‘Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio’ Composer Alexandre Desplat On Working With Director: “If I See That He Is Crying, I Have It Right” – Sound & Screen
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Alexandre Desplat opened Deadline’s Sound & Screen awards-season event representing the music from his latest project, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio. The Netflix animated film currently available to stream and is the duo’s second collaboration following Best Picture Oscar winner The Shape of Water.
Desplat spoke of his experience working with del Toro, a director who celebrates the power musical compositions have in film to affect emotion.
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“Guillermo has a strong passion for cinema and for music and for music in his films,” Desplat said during a Q&A following his live performance of the Pinocchio score with a 60-piece orchestra. “There’s no fear and there are no limits. He’s open to any ideas. He loves that music can bring emotions, and this film has many twists and turns of emotion like danger and melancholia, and joy and fantasy through the love of a father and a son. Like in The Shape of Water, there are so many emotions. In both of these films, there are strong social and political content. In Pinocchio, it’s fascism with the movie being set in 1930s Italy. All of this together creates tension that the music can convey. The greatest moments with Guillermo is when I think I’ve approached the right idea musically and I play it for him, and if I see that he is crying, I have it right. He’s very sensitive to music — some directors are.”
The Oscar-winning Desplat also revealed how working with del Toro was unique in that the famed director helped write songs. He explained he’s “never” worked with another director who co-wrote music on projects he’s composed, especially on such a lengthy project like Pinocchio, which they began work on three years ago.
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Desplat revealed the most important part of his process in creating music for film begins with seeing a rough cut of the project.
“I like to watch. I like to see the film, even if it’s not completely edited yet, but I like to see the images to see how the actors move — I love listening to the actors,” he said. “I spent a lot of time as a young composer in theaters writing stage music spending time at the rehearsals listening and watching what the actors were doing. When I work on a film, it’s always very present in my work. I need to watch the film. Of course I can find a theme and idea but I do this job — well, it’s not a job — I do this, what I do every day for long hours because I love cinema. I like the fact that music and cinema blend and really work together.”
He added, “The good thing is we had this idea with Guillermo that the songs wouldn’t be too long in the film so we wouldn’t break the pace of the story … I was very lucky to have the cast sing the songs; there are no other singers. Christoph Waltz, Ewan McGregor, both great musicians and great singers. As well as David Bradley and little Gregory Mann, who plays Pinocchio. We were very fortunate to have a great bunch of singers who are also actors.”
Check back Monday for the panel video.
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