ALEXANDRE DESPLAT

Pity indeed! But as I've always said liking or disliking something is a very personal matter. I,on the other hand, love him.

As for Benjamin Button, it probably helps me that I love the movie very much as well.
Every time I listen to the CD those magical scenes from the movie appear in my head.

Bargain. People think it's boring, but they're looking at it all wrong - it's relaxing! Very very relaxing.

You're missing on some great music mate, very sentimental, beautiful.

All skill and no sentiment.
I find that Desplat is best enjoyed through a playlist of his best tracks. Far mroe so than ploughing through whole scores.

Well, especially when you consider that Desplat has been Delerue's collaborator/orchestrator for many long years, I think the difference between real sentiment and appropriate skill is painfully obvious.

But hey-ho I'm open to anything.
Haven't found anything by Desplat I'm properly moved by, but I do by and large enjoy Largo Winch, The Golden Compass, L'Enquête Corse and Casanova (as well as about a third of Twlight: New Moon).

But if you really feel there are powerfully sentimental works by him out there, by all means tell me and I'll try them (though, for example, Benjamin Button is about the worst snoozefest I have had to sit through).

Yep. Hated Button. Overlong, oversentimental, overhyped, overacted, overboring.
Horrid film.

Seen Largo Winch too, I think (not sure), The Golden Compass, Girl With The Pearl Earring (another overrated snoozer)...ermmmmm....That's all I can think of right now.

Well, I did rather like Golden Compass as a film.
I'm not sure how many other films scored by Desplat I have seen? But for now the negative experiences do seem to outweigh the positive.

Over the last year I've grown from disinterested in Desplat with Birth, my first score from him (good but didn't do it), to interested (Hostage, Golden Compass), to very excited (Girl with a Pearl Earring, Golden Compass again, with some actual decent listens).
Now I'm a huge fan, and am busy tracking all of his in-print CDs. He's really the new Williams for me (and I haven't declared that before, not even with some of my favourite "new" composers like David Arnold or Giacchino): the music isn't only elegant and melodic like Williams's, but it's also musically subtle. He knows his way around the orchestra like only few do; and he uses that. Just like Williams, his orchestrations are great. Some of his French scores actually resemble Williams's smaller-scale scores like Stanley & Iris, The Accidental Tourist etc. a lot! Plus, he can truly hold some back to go all out in the climax; there's actual construction and progression with him. Take for instance Golden Compass and Ghost Writer; how awesome is it when he lets the orchestra loose on the icebear fight or the last battle in the former or the penultimate track of the latter.

Well, let's talk about this in 20 years and see who's been right

Why has no mentioned Luzhin Defence? It's one of his top works and I daresay, the most likable to all.
No love for Lust, Caution either, Martijn?

I'm talking more of the people who know those composers today
each generation grows up with a different composer, I get your point but for most of us here Williams and Goldsmith is Rozsa and Herrmann of our time

that aside, no matter how good I think Desplat is, I just don't like em very much, his style is not one I dig .... yet

And for me... he's one of a few that actually is worth keeping up to date with. The 'spreading the wings' thing is a sensibility thing though. It does amaze me that he's made it as far as he has in American film, although I think he'll always be an odd fit in a blockbuster. The smaller-budget dramas/comedies feel like his stomping ground, and French films will nearly always get the best of him (since they tend to be filmmakers for whom that restraint is what they want from their music).

(And oh dear - did someone just suggest Stanley and Iris trumps Desplat's whole catalogue? Call me Katharine!)