{"id":11348,"date":"2024-09-14T15:21:04","date_gmt":"2024-09-14T15:21:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=11348"},"modified":"2024-09-14T15:21:04","modified_gmt":"2024-09-14T15:21:04","slug":"composer-maurice-jarres-ups-and-downs-scoring-films","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=11348","title":{"rendered":"Composer Maurice Jarre\u2019s ups and downs scoring films"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBy Ray Bennett<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>French film composer Maurice Jarre, who was born 100 years ago yesterday, is invariably linked with director David Lean but there were other filmmakers he worked with more than once and he had interesting anecdotes about them.<\/p>\n

Australian director Peter Weir invited Jarre to Australia in 1982 to score \u2018The Year of Living Dangerously\u2019 starring Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver (pictured below). The Frenchman was impressed when a giant limousine awaited him in Sydney and when Weir told him how much he admired his work as director of the Theatre National Populaire based near Lyon in France.<\/p>\n

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More important was that Weir said he could do whatever he wished with the music. \u2018I wanted to write something totally electronically but in the U.S. producers insisted on a full orchestra,\u2019 Jarre told me when I interviewed him at the World Soundtrack Awards in Gent in 2003. \u2018I discovered there was no one in Sydney with synthesiser experience sophisticated enough so I decided to do it myself with an engineer. It was a very long process as I had to get a sample of each instrument. It took me about three months working from nine in the mornng to 2 a.m. Peter gave me freedom and in the end he was very happy.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Two years later came Weir\u2019s \u2018Witness\u2019, starring Harrison Ford, with its much-admired barn-building scene (pictured). \u2018The music for that scene was one of Peter\u2019s favourites,\u2019 Jarre told me, \u2018although at first he told me not to spend any time on it as he already had music in place. I studied very thoroughly to know how he edited the film; analysed it very carefully. I thought music for the scene should start slowly \u2013 a bass line, a counterpoint and then, like the barn, the music starts to build. As I was almost finished, I heard Peter outside the studio sayiing, \u201cWhat\u2019s that? What is that?\u201d He came in and I explained and he said, \u201cOh, that\u2019s fantastic!\u201d He said it was a piece I could play in concert. I transcribed it for an orchestra and we recorded it in Los Angeles. It was very well received.\u2019 It won the BAFTA for best score and earned an Oscar nomination.<\/p>\n

Jarre\u2019s experience on Weir\u2019s next picture \u2018The Mosquito Coast\u2019 in 1986 was not so pleasant. The director gave him the script before he started to shoot in Belize and asked him to write music for seven or eight sequences so he could play them for the actors. Jarre obliged and when the shoot began, Weir told him, \u2018I am so happy. The actors are working with the music.\u2019<\/p>\n

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\nThen Weir put together a rough cut and they tried to put the music to the film. \u2018It didn\u2019t work at all,\u2019 said Jarre. \u2018He said he didn\u2019t understand why it didn\u2019t work but it meant I had to write new music completely. That was an interesting experience.\u2019<\/p>\n

Jarre said he threw the original music away. \u2018I thought it was a beautiful film although critics thought Ford was miscast. I worked with a synth player but in the end the musical concept from the script was wrong.\u2019<\/p>\n

The Frenchman said it taught him something: \u2018Many of my colleagues say they like to write from a script but for me it didn\u2019t work. For me, the inspiration is when you see the film even if it\u2019s a rough cut. When I saw the first cut of \u201cLawrence of Arabia\u201d (top picture) \u2026 I saw 40 hours of film. The beauty of the locations, the actors \u2026 neither Peter O\u2019Toole nor Omar Sharif were known then but they were fantastic. The first lttle theme I wrote became the theme of Lawrence. I had a home on Half Moon Street in London. Producer Sam Spiegel asked me to come to London for one month. I did not know much about Lawrence so I read about his life and his time. It was a very interesting experience. I realised that the inspiration definitely comes when you see the film.\u2019<\/p>\n

Jarre later provided scores for Weir\u2019s \u2018Dead Poets Society[ and \u2018Fearless\u2019 and he worked twice with British filmmaker Adrian Lyne, on \u2018Fatal Attraction\u2019, starring Michael Douglas, Glenn Close (pictured below) and Anne Archer, and \u2018Jacob\u2019s Ladder\u2019 with Tim Robbins. The first really put him to the test. \u2018This crazy film, \u201cFatal Attraction\u201d, did not have too much music,\u2019 Jarre said, \u2018and Adrian told me he did not want scary music. He wanted something discreet and he was happy.\u2019\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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One week before the release of the film, the studio held a preview. Jarre told me, \u2018The notes were very good but the studio said something was wrong with the ending. It was crazy, the writer would rewrite the last seven or eight minutes of the fim. They said the actors wanted to do it but they really did not. The studio said either they did it or they would put the film on the shelf. Adrian showed me new scenes and said he neeed eight or 10 minutes of new music. That was Friday and we would record on Monday morning. I spent two days and nights writing. We recorded the music on Monday and by Monday night it was ready for release. The studio people were very happy. They said, \u201cYou saved the film.\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n

Jarre, who died in 2009, is inextricably linked with David Lean as his three Academy Award wins from nine nominations were for scores to the British director\u2019s pictures starting with \u2018Lawrence of Arabia\u2019 in 1962 and followed by \u2018Dr. Zhivago\u2019 and \u2018A Passage to India\u2019. He worked with a great many other top directors including Alfred Hitchcock, Fred Zinnemannm, William Wyler, Rene Clement, Richard Brooks, John Frankenheimer and John Huston.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>He also worked with Clint Eastwood and, given that filmmaker\u2019s preference for his own music, I was curious about his experience working on the 1982 action picture \u2018Firefox\u2019.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Clint Eastwood is an interesting man, very nice, very charming but he does not understand too much about music in film,\u2019 Jarre said. \u2018He\u2019s a fan of jazz \u2026 on his latest picture, he does his own music. It sounds like putting him down but it\u2019s not that. He likes sound effects but not music. It was not one of his best pictures, not a good film, I liked the man, absolutely adorable, no temper. I enjoyed very much working with him but the film was not interesting from the music point of view.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ray Bennett French film composer Maurice Jarre, who was born 100 years ago yesterday, is invariably linked with director David Lean but there were other filmmakers he worked with more than once and he had interesting anecdotes about them. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,8,5469],"tags":[302,493,850,977],"class_list":["post-11348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","category-interviews","category-music","category-world-soundtrack-awards","tag-adrian-lyne","tag-david-lean","tag-maurice-jarre","tag-peter-weir"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11348"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11359,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11348\/revisions\/11359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}