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[Featured photo credit: Isabelle Bres]
When it comes to film and music, there’s so much to talk about. But here at Vents, these are definitely areas that we like delving into, especially when we have the chance to talk with a composer for film and television or a director who’s worked with composers and musicians quite a bit.
Today we have one such director with us, but we’ll be getting to him soon enough. For now, it’s worth taking a moment to acknowledge the longstanding relationship (maybe we could even call it a collaboration) between these two artistic mediums.
Even many of the earliest silent films were screened with live piano accompaniment, accompaniment which had the daunting job of providing the appropriate tone for each scene, as well as musical stings for especially dramatic or frightening moments.
In the roughly one hundred years since the switch to ‘talkies,’ film music has become its own genre, with different countries and different composers taking vastly different approaches to the format.
Massively influential composers such as John Williams, Ennio Morricone, Bernard Herrmann, Max Steiner, Nino Rota, Michel Legrand, and Alexandre Desplat have left their mark not only on the genre of film composition but on the movies they’ve composed for as well.
Of course, the creation of all this music involves a lot of discussion and collaboration between composers, studio musicians, directors, and other members of the production team who each have their own ideas about how music should be integrated into the larger story.
In this piece, we’ll aim to take a closer look at that very special relationship between music and film, specifically from the perspective of a prolific filmmaker.
Director Olivier Paul Philippe
Olivier Paul Philippe started out in entertainment working for a major international French television network, TV5 MONDE, a network with an average daily viewership of 300 million. With the network, Philippe directed a weekly culture show that ran for six seasons.
From 2008 onward, Philippe has been working as a freelance filmmaker, creating a contest-winning broadcast pilot for France TV in 2014, the short film CARMA in 2017, which won several awards at various film festivals, and executing a great deal of branded content for luxury brands like Guerlain, Dior, LVMH, PERNOD-RICARD, and Séphora.
Now setting his sights on the United States, Philippe holds himself to very high standards in his filmmaking. And as you’ll soon see, he is extremely passionate about the relationship and interaction between filmmaking and music.
The relationship between music and film
We’ve already touched on the ubiquity of music in film, but a really interesting way to highlight its importance is to remove it from the equation.
Just imagine some of the pivotal scenes in your favorite movies without any score music whatsoever.
Not only would those scenes feel completely different, but there’s also a good chance that they wouldn’t be as memorable, either.
Here’s what Philippe thinks about the idea of making films without using music in some way:
“To make films without music is to paint without color. Or eat cheese without a baguette! As far as I can remember, I don’t feel like I’ve really liked a movie without having liked the music that accompanied it, or having been marked by a scene and replaying it in my head without hearing a melody. The relationship between film and music is the most beautiful love story there is.”
This is certainly a perspective that many other professional filmmakers seem to share. It’s very rare to come across a big Hollywood movie, for example, that doesn’t have stretches of non-diegetic score music.
There are exceptions, of course. One of the recent exceptions that comes to mind is the French film Portrait de la jeune fille en feu (Portrait of a Lady on Fire), directed by Céline Sciamma, which includes no score music whatsoever, only diegetic music.
But even this film treated music this way for very specific and intentional reasons, reflecting one of the lead character’s lack of access to music during this time period.
For the most part, filmmakers jump at the chance to utilize music, whether score music or licensed music, to emphasize specific scenes and story beats, and that’s not likely to change any time soon.
Linked to the creative process
Different directors and screenwriters can work in very different ways and they even have their own set of priorities when in pre-production, production, and post-production.
Certain directors might only start thinking about music for the film fairly late in the process while others might involve composers relatively early in the process.
One example of a filmmaker utilizing the talents of a score composer during production is Paul Thomas Anderson’s request for composer Jon Brion to be on the set during the shooting of his film Punch-Drunk Love.
This allowed the film itself to be influenced by some of Brion’s musical ideas, whereas, under normal circumstances, it’s the other way around, with very little variation.
As for Philippe’s personal perspective on music and how it can be applied to filmmaking, he brings with him a very interesting perspective thanks to some of his previous work.
“Before I became a director I was a disc jockey for a long time, so I can’t imagine a film without music. In short, it’s completely linked to my creative process. The musical component is essential, even if I think that it is necessary to measure it carefully so that it serves the rhythm and the spirit of a movie.”
For Philippe, trying to create a film of any kind without involving music in some way would just be unfathomable, and this has definitely driven his own filmmaking work throughout the years.
Room for artistry
Even though we’ve been talking a lot about how important music is to filmmaking, it’s important to also talk about just how much room there is for artistry and variation.
Unfortunately, some of the biggest Hollywood movies tend to use score music that ends up sounding quite similar to that of other Hollywood movies.
But outside of the mainstream realm, there are so many different kinds of score music and approaches to composing this music.
Philippe described this room for artistry by comparing the creative process to cooking:
“All scenes, all situations can be supported by music. It’s a matter of taste after all, like spices in your kitchen. Some people like it when it is everywhere, when it dominates the dish. Others prefer small touches. More subtle. For my part, I think that music, like good wine, should be consumed at the right time and with the right dishes.”
This is a fun and very visual way to think of adding music to a movie. In most cases, it wouldn’t make sense to pile on tons of loud music that overwhelms the film, just as you wouldn’t want to load up your carefully-prepared meal with mountains of salt and cayenne pepper.
It works best when used strategically, as a way of highlighting other elements already present in the work.
Advice for composers
Since so many of our readers here at Vents are musicians or composers themselves, we wanted to hear whether Philippe had any advice for aspiring score composers or current score composers.
Here’s what he had to say:
“Don’t look at the footage! Of course you have to know the history, the context, the type of scene for which the music will intervene, but I advise the composer not to be inspired solely by the images. A composer is a creator. A composer has their own universe, their own sensitivity, their own style. The composer’s creation is unique and must reinforce the images and staging. The more its interpretation is free from any influence, the better.”
This is a unique piece of advice, especially since a good number of professional composers prefer to compose directly to picture while watching a particular scene so that they know exactly what tone to use and how long each piece of music needs to be.
However, Philippe’s suggestion could definitely be practical for any composer in the early stages of composition.
For example, if a composer has just received a brief for a new film but the film itself hasn’t begun production, then it would be a great opportunity for the composer to take that brief and come up with many different ideas.
This leaves so much room for pure creativity and expression. Later, when it’s time to start syncing music to picture, the composer and the director could work together to alter certain ideas to make them work for the film.
On the whole, this does a good job of summarizing Philippe’s own approach to using music. It’s all about letting composers be free to do their best work, in a way that will enhance what’s already present in the film.
Honestly, it’s an attitude that we’d like to see more of in mainstream filmmaking.
