist. He would give me his ideas about the music he wanted, its spirit, its color, and then let me work freely. After that, he would place it in the film himself. After UNE FEMME EST UNE FEMME, we worked together again on VIVRE SA VIE, BANDE A PART and a sketch for LE PLUS VIEUX MÉTIER DU MONDE...

One day, shortly before my departure for the United States, Jean-Luc called me about a new film. I explained my situation. As he insisted, I finally agreed. We meet. Jean-Luc took out a small crumpled ball of paper from his pocket and carefully unfolded it. I'd like the music to be both fragmented and homogeneous. I suggested a theme and eleven variations. At the first screening, I discovered that he'd only used one variation! What's more, the opening credits on the big black-and-white screen read: "And for the last time in France, music by Michel Legrand"!

You started out as a Nouvelle Vague composer, even though you were also working with Marcel Carné, Gilles Grangier and Yves Allégret at the time... Were your working methods different?
First of all, I think what you're talking about is a bit of a fashion phenomenon. I was a young composer starting out with Reichenbach, Godard and Demy, who undoubtedly symbolized something new and different. As a result, older directors were also keen to work with me. Personally, I was delighted and proud to work with the director of QUAI DES BRUMES and ENFANTS DU PARADIS. Gilles Grangier was also a lovely man, full of humor, with a touch of Parisian titi. Thanks to him, I'm associated with a series of thrillers starring Jean Gabin...

Basically, our working methods were no different. Whether working for Grangier or Godard, I gave my all, trying to work as closely as possible to the film. The only thing that changed was the nature of the music. For Godard, I often wrote themes in the spirit of modern jazz, whereas a Grangier film like LE CAVE SE REBIFFE called for suburban waltzes. In any case, moving from one universe to another is a highly formative exercise. A film musician has to be able to adapt to all situations and all cinematographic aesthetics. He must be a man of all cultures. In this sense, the diversity of these collaborations has enriched me a great deal, opening up very eclectic musical horizons.

Your work with Jacques Demy on LOLA, LA BAIE DES ANGES, LES PARAPLUIES DE CHERBOURG and LES DEMOISELLES DE ROCHEFORT seems inseparable from the French cinema of the Sixties and the New Wave...
Jacques is one of the finest professional and human encounters of my life. And yet, at the outset, we weren't meant to work together. It was chance, omnipresent in his films, that brought us together. For his first feature film, LOLA, Jacques had chosen to have Quincy Jones write the music. Quincy was delighted, and even came to Nantes for the shoot, before rushing back to the States, never to be heard from again and, above all, without having composed anything! This was rather annoying, because in one sequence, Anouk Aimée was supposed to sing a song: as the music didn't exist, Anouk recited the lyrics like a poem. Following Quincy's withdrawal, Jacques began looking for a new composer. He liked L'AMÉRIQUE INSOLITE and contacted me. I watched the film, which was shot entirely silent, for budgetary reasons. Jacques would stand next to me and speak the dialogue, taking turns playing all the characters. I found it intriguing, thinking to myself: Here are these strange people who one day do the image and the next day the sound! The film was beautiful, poetic, with a particular atmosphere due to the black-and-white cinemascope and overexposed lighting... Jacques' whole universe was already in LOLA... So we started working together. The hardest part, of course, was the song. At first sight, it seemed impossible! I had to compose it, adapting my writing to Anouk Aimée's rhythm and lip movements. For the recording, Jacqueline Danno doubled Anouk. We spent a whole afternoon just for a minute and a half of music! We weren't afraid of this kind of feat, as we were beginners full of energy and enthusiasm.

How did you come up with the concept for Les PARAPLUIES DE CHERBOURG? Was it a personal approach to opera?
No, it wasn't really about making an opera. Jacques wanted to conceive a great musical film in which singing entirely replaces the spoken word. But we wanted the film to be close to everyday life, to have a realistic dimension. So we had to avoid the operatic side and excessive lyricism. The idea was to have a singing tempo as close as possible to the spoken word, with the same expectations and precipitations as in everyday language. In the end, the film is on the borderline between spoken and sung, somewhere in between. For it to lean towards singing, we had to use direct voices that would match the text and the music, that would sing with great simplicity... I went through a lot of trial and error before arriving at the desired style. My first attempts were too deep, too symphonic. Months went by and I just couldn't find it. It all clicked with the jewelry store sequence: "We're in a difficult situation, Geneviève is great and helps me all she can...". From there, everything went very fast. It was like a spool of thread: I'd found the end, now all I had to do was pull!

In 1967, you left France for the United States. What motivated this choice?
I'd had enough of Paris and the New Wave. I'd been working with the same directors for eight years. Rightly or wrongly, I felt I'd come to the end of something. It was a phenomenon of saturation! I wanted to see new faces, get a change of oxygen. An American friend suggested I compose the music for a little comedy, BAGUE AU DOIGT, CORDE AU COU, starring Dean Martin. For me, it was the perfect opportunity to leave France. With my wife and two sons, I flew to Los Angeles, where I had rented a house. In fact, the risk was enormous: I was leaving France just after the success of Les DEMOISELLES DE ROCHEFORT, and arriving in Hollywood with a one-off commitment, on a film that wasn't very important, for which I was barely paid. I was a bit carefree, saying to myself: "We'll see what happens! It was a kind of challenge, a gamble with myself. After BAGUE AU DOIGT, I went on to make another small film. PRETTY POLLY (THE SINGAPORE HEIRESS). Fortunately, my luck has come with Norman Jewison's THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR.

How did you react when you saw the first images of the film?
The first cut of THOMAS CROWN was a crushing blow: it was five hours long! Right away, Norman Jewison and his wonderful editor, Hal Ashby (later director), tried to reassure me: "Don't worry! We've still got two months to work on the edit! From that first screening, I understood that the crux of the plot - Thomas Crown's burglaries - took fifteen minutes. And that everything else - in other words, the love story between Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway - could last five minutes or eight hours!

I thought about it and made the following proposal to Norman and Hal: "Stop editing the film altogether and take a six-week vacation! During that time, without ever seeing another frame, I'll write an hour and a half of music. Then, if you like, we'll edit the pictures to the music together! This method of working must have seemed extravagant to them, but they accepted it, with the agreement of the producers at United Artists. So I composed the entire score for THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR based on my memories of the five-hour screening. The film had given me certain impressions that I tried to convey in the music. Instead of small timings adapted to the action, I wrote "lengths" that could become the backbone of the story. At the recording session, Norman Jewison and Hal Ashby were like madmen: they discovered the music and exclaimed, "Look, this theme will fit perfectly with the seduction sequence, this one with the first heist...".

The three of us then spent two whole months editing. It was like a giant jigsaw puzzle: we had fun building, undoing, improving and refining. Little by little, we got closer to the final solution. The shape of the film was entirely organized around the music! I didn't have to re-record anything! THE TMOMAS CROWN AFFAIR was a great success, and impressed audiences with its lively, sophisticated tone and experimental, multiple-screen mosaics. My Hollywood career was launched.

The film is also remembered for its song, "The Windmills of your Mind", which has become a veritable standard...
It has to be said that, at the time, there was a fashion for songs in American films. At the Oscars, in addition to "Best Motion Picture Score", there was another category called "Best Motion Picture Song". By including a song from their films, producers gave them an extra chance of winning an Oscar (...) When Norman Jewison and I decided to include a song in THOMAS CROWN, I spoke to my friend Quincy Jones. He introduced me to a couple of young songwriters: Alan and Marilyn Bergman, who had just written him the lyrics to a film song, IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT. We became instant friends. Our first song, "The Windmills of Your Mind", sung by Rex's son Noël Harrison, won THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR an Oscar in 1968. With French lyrics by Eddy Mamay, it became "Les Moulins de Mon Cœur", one of the pillars of my repertoire.

Were you able to orchestrate your own scores?
Yes, but I had to resist! Because in the Hollywood system, all tasks are extremely compartmentalized, including the music. In general, composers write a piano part, which they then entrust to an orchestrator. As early as my first American film, I was asked: "Which orchestrator would you like to work with? " When I replied that I orchestrated myself, people looked at me as if I'd landed from another planet! For me, orchestration is an integral part of composition. There's no need to ask whose arrangements are Mozart's, Brahms' or Ravel's, because the answer is so obvious! When I orchestrate, I often make the composition evolve, I make changes, I transform. That's why I refused to adopt the American method. What's more, at the time, all films were orchestrated by the same three arrangers, which led to a terrible impression of uniformity... I was a French composer, and I had to preserve my particularity, my flavor, my identity, not fit into the Hollywood mold. Today, things have deteriorated even further: if you read the record sleeves, you'll see that there's a first orchestrator for the strings, a second for the brass, a third for the rhythm... The result is technically perfect, but soulless.

What was it like working with such Hollywood veterans as John Sturges, André de Toth and Richard Brooks?
It was great, because I found myself in front of directors who were very sure of their craft, with a great sense of image and movement. For example, John Sturges' ICE STATION ZEBRA was the first time I'd worked on a major action film, produced with enormous resources by MGM. The film's finale was apocalyptic: we witnessed the arrival of the Red Army, with submarines and parachutes raining down everywhere. Composing for this type of production was a bit of a recreation. I was jubilant, getting into the game of a cinema that, as a child, had made me dream. After Godard and Varda, I felt I was working on a different scale!

On an American production, do you discuss music with the director or the producer? Who's in charge of the film?
Every time, I had to deal with the director. Of course, the producer was never far away. But whatever happens, people like Norman Jewison, Robert Mulligan or Sydney Pollack are very good at imposing their ideas. That's who I was talking to about music. This is a positive consequence of the New Wave. When American directors saw the freedom of expression enjoyed by their French counterparts in the 1960s, they became somewhat emancipated.

Why, after two and a half years working in Hollywood, did you decide to return to France?
Edith Piaf once said to me: "If you go to the United States, don't live there. Otherwise, you'll lose your talent!" After living there for a few months, I realized she was right. You die slowly, you wither away, your personality gradually disappears. And you can't fight it! When you first arrive, you're enthusiastic and full of ideas. Then, little by little, as you come into contact with American society and its money-oriented mentality, you become like everyone else. As soon as I sensed the danger, I thought of Piaf and preferred to go home. But that didn't stop me from continuing to make American films, moving over there from time to time. The first few months of my return to France, in 1970, I was reunited with Jacques Demy for PEAU D'ANE and Jean-Paul Rappeneau for LES MARIÉS DE L'AN II...

What do you remember about working with Jean-Paul Rappeneau?
For three films, Jean-Paul and I were true accomplices. Jean-Paul's cinema is mischievous, sparkling and infinitely meticulous. That's why he makes so few films. We met on his first feature film, LA VIE DE CHÂTEAU, a true American-style comedy, and our collaboration continued with LES MARIÉS DE L'AN II and LE SAUVAGE. In LES MARIÉS, Jean-Paul Belmondo was asked to sing a hymn to the Revolution. I had him rehearse for two hours, but I couldn't get him to hit a single note. A real catastrophe! We had to give up trying to get him to sing... What amused me were the fight sequences, where I tried to transform the actors into dancers. When you watch the film again, you realize that the movement of the music follows the rhythm of the editing and the actors' movements within the frame in a choreographed way.

How did you come to write THE GO-BETWEEN’s famous Suite for Two Pianos and Chamber Orchestra for Losey?
When Losey showed me the film, I was blown away. Behind the very elegant staging, there was a serious, cruel dimension linked to the viewpoint of a child discovering the world of adults... I wanted to write a brilliant score, inspired by the Baroque, but with a completely modern orchestration. But then Losey played me a syrupy slow song, with tenor sax and strings, and said: "That's what I want! " I jumped in horror and tried to dissuade him: "No, Joe, you'll spoil it! If you ask me for this kind of music, I'm not making your movie! Let me think!" He finally agreed.

Two weeks later, I told him about my idea for a baroque soundtrack. He reluctantly agreed: "Give it a try, we'll see!" Then came the recording in London. No sooner had I begun the first bars of the theme than he started shouting: "You can stop now! This isn't right at all! This is not the mood of the film!" I stood my ground and recorded the music in its entirety. Joe was pacing back and forth in the studio, biting his fingers. At the end of the recording, I said to him: "You don't like this music. Be so kind as to put it on the film. If it doesn't fit at all, I'll start again...".

Days went by, then weeks, then months, without any news from Losey. Seven months later, I was told that THE GO-BETWEEN was going to Cannes. Without knowing whether my music had been kept, I learned one evening that it had been awarded the Palme d'Or! The next day, a telegram from Losey: "Thank you Michel. Your music helped us win this award". So he let me stew for months without reassuring me, without telling me that my music worked well with his images. This is a typical example of a collaboration with Losey where, before arriving at a happy result, we had to go through conflicts and uncertainties.

How would you define the spirit of the music in THE GO-BETWEEN?
I wanted a score with grace and, at the same time, dramatic overtones. From the outset, the four-note motif sets a mood of gravity. The film's action takes place in 1900, but the baroque color takes us back a few centuries to show that the aristocracy has not moved one iota: it still lives by the same values, the same conventions. The music, I believe, accentuates the universal dimension of the subject. In 1979, I recorded a Suite for CBS. It's a work in its own right, existing outside the film. Because film music has to be pure music. In my opinion, the criterion for quality music is this: you take away the image, and if the music holds up, it has a value of its own. If it doesn't, it's not music. Most of the time, when the image is gone, there's nothing left.

A few months after THE GO-BETWEEN, you wrote the score for SUMMER OF '42, another tale of childhood and learning...
Basically, SUMMER OF '42 is a film I shouldn't have made. The producers had chosen an American composer whose work they didn't like in the end. So they called me in urgently. I arrived in Los Angeles and saw the film on a Friday. It seduced me with its modesty and delicacy of feeling. At the end of the screening, I stayed several minutes without being able to speak... Probably because of this diffuse charm, this nostalgia for adolescence, vacations, the seaside, first loves... I was very happy to work on a film that touched me so much. Robert Mulligan, the director, said to me: "Michel, the music has to be ready next Wednesday. Because we're mixing on Thursday. You've got five days left to compose and record! " On the face of it, it was a challenge!

In fact, nothing was that simple. I went home and started writing straight away. The film had given me a tremendous emotion, and I immediately found the musical equivalent. My pen glided over the staff... In general, I like to create in a hurry. When you're in a hurry, everything comes together very quickly, you're still under the immediate effect of the film. On the other hand, when you have time, you reflect, you think, you find your first ideas too obvious, too instinctive. You try to improve them and, in the end, you distort them. In the end, you drown in your own bath! Personally, when I don't have time to look, I find! Being in danger - or having to work fast - is a very stimulating constraint for creativity. If I'd had a month to compose the music for SUMMER OF '42, it would probably have been more banal, less spontaneous.

THE HUNTER starring Steve McQueen has 2 musical scores, one by you and one by Charles Bernstein. What went wrong?
When I first saw the film, I thought it was necessary to avoid the use of jazz with, for example, bongos in the chase sequences. I really didn't want to fall into that trap. After some thought, I proposed to the director, Buzz Kulik, the idea of a baroque score with trumpets in B flat. He accepted enthusiastically! The fugues and canons worked beautifully in the chase scenes through the city streets, while adding an unusual and original color. It was so unexpected that the producer rejected the music. For him, it wasn't traditional enough and, no doubt, too European in sensibility! After lengthy legal battles, I managed to get my music retained for the film's release, but only in the United States. As for the rest of the world, Charles Bernstein was chosen to compose another score.

You had the opportunity to write the music for a James Bond film. NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN. How did you manage to distinguish yourself from John Barry's work?
The adventure of NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN began in London, where I had just finished recording with Barbra Streisand for YENTL. Once again, it was a film with a long and exciting journey, from which I was really exhausted. Then Sean Connery called me. I knew him a little bit, and we got to know each other very quickly. He said to me: "I've chosen you to write the music for my new film. Would you be willing to take part? " "Yes, but what's it about?" He replied, "A new James Bond film!" I was surprised and happy: I was going to be able to add a Bond film to my filmography! What helped me with NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN was the film's deliberate distancing, constantly verging on self-parody. I could come up with an unconventional score because the film itself was different from other James Bond films. In general, their music tends to be string-based, with somewhat troubled atmospheres. I decided to work in a different direction, composing a more rhythmic score based on percussion and brass. I also got my trumpeter friend Herb Alpert and his wife, Lani Hall, to join me on the title track, with lyrics by the Bergmans. For me, NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN was a fun and playful experience... Because life is terribly fun if you get the chance to explore very different worlds. (...)

What state of mind are you in when you first see the film?
I try to remain a child, to react like a spectator. The film speaks to me, sings to me, makes me jump or bores me to tears. In any case, it triggers feelings in me. Then, as a second step, I ask myself what the musical needs are. For me, the most important thing is never to look at it as a technician from the very first screening. At this stage, it's vital to react with emotions and not with composer's automatisms.

Did you work in this way with Robert Altman, for whom you've just composed the music for PRÊT-À-PORTER?
Yes, first I let myself be carried away by the plot, in which an incredible number of characters come together. Then I spoke to Altman, who is the least directive director I know. He said to me: "I'm not a musician, I don't know anything about musical problems!" I asked him, "But what do you want in your film?" Answer: "I want you to have fun!" He gave me the confidence to compose freely. We didn't even see him at the recording! I was reassured when I learned that he didn't give the actors any instructions either! For the opening credits of PRÊT-À-PORTER, I wrote a surprising theme with a jazz flute in the middle of a classical orchestra; it fits in well with the sophistication of fashion circles and with Altman's offbeat, gritty outlook. Besides, I've always loved orchestral formulas that are a little unusual. What the Americans call "safe" music bores me. If you want conventional, unsurprising music, don't call me! I like adventure, iconoclastic finds, like the association of a bassoon and a big-band for Paul Mazursky's film THE PICKLE. This kind of ambition has led me to take risks and to be refused scores by certain directors. You have to live dangerously!

On which films did you encounter this situation?
On LE CERCLE ROUGE. Jean-Pierre Melville let me write the music. After the recording, he said to me: "No, it doesn't fit at all. I should have been close to you, writing every bar together...". The bottom line is that Melville would have liked to have been able to compose the music for his work himself... Often, being refused a score means that you have taken a risk in the interests of the film, to give it added value. And then you're faced with an overcautious and incomprehensible audience who won't accept your approach. Too bad! I had the same experience with Richard Lester's ROBIN AND MARIAN. The film's script had bowled me over, revealing an aging, disillusioned Robin Hood, full of tenderness. It was an original, nostalgic look at a myth. When I saw the film, I was dismayed: despite the performances of Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn, the grace had disappeared. To help the film as best I could, I tried, through the music, to recapture all the emotion I'd felt when reading the script. Based on the idea of the Robin Hood/Marianne couple, I composed a double concerto for violin, cello and two string orchestras. It's one of the most beautiful scores I've ever written! Lester also loved it, to the point of declaring to me: "If I put your music on my pictures, my film no longer exists! You can't see anything, neither the action nor the characters...". I tried to convince him otherwise. We didn't understand each other. And he preferred to call in John Barry. Twenty years later, my double concerto still exists, it's still there. In fact, I'd like to rework the arrangement so that I can record it for the record and play it in concert.

How do you analyze this communication problem between composer and director?
I think some directors often expect a strictly functional, neutral score with no particular personality. But for my part, I write music that speaks, that sings, that lives. I don't know any other way. I can't see myself composing while trying to be as anonymous as possible! As a result, I've had a few minor disagreements with directors who don't appreciate overly expressive music. They feared that the themes would interfere with the image, distracting the viewer's attention! On the contrary, with ROBIN AND MARIAN, I remain convinced that the score gave the plot its original emotional force and sparkle. In short, when a film is unfinished, music can help to strengthen and improve it. Conversely, bad music can't kill something cinematically strong. I'm thinking, for example, of certain Pagnol films where you hear a kind of musical continuum that's totally inept. Whatever happens, it never destroys the poetry of the text, situations or staging.

Tell us about your experience with the music for LES ENFANTS DE LUMIÈRE, and how did you approach the subject?
LES ENFANTS DE LUMIÈRE is a very moving montage about one hundred years of French cinema. Pierre Philippe conceived it from film extracts, editing them to thematic music I had previously recorded: Le Paris des Décorateurs, Les Couples Célèbres, L'Histoire de France... In fact, the ideal solution would have been for all the great composers, living and dead, to get together and write the film's music, sharing the sheet music: "Here, Kosma, such and such an extract is for you; here, Auric, such and such a sequence suits you perfectly...".

Since this idea is obviously not feasible, it makes my job all the more difficult: I have to be all these composers at once! For example, in the theme of Paris des Décorateurs, with its cheeky, nostalgic accordion, I tried to slip in all the musical emotions that the populist waltzes of Maurice Jaubert or Georges Van Parys gave me, inseparable from the image of a mythical Paris, fabricated from scratch by the Seventh Art. That said, while I do wink at these musicians, I'm not trying to pastich them. On the contrary, if we call on a composer of today, it's to get his or her take on the past. As LES ENFANTS DE LUMIÈRE covers a century of cinema, it was necessary to write music that was timeless and out of fashion. Music that didn't belong to any specific era, that was as much from 1895 as from 2095. This contingency turned out to be extremely stimulating, giving rise to ideas I wouldn't have thought of beforehand. In any case, in art, freedom only exists through constraint. The more limited you are, the freer you are!

Today, we've only been talking about your work in images. We know that you're also a singer, songwriter and jazz musician... Do you consider these activities to be parallel careers?
No, they're not really careers. Because if I'd been a careerist, my path would have been different. For me, having a career is a political choice. I know musicians with a careerist mindset: they live the life of a politician, where every decision is carefully calculated, where there are no gratuitous or disinterested acts. Their existence is like a curve, with a starting point, an evolution and an ending point. In such cases, the career resembles a prison, reflecting the vanity of power. I, on the other hand, am motivated by life and by music in all its richness and diversity. That's why I've never stopped at a single discipline. I'm fascinated by the idea of giving a trio concert one day and a big orchestra concert the next, or recording with Stéphane Grappelli, Charles Aznavour or Jessé Norman. In any case, the main thing is to always remain a beginner. One of the most beautiful moments in life is when you're discovering and learning. When you become too skilled, your spontaneity disappears and you're no longer afraid of anything. I hope never to become what is coldly called a "great professional". Throughout my career, I've wanted to diversify my musical pleasures and remain an eternal beginner, without ever thinking in terms of a "career". As Stravinsky said: "We insomniacs are always looking for a fresh place on the pillow". For forty years now, I've been constantly searching for that famous spot!