{"id":9786,"date":"2011-10-23T09:43:40","date_gmt":"2011-10-23T09:43:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=9786"},"modified":"2019-01-27T13:42:47","modified_gmt":"2019-01-27T13:42:47","slug":"norman-jewison-on-the-music-in-the-thomas-crown-affair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=9786","title":{"rendered":"Norman Jewison on the music in \u2018The Thomas Crown Affair\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Ray Bennett<\/p>\n

GHENT, BELGIUM: Canadian filmmaker Norman Jewison has had an outstanding career as director and producer of major Hollywood films but it\u2019s sometimes overlooked how much great music played in his success and how many wonderful composers he worked with.<\/p>\n

The list includes \u2018The Cincinnati Kid\u2019 (1965) with Lalo Schifrin, \u2018The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming\u2019 (1966) Johnny Mandel, \u2018In the Heat of the Night\u2019 (1967) Quincy Jones , \u2018Gaily, Gaily\u2019 (1969) Henry Mancini,\u00a0 <\/span>\u2018F.I.S.T\u2019 (1978) Bill Conti, \u2018\u2026and justice for all\u2019 (1978) Dave Grusin,\u00a0 <\/span>\u2018Best Friends\u2019 (1982) Michel Legrand, \u2018Moonstruck\u2019 (1987) Dick Hyman, and \u2018Agnes of God\u2019 (1985) Georges Delarue.<\/p>\n

In 1962, he produced \u2018The Broadway of Lerner and Loewe\u2019 for NBC starring Julie Andrews, Richard Burton, Maurice Chevalier, Robert Goulet and Stanley Holloway. In 1963, he produced \u2018The Judy Garland Show\u2019 for CBS and he directed the musicals \u2018Fiddler On The Roof\u2019 (1971) and \u2018Jesus Christ Superstar\u2019 (1973).<\/p>\n

And, of course, he worked with Michel Legrand on \u2018The Thomas Crown Affair\u2019 (1968) for which the composer was nominated for an Academy Award for best original score. With lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman he won the Oscar for best original song \u00a0for ‘The Windmills of Your Mind’ (performed in the film by Noel Harrison).<\/p>\n

\u201cGod, it\u2019s a beautiful score,\u201d Jewison told me. \u201cWhat a score that is. You can just play the score with a snatch of dialogue.\u201d<\/p>\n

We met at the 38th Ghent International Film Festival in Belgium where he received the annual Joseph Plateau Award for lifetime achievement. In the spacious lobby of festival headquarters at the Ghent Marriott Hotel, we chatted about the inspiration for the score over some Jameson and soda.<\/p>\n

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The director said he brought Legrand onto \u2018The Thomas Crown Affair\u2019 after he had edited the chess match played in the film by Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway. \u201cWe showed him the scene and I said, \u2018Do you want to take the clip home?\u2019 He took it home and when he came back we could just cut his music right to the moves of the actors\u2019 hands. God, it was just mind-blowing. He wrote the cue \u2018His Eyes, Her Eyes\u2019 because he became fascinated with the\u00a0way they look\u00a0at each other. He made it so romantic all of a sudden, this chess game, which you looked at in silence, because it\u2019s a\u00a0game played with no talk.”<\/p>\n

People had told Jewison that it was just like a card game: \u201cI said, \u2018What are you talking about?\u2019 I know what I\u2019m doing. It\u2019s not about chess: it\u2019s about sex. Don\u2019t you realise? Every move of her hand; she\u2019s trying to get an advantage \u2026 and Michel just scored the shit out of that. \u2018His Eyes, Her Eyes\u2019 is\u00a0just wonderful, but \u2018Windmills Of Your Mind\u2019 overshadowed it.\u201d<\/p>\n

That song comes later in the film when McQueen is in a glider: “I had put \u2018Strawberry Fields\u2019 by the Beatles behind the glider as a temp track, and I said, \u2018There\u2019s something repetitious about the song and I said \u2018I need something like this.\u2019 That\u2019s when Michel wrote this strange piece and the Bergmans came up with \u2018Round, like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel\u2019 and it was all inspired by \u2018Strawberry Fields\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

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By Ray Bennett GHENT, BELGIUM: Canadian filmmaker Norman Jewison has had an outstanding career as director and producer of major Hollywood films but it\u2019s sometimes overlooked how much great music played in his success and how many wonderful composers he … 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],"tags":[3215,3212,609,3213,872,1585],"class_list":["post-9786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","category-interviews","category-music","tag-the-thomas-crown-affair","tag-alan-bergman","tag-ghent-international-film-festival","tag-marilyn-bergman","tag-michel-legrand","tag-norman-jewison"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9786","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=9786"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9794,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9786\/revisions\/9794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}