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Guillermo del Toro and Alexandre Desplat talk music in
recent masterclass
Rick W
/ Categories: Film Score News

Guillermo del Toro and Alexandre Desplat talk music in recent masterclass

At a recent masterclass, Guillermo del Toro and Alexandre Desplat sat down for a conversation on the invaluable role of music in films. Desplat, who has composed the music for a staggering number of critically acclaimed films, started the conversation off by answering a question about why he connected to the role of a composer so deeply, even in his childhood. Desplat replied “my idols as a teenager were the new Hollywood…it was a form of compulsion… I bought all the vinyl records I could find. I realized that everything was possible in the cinema. Music gave certain films an additional dimension, a new space. It can be very beautiful to imagine. Perhaps I thought I could venture into this.”

The moderator of this discussion, music specialist Stéphane Lerouge, then followed up with a question regarding Desplat’s creative process. “Basically I'm playing around with this whole host of references and I turn them into something very personal,” Desplat replied,“I just try to make it accessible without being simple. Simplistic and simple is not the same…The music that I write is written for the characters rather than the action. I'm more interested in the characters than the actual action.” Lerouge then asked how Desplat was able to be a “contortionist from one film to another”, adapting to the needs of a certain work to create the perfect soundtrack. Desplat replied with “It’s the film, the beauty of the film being proposed to me. The film invites me to slip into it like an actor. The actors we love, the great actors and actresses, embody the character and then turn the page at the end of the shooting. In a new film they may be somebody different…. the composer is simply invited to partake in this theater. I use the tools I have acquired earlier, the musical tools and the emotional tools of course.”

Guillermo del Toro then joined the stage, and similar to Desplat, started off his time by discussing what influenced him in his youth to connect films and music so strongly. Del Toro cited his love of music ranging all the way back to his childhood. He recalls that after seeing a movie in the cinema he would go home and listen to the film’s score on vinyl to replay the most thrilling scenes in his head. “When I was kid, you didn’t have videos, you didn’t have the movie for six…ten…twenty years, and the only way you could visit that movie again was to close your eyes in a dark room and listen to the LP.”  He says “To this day, I ninety percent of the time listen to scores. I adore movie music.” 

The conversation then turned to the two masters' experiences working together. Del Toro cited similar music inspirations for the both artists, he also went on to say that working with Desplat is “like being with a master. Not only of his craft, but of communicating his craft…I think Alexander is not a composer, he is a filmmaker. We meld…he notices everything. The musicality of the camera has to be common to us.” He went on to add that working with a expert like Desplat allows him to become a spectator to his own movie.

Desplat echoes this sentiment on the value of their collaboration, saying “When we are in the same room together there is no frontier…It’s a real exchange of artistic ideas. And that's part of my role here, to be able to hear and respond.” When asked if they ever had creative disagreements, del Toro replied “We do, but that’s the beauty of it. When two people agree one should leave”

 
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