[Closed, Sink] Now Playing XXXVIII

I just had to play it again, it's quite rare I play the same score back to back.

It's all about the layers. Desplat builds this great piece with twinkling chimes, harp and strings... very mysterious... then the choppy low strings show up and you wonder what's up? The low bass line from the main theme then begins to show its face. Desplat takes the strings up the scale and then the layers of the main theme start to show up one element at a time until everything finally comes together highlight by the sweeping strings close to the end of the track where everything is fully realized with a wonderful climax. Oh man... what a satisfying track. The first thing I think of is James Horner when I hear this cue. He is the master of building upon the layers of the orchestra that finish with brilliant climaxes and Desplat's cue is just as masterful! You really have to see the scene this cue accompanies because the score is the star of that scene... it takes a hold of the film at that point and runs with it. Brilliant scoring! As matter of fact...

NP: The Ghost Writer - Alexandre Desplat

I haven't liked a lot of Desplat's work but I'd say that this is my favorite of his!

-Erik-

I think most of this score was written by Eric Colvin.

-Erik-

I know it says that on the cover but I think most of the score was written by Eric Colvin who as you can see on the back cover is credited with "Arranged and Conducted by" I thought I read an interview with Basil that he gave a lot of the credit for this score to Colvin.

-Erik-

Here's the answer to the Kimberly question about who composed what.

You have another romantic movie, Kimberly coming out soon. What can you tell me about that?

All of these movies were worth waiting for. They are all very different, very rewarding, and very fulfilling musically, for me. Kimberly is about a rowing team in Philadelphia who makes a bet with another rowing team and is hopelessly outgunned. Kimberly (Gabrielle Anwar) offers to help them out as their coxswain, and soon all four men fall in love with her. She becomes pregnant, and she realizes any of the four of them could be the father. It's a romantic comedy with an American setting, but it had a very serious European sensitivity to it. It's loosely based on Guy de Maupassant's short story, "Mouche". Frederic Golchan (the director) really wanted Georges Delerue to score the film - don't we all! I love Georges Delerue, and respected his work, so what I tried to do was to deliver a main title that was something Georges might have written if he were alive in the late 1990's. Eric Colvin arranged and conducted the score. I wrote some of the cues, and Eric wrote the rest. It was an interesting collaboration, and I really enjoyed it. The studio here was just humming, and it proved that I could produce an entire film score in this one location!

courtesy SoundtrackNet

-Erik-

ah, that explains it a little bit
Thanks Erik

Indeed it is!

If that sounds fucking amazing, I shudder to think what The Battle of Hoth would sound like.

Thanks for the elaborate description of the track. I will give it another chance, paying extra attention to the orchestration.

But perhaps I'm the kinda film score fan who's more into great melody than great orchestration. For me it doesn't make a difference whether a melody is carried by a single flute or an entire symphony orchestra. In the end the melody is what really matters to me.




The only Desplat that really blew me away was the Twilight thing. Everything else Desplat sounds kinda samish to me. People criticize Rachel Portman for always sounding the same. This criticism seems strangely absent with Desplat, even though it would be just as warranted.

Peter

I look forward to this happening every day.

For someone who isn't a big fan of Desplat, you explained the greatness of that track better than I could.

Must say that I find Portman way more memorable. Desplat has a unique style, and I find him a great asset to Hollywood, but memorable melodies isn't his forté.

Peter

I speak as someone who has made that criticism, but I think there are several big differences there. Most obviously, that Portman has been scoring films for 15 years longer than Desplat, so the fact it's all the same is just spread over a considerably bigger body of work; but also, more importantly, that Desplat's "thing" is serious dramatic films whereas Portman's is generally light fluffy chick flicks, which allows him more of a chance to bring in variations.

Also, there's a subtle but important difference between having a very singular, identifiable style (which is something that literally all of the great film composers have) which can be moulded to fit the requirements of a particular film and just adopting a one-size-fits-all approach regardless of the film's demands. I think that's the difference between the two and why one attracts more criticism than the other for it (and I stress again that this is coming from someone who did say - a few years ago, I think - that Desplat probably needed to work on a wider range of films in order to keep things fresh - which he has done!)