Maurice Jarre, acclaimed Oscar- winning French composer and conductor died this week aged 84. On this week's ‘The Screening Room Xtra' Jarre gave one of his last interviews ever, to fellow French composer Alexandre Desplat. One of Hollywood's most decorated composers, Jarre wrote more than 150 scores for films that ranged from thrillers to love stories, working with star directors such as John Huston, Alfred Hitchcock and Franco Zeffirelli. He won Oscars for ‘Lawrence of Arabia' in 1962 and three years later was awarded a second statuette for ‘Doctor Zhivago', both films directed by David Lean. A third Oscar came in 1984 for best original music score for ‘A Passage to India', again with Lean. ‘The Screening Room Xtra' airs April 2nd at 1645, 3rd at 1115, 4th at 1645, 5th at 0115, 0645, 2245 and 6th at 1045 HKT. Below is the full transcript of the interview. CNN's THE SCREENING ROOM XTRA must be credited if any quotes from this interview are used. ALEXANDRE DESPLAT: We're here with Maurice Jarre, greatest composer for French film scores and British scores and American scores for the last fifty years and it's a great honour to be here sitting with Maurice and sharing this moment. Well the Oscars are coming up soon, so we'll see. I hope to one day achieve three Oscars like yourself Maurice. I don't know if you know, but the path that you traced for us French composers is phenomenal and indispensable because you proved that...the heritage of French music, since our masters Ravel and Debussy, Messien and now you, have proved that we can have this long affiliation with music. And the love for cinema and theatre is something that unites us, because I also wrote a lot for the theatre like yourself... MAURICE JARRE: The love for cinema, that's correct. And also the opportunity to work with real...to use a common word - "giants": Schlondorff, Visconti, John Huston, and...(DESPLAT: Hitchcock!)...Hitchcock. This type of director has disappeared and they no longer exist. DESPLAT: Of course. And what's fantastic, one can sense with your work this passion for cinema, and for images, and your complete dedication to images. And I think I also have this devotion - in fact I don't think, I know because it's devoured me since I was an adolescent. And I know there's many composers of whom I know they're film composers by default, simply because it's a job, it's a good occupation. But I don't sense in them that love for images, and that inspiration films have given us. JARRE: That's exactly right. People who tell me "when you write the music for a film, do you know whether the film will be a great success?" I tell them "No! I was mainly concerned about finishing the music in time...". And that's why the work was a little...like Sam Spiegel said "you have a job like Superman!" And that was true because I worked day and night. But at that point I had no idea I was working on probably one of the best films in the history of cinema. DESPLAT: What's essential is to have extremely talented directors who listen to you. And that's the best reward because...your talent as a composer can express itself. You can search, you can invent something. With films, where directors aren't so great it's much more difficult to write good music. JARRE: Exactly! DESPLAT: Because you're suppressed. JARRE: You know...before I wrote the first electronic score for Peter Weir, for "Year of Living Dangerously", nobody wanted to hear about a purely electronic score, apart from if it had one synthesizer in it in order to earn a bit of money. But Peter Weir used it in an artistic manner, and that's what was so great. DESPLAT: Yes and that's, for me an example which is already beginning to get to me, because...after having done 70 or 80 film scores, I realise it is perhaps time for me to be careful not to repeat myself, and to find a new voice. And I think that the path you took in the 1980's, and the courage you had - and I find it extremely courageous - to abandon the orchestra for electronic music, it was very, very courageous. And for me it's also an incredible example. What was for you, Maurice, the most beautiful experience, or the Oscar which you loved most? Was it the first because, the first is always great... JARRE: Of course...it's the first, and it's a sentimental one because David Lean and I became good friends. But...finally with the good directors it was always an interesting experience, and a difficult one, because...we always had slightly different visions at the outset, but it always arranged itself.......I never really had a "bust-up" with a good director. A good director will always find an intellectual understanding. And that's what was great - I had an opportunity with all these people. I don't think I can say that I ever worked with a bad director. There were never any real problems; there were discussions... DESPLAT: Negotiations...an exchange, yes it's an exchange... JARRE: A bit of diplomacy here and there. (laughs) DESPLAT: Absolutely. It's necessary...I have a question for you Marice. I know that Picasso once said "I don't search; I find." For me...I don't always find. Often I have to search again and again. And sometimes I don't find until the next day. I can't find the chord that ties things together, the fragment of melody I didn't finish...Do you always find or do you search a lot? JARRE: I always search. I always search and sometimes at night...composers don't wake up at 4 am and suddenly think "I've got a great..." No. I think that Stravinsky was right when he said "when you work on a film, a unique oeuvre, you search and you search, and sometimes you find, sometimes you don't, so you take something." Stravinsky was a master at taking something...a little bit of folklore...and he transformed that superbly. And I think...I never...this might sound a little pretentious, but, I never took the little things here and there. I tried...but it's quicker to find, than to take things and transform them. JARRE: The only problem is now, there is more and more bad music that goes "dang dang dang dang dang..." DESPLAT: Yes, where the emphasis is only on the rhythm... JARRE: So...it's better to turn off the music, and listen to a concert of Mozart. -ENDS- |
