Top 105 Quotes & Sayings by Alexandre Desplat - Page 2

It's not easy to write an understated score over a loud one.

I think great scores have to be noticed, but they're wrong when you hear the music come in.

I was raised by women. I have my parents, but I have two older sisters and I would learn from them about what is a female and what is a girl and what is an adolescent and what is a young woman and I was very close to them.

I remember when I saw 'King's Speech' or 'Girl With the Pearl Earring;' there are moments in my life where I was blown away and thought, 'Wow, that's why I chose to be a film composer.' These films are so beautiful and so strong, and the music can be very much part of the emotion.

I can't watch a movie where the actors are great and the photography sucks.

When you have the chance to work with Wes Anderson, with Stephen Frears and Chris Weitz and Roman Polanski and Terrance Malick you don't say no.

I always say that to compose is to think. Playing is good, it's useful, but it's how your intellect puts the ideas together that will bring hands to write or to play. So, it's really a combination of many things; hearing sounds, hearing layers of counterpoints, of chords.

Argo' was a very exciting project for me because I knew that I could mix together influences from my youth as a young musician and a young composer.

I always try to approach a film from the point of view of the director.

Music can make you go from sadness to an immense sadness. There is a limit; if you go too far, it becomes schmaltzy.

It could be sci-fi, love story, historical drama what counts for me is the fact that they're made by great directors with a great point of view who bring the audience to be elevated and at the same time entertained. That's what cinema is.

I never dreamed of writing for concert or opera. I always dreamed, if I was a composer, to write music for films.

I always try to do movies that are different from the ones I've done before.

My art is applied to another art which is cinema, that makes my life much easier.

When a theme is beautiful, it's a pleasure to rearrange it or to interweave it with your own music.

It's most difficult to score a comedy. Where are the limits? When does music become gimmicky or stupidly funny?

Without fear you can't explore or push yourself beyond what you've done.

When I was 15, I was not living with my parents anymore. They were on an island in the Caribbean and I was back in Paris, where I lived with my sisters between 15 and 19.

I just work 18 hours a day, every day. And I don't go on holidays. And so, I guess I will die young.

To this day, I still travel with scores. Every time I'm on a plane - it could be Stravinsky or Mozart or Ravel.

Berlin was the first, the very first to give me an award. I am eternally grateful to them. It sits on my desk - the Silver Bear. All the others are stored away. It's the only one I look at. It watches me while I work.

It's not about what's a good or bad score at the Oscars, rather what's exposed to the ears more.

Mozart for me is the No. 1 composer. His music is not just joy or sadness. It's deep emotion with a touch of lightness, which is the most difficult thing to do.

Francois Truffaut's 'The Soft Skin' starts with a very mundane scene of a family and a man driving to the airport. Yet the music is like a thriller, and you don't understand why. It's not until later that you learn it's because the movie is a thriller.

I'm scared each time I start a movie, believe me. There's always a moment of panic when you're not sure if you're going to be able to meet the deadline.

There are some moments in your life and in your career when you meet a movie and the director that suddenly just turns you to another dimension.

My training in music has been very eclectic - as first a flute player from classical chamber music to jazz, Greek, Brazilian and African music to contemporary concert music.

There's a jazz influence in my music in general.

I guess the passion I have for cinema is as strong as the one that I have for music. And I've always tried to be a character in the film, not just a composer that throws his music to the film. That's the main element that connects me with directors.

I've scored all the movies that Jacques Audiard has directed. It's a long love story between us, trying to find a voice that would belong to his films only.

I usually like to introduce the film and the music with the opening titles. It's a great help for a composer to bring the audience into the work that we're going into.

I'm not a script composer. I'm a film composer and my brain is excited by images and moving elements.

I remember my sisters, they loved a movie called 'The Naked Island.' And the flute was actually playing the main theme. A Japanese movie. A beautiful movie from 1961. I remember hearing this music with a flute many, many times a day at home.

My education as a film composer, you can't not - if you like the orchestra like I do, if you are a symphonist like I am - you can't not listen to John Williams' work.

I'm a flutist so I know what they can deliver in terms of texture and sound and blurriness and softness. It's a very soft instrument.

You do movies because you love movies and you write music because you love writing music, and sometimes there's this magic combination.

My parents had a lot of movie soundtracks that they brought back from the States. So very early on I heard film music at home.

Music for films allow a great deal of diversity and the more you widen your skills, the better you become.

I've always loved mixing Middle Eastern instruments into a classical orchestra.

I always try to develop a good relationship with the director on any film and make sure that we want the same things and we're talking about the same ideas, and that gives me great protection.

That's why I'm so passionate about making music for movies because you dive in and find the best ideas to bring tolife a collective piece of art. ... [Composing] is not a job for me. And that explains why I never stop. Even though it's tough on your body and your brain and the sacrifices you have to make, what can I do? I'm passionate about it so I never stop.

I always wanted to be a film composer. So very early on I started collecting soundtracks and paying attention to how movie music works. Actually I'd like to have the opportunity to conduct for the rest of my life.

I never thought the orchestra should be big.

It's very hard to understand what's happening in someone's brain and what goes into their experience and their death, and the music has to say a lot.

There are so many parts of music that it's actually a pleasure for me to work with an orchestra, or a jazz band, or a choir, and use every element that the musical tool box can offer. The world of music I love so much, and I can change the costume depending on the part, and I'm actually in the film.