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COMPOSING FOR CINEMA

art dialogues

Composing for cinema
ARTISTIC INTERACTIONS AND CREATIVE PROCESSES

As part of the 79th edition of the Venice International Film Festival, Cartier presents the third edition of its series of conversations Cartier Art Dialogues. This new chapter offers a more in-depth insight into the particular alchemy between sound and image, shedding light on the musical creation process of films. Composers and musicians will share their experiences and working methods, giving a behind-the-scenes view of creation and revealing to what extent a film is also written through music.

Chapter III : Composing for Cinema
ARTISTIC INTERACTIONS AND CREATIVE PROCESSES

From 3 September, and as part of the 79th edition of the Venice International Film Festival, Cartier will present the third edition of its series of conversations Cartier Art Dialogues. This new chapter will take the form of masterclasses, offering a more in-depth insight into the particular alchemy between sound and image, and shedding light on the musical creation process of films. Composers, film-makers and musicians will share their experiences and working methods, giving a behind-the-scenes view of creation and revealing to what extent a film is also written through music. With the advent of silent film, improvising musicians were called upon to accompany the images. But very quickly, the two trades or disciplines established a meaningful dialogue in the earliest stages of the process. Directors and composers had to learn to work together in order to infuse the plot with all of its dramatic density, so that music and image could combine, in unity or in contrast. It is difficult to imagine a classic Hollywood Western without its CinemaScope soundtrack making the screen wider still. Or the French New Wave without its poetic songs and Bebop jazz, which contributed to its modernity. Or Italian 1950’s cinema without its paltry and dreamlike fanfares. Or Film Noir without soloist trumpets and harmonicas, instruments of urban solitude and nocturnal excesses. How can we forget all of these masterpieces of the screen which have lived on inside us with, through and thanks to their music? However, what exactly does this collaboration between film-makers and composers entail? How is dialogue established between these two art forms, between these two languages and vocabularies which are so different? The latest edition of Cartier Art Dialogues will take place at the Palazzo del Casino, in the Festival Press Conference room, attended by a student audience from multi-disciplinary sectors, including music, film, administration, creative industries, etc. The conversations will be re-broadcast via Mezzo TV channel, and a Cartier Art Dialogues dedicated platform, open to the public.

Composing to Open the Imagination
With Alexandre Desplat, Solrey and Andrea Morricone

Alexandre Desplat is objectively the most inventive of the modern era of film music composers, whose compositions are both refined and exuberant, but which still refuse to be categorised. His corpus is such that it shows all is possible, even with the most unlikely bedfellows, from Jacques Audiard to Harry Potter, from Raymond Depardon to Wes Anderson. One needs to understand the companionship and the aesthetic emulation between the composer and his favourite soloist, Dominique Lemonnier, known as Solrey, the founder and artistic director of the Traffic Quintet. Together, with this quite exceptional gathering of the Cartier Art Dialogues, they will reveal their particular professional chemistry - how partners in life have become also a perfect musical duo. They will also compare their views with those of Andrea Morricone, the son of the legendary Italian maestro, himself an accomplished musician and composer. Andrea burst on the musical scene at the age of 25 with the haunting love theme from Cinéma Paradiso. This panel, consisting of very original minds, inter-connected by numerous musical threads, both obvious and suggested, will explore how composing music opens the world to many imaginary fertile territories, much wider than the simple image on the screen.

Composing to Open the Imagination

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Alexandre Desplat

Composer

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Solrey

Musician

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Andrea Morricone

Composer

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Stéphane Lerouge

Moderator

Music as Narrative Enhancement
With Rachel Portman and Simone Menezes

“I knew from the age of fifteen that I wanted to compose music". That is how British composer Rachel Portman remembers her début in the early 1980s. Her works became linked with the early years of Channel Four TV, where her compositions offered a new voice associated with the novel genre, developed by the new generation of composers. For Emma, in 1997, Rachel Portman was the first woman to receive an Oscar for the Best Original Score. She will be joined by another exceptional woman, the France-based Italo-Brazilian conductor, Simone Menezes, a passionate, cosmopolitan and innovative artist, conducting orchestras around the world, from Brazil to Japan and throughout the United States. As with Rachel Portman, Simone Menezes takes a holistic view of music, open to musical discovery covering the many and varied musical genres. An example of this is the recent creation of her Ensemble K, exploring unusual repertoires, initiating multi-discipline projects, as demonstrated in the documentary Metanoia where she is seen in discussion with artists, choreographers and architects in a kaleidoscope of languages and cultures. Here again, this will be the opportunity to show how music can provide what the director has not shown, convey what words alone are incapable of expressing and thus enrich the pictures with extraordinary and unexpected emotions. In short - enlarging the screen.

Music as Narrative Enhancement

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Rachel Portman

Composer

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Simone Menezes

Conductor

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Stéphane Lerouge

Moderator

About Cartier Art Dialogues
About Cartier Art Dialogues

Cartier Art Dialogues is a series of multidisciplinary conversations, the first chapters of which the first chapters of which took place at the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg in February 2021, as part of the exhibition, “Cartier: Transmitting Heritage and Craftsmanship – Masterpieces from the Hermitage Museum and the Cartier Collection”, as well as at the Louvre Museum in May 2022, as part of the exhibition, “Cartier and Islamic Art: Tracing the Origins of Modernity”. Artistic and cultural dialogues represent a valuable source of inspiration for Cartier and have always played a key role in the brand’s creation process. The series of conversations, Cartier Art Dialogues, reflects the determination to accelerate the flow of ideas and the transmission of knowledge by sharing unique artistic perspectives and expert views. It is set to become a permanent feature, consistent with the artistic and cultural initiatives Cartier proposes. “Through Cartier Art Dialogues, the Maison reaffirms its contribution to the cultural scene of its time, as well as its desire to foster multi-disciplinary and transgenerational conversations. Because it speaks directly to our soul and to our emotions, art makes it possible to transcend borders and to regain a piece of universality”. Cyrille Vigneron.