Transcription

• Speaker #0

  The Sacem Museum presents Bandes Originales.

• Speaker #2

  We are in 2014. Wes Anderson and Alexandre Desplat have finished their third collaboration. They do not yet know that it will win the Oscar for Best Film Music for the film of Grand Budapest Hotel. We are a few hours before the premiere of the film. The director is accompanied by a certain number of people who make us understand that time is running out and that there will not be much time to give us. Despite this, we face a very relaxed person who will insist on taking the time he needs.

• Speaker #1

  sonata or whatever you would call it that's later in the film, but the opening music is so powerful. And then I was introduced to him by Steve Gagan, the director Steve Gagan. Alexandre was doing Siriana and I went to see Alexandre at his studio and so I thought, well maybe I can convince him to do this fantastic Mr. Fox. And so then when I had the script ready, I gave it to him. And I also moved to Montparnasse myself. So we became neighbors. We became voisins dans le quartier. But with each movie, I think I probably, the music, I kind of think about the music in a different way. With the last movie, which Alexandre and I worked on together, Moonrise Kingdom, This one, I had lots and lots of music already chosen that was not original music, that was Benjamin Britten music especially, and it was already sort of planned, and I did a lot of listening to just the of of Britten to find more music that would go into the movie, and Alexandre... listened to all of that and he made some original music for us that may be related in different ways to the Britain music but there was a sound that we were kind of responding to, let's say. Alexandre wrote really one big piece of music. We worked together for a short time on the movie and he wrote this great big piece of music and then I arranged the piece in different places. I played the piece over and over again through the movie in different arrangements. And sometimes I would use different instruments and then I sort of arranged that. Then I went back to Alexandre and showed him and then he and I sat together and he made it, you know, he wrote more music, he sort of took the editing I had done and made the pieces come to life again and he sort of refined them. But in the course of this I... Listen to all the parts that he had written, which were many, you know, must have been, it was a whole orchestra and there were many different parts that he'd written for the different parts of the orchestra to play. I heard it all taken apart. You know, I heard the layers of the music separately. And many of the layers I liked just, I wanted to hear just what the French horn did, just what the guitar did, just what the percussion was doing. They were interesting parts, and I was quite inspired by that, so I made a piece that relates to this Benjamin Britten piece for children that describes how the orchestra works, the young person's guide to the orchestra. And we made our own version of Alexandre's, but it was really the reason I did it was because I wanted to play all the parts that Alexandre had written because they were so good, and they were so interesting on their own. It's sort of an homage to Alexandre's... Let's say his ears, you know, his mind and his ear, you know, it's an homage to his music. And so he, in Cannes, he saw the movie, but he didn't know it was going to end with this sort of homage to Alexandre. So I think he was very surprised, and I don't know what he thought.

• Speaker #3

  Now we will demonstrate the orchestration of Mr. Desplat's musical suite. A little electronic metronome sets the time. First, a harp. Next, pizzicato cellos, flute, and piccolo, electric guitar.

• Speaker #1

  You know, I usually try to get Alexandre to start working with me on the music very early, but he's always too busy. So usually I think there was a moment when we would be able to work together that might change where, you know, we might be able to make the music before we shoot the scenes, for instance, and shape it in that way. But usually I don't get him until later. You know, he's got all these projects. And now I have my time with him, which I seize. But it's usually after things have already progressed, even though we always talk along the way. And I know he has the movie in his mind, and he's contemplating it. But I will say, I think Alexandre likes to see it before he really begins to write the stuff. I'm hoping on the next one, though, that I can get him to make some music before we begin even. You know, I have a few little themes because you never know I could have someone play it on the set. You know, I could incorporate it into the shooting in a way. But this new movie would have been a very good candidate for that and I'm perfectly happy with the way that we did it. It's, you know, it's a bit scary to make a whole movie, for me to do a whole movie, essentially finish the movie and not have the music. But... But then I was, when this music actually finally was really there in front of us, and Alexander had really made the music, I was, I thought, you know, I felt like it was some of the best music he'd done for me. I had a few ideas just of that we wanted it to be sort of Eastern European. And, you know, Alexander and I started talking about these different instruments and his interest in music is very broad. So if you bring up... an area of music or a kind of regional music, he sort of always knows quite a bit about it. He knows something about it already. And so he'll say, well, here's the pieces we have to listen to, and he'll bring that into the equation. And that was the case with this. We started listening to these things together, and then, you know, the process is usually he writes some sketches. And I say, I like this and I like this. And then he says, okay, let me expand this and expand this and see where it goes. And what about this one? And I said, well, I wasn't so sure about that. He said, well, let me change it a little and try something, you know. And he makes some small change and suddenly I see the reason he has written it, sort of. So anyway, but the process of working on the Grand Budapest music was quite a bit of... before he really was writing the music. We just listened to things and talked about things, and he saw the movie a few times. When it actually comes time for him to be really focusing on the work, he tends to work very, very quickly.

• Speaker #0

  Thank you.