AN INTERVIEW WITH MAURICE JARRE

• Mr. Jarre. Could you talk about your first steps with music?. Where did your vocation came from?

When I was 15, I did not know nothing about what concerned the world of music. My parents did not have any interest in music. But indeed it was then when I listened Litz's Second Hungarian Rhapsody and I decided my vocation. Three years later, I finished my studies of composition, harmony and counterpoint, and I specialized in ethnic music. I was fascinated, and still I am, by all concerning Indonesian, Chinese, Arab, Jave, Russian, Vietnamese, Japanese, Indian music and from any other country that can enrich the western one. Soon I worked during twelve years in theater works of the prestigious Theatre National Populaire. It was the best time of my life, the most difficult, the most interesting, the most exciting. I have always said that I would give all to my Oscar and awards to live again those wonderful years.

• Why they counted on you for Lawrence of Arabia? It was an enormous production, and then you were a young and unknown musician...

What happened, in fact, was that David Lean and Sam Spiegel, the producer, wanted three different composers for the film. One would be in charge of Arabic music; the other, on the British part; and my assignment would be the filling themes. However, it did not work any way, so I approached timidly to Lead and requested him to listen a musical theme in which I was working for some days. I seated at the piano, in front of him, and started the first compasses. David rose and approached me. Everything he did was to put his hand on my shoulder and say 'This is what I was looking for'. I still feel his hand on my shoulder.

• There is an anthological sequence, the one of the rescue in the desert. The music has an amazing effect.

Yes, it's true. In that long sequence, when Lawrence enters in the desert to rescue a lost man, Lean listened the music I wrote and wanted to extend the scene to let my work stay completely. I dared to suggest him not to do that saying that it would work better if music began a little before which he had predicted. At the opening in London, when that sequence was shown, the public began to applaud as I believe never before. It was an unforgettable moment in my life and I know David felt very moved. We both gained the Oscar.

• Can you resume your global experience with David Lean?

Wonderful, unforgettable. Lean was a director always compromised with his work, but not only in directing, but also in the other technical and artistic aspects. He dedicated long time to speak with his crew, the actors, the sound people, the costume designers, the decorators... he loved cinema and he dealt his movies with special love. And if there was money, then limits didn't exist. For Doctor Zhivago, for example, I asked him to let me use a big orchestra in which a total of 25 balalaikas may be included, something quite unusual at the time. He made no impediments at all. For Ryan's Daughter I used a total of eight harps, something that was, at least, weird. But he neither made any impediment. On the contrary, he always listened me, made his own opinions and gave me also quite intelligent suggestions, something special coming from whom was not a musician. We were very close friends.

• What is truth about the legend on the creation of Lara's Theme in Doctor Zhivago?

It is the more famous melody that I have written, but the one that I have composed more easily. David Lean gave me as a model a Russian song, so I based on it for diverse themes. But he always rejected them saying that I could do it better. Time was ending and we did not reach an agreement. Then, he suggested me to forget everything we were talking and go to rest for a weekend. Next monday I began again and my surprise was to realize that, in fact, the wrong thing came from that model. I began to write a kind of waltz and in a little more than an hour I had the theme written. I was totally opposite to the original melody. This is what happened.

• Ryan's Daughter was a commercial flop, and I guess you were criticized for the big amount of music, and that Lean was so hurt by the critics that he didn't made any other movie until 14 years later.

Yes. The problem was that Lean wanted to do something similar to Madame Bovary, a quite simple story into a great spectacle, like a great opera, in which my music would play a fundamental role. Lean never understood how critics could praise a mediocrity like Love Story (both from the same year) and despise his film. When he was preparing A Passage to India, many years later, he was certain scared that the situation could be repeated and decided the music to be less present. I agreed totally and as result I gained my third Oscar. By the way, in this occasion Lean told me he didn't want my music to come from my stomach or my heart, as in the previous films. He was quite explicit: his hands went to his genitals and said write your music thinking only on this.

• A Passage to India seems to me a perfect work, not only the movie as a whole but also its music and how it gets compromised so vividly with the emotional disturbance of the protagonist. I was quite surprised by the way in which the generical music of the initial credits ends being the expression of the emotional fragility of the girl.

Yes, true. That was our purpose. That the music focused on Adela Quested (Judy Davis), and in a certain way to emphasize her intimate feelings in what was really an immense environmental. For that reason it was so important that there were not much music, to not distract from that purpose.

• Other anthological sequence is the attack of the apes to the protagonist. It is the dramatic key point of the film, of the character and also of the music

Yes, it is a wonderful sequence, and fundamental. David wanted that moment to represent the first rape that the protagonist suffers, and he wanted to use nothing else than four hundred monkeys. But the producer said no way and he had to be satisfied with a little more than a dozen. Then, he requested me to help the scene with my music and to gave the impression that the dozen were more fierce than if there were four hundred. David was a perfeccionist, a real gentleman, an extremely honest intellectual and someone incapable to compromise his work if he could not give his maximum.

• And how about your work with Alfred Hitchcock in Topaz?

With Hitchcock I had little relationship. I was called to replace Bernard Herrmann, his favorite composer, in Torn Curtain, after the bitter fight between them. But then I was busy and it couldn't be. He called me again for Topaz and I felt very honored that he insisted on collaborating with me. But all the interest he showed consisted on coming to the recording session, seating to listen to the first theme and indicating his approval with a concise 'It seems good to me'. When I finished conducting the second theme I turned myself to know his opinion, but he had already left. I didn't saw him again until the opening day. It was evident he was no longer the director of his golden days. He seemed to me very bitter and I do not believe he was even interested in the film he was making.

• You worked also in Spain, with Luis G. Berlanga...

Yes, in Tamaño natural. My relationship with him was extraordinary. I commented him that the best thing for the film would be to record the soundtrack in Los Angeles, but he was scared because he feared it would be too expensive. I asked him which was the budget for music. He indicated it was very low, so I selected twelve jazz musicians and took them to California. At the end, it become much more cheaper to do it there than if we had the recordings in Spain.

• And what about your experience with Luchino Visconti, in La cadutta degli Dei?

Visconti was a brilliant man, and an exceptional director. He was cultured, refined, a left intellectual, and very rich. He called me to go to Italy while he was filming his movie, and he lodged me in one of his houses, that was almost a palace. And there he took me waiting. After one week I phoned him to ask when we were going to meet and his answer was: 'stay there and enjoy, we'll talk later'. It passed almost a month until we saw each other. It was an authentic paid vacation, although I spent that time writing a music that become the appropiate, so the delay was worth enough.

• You have also certain predilection for exotic instruments and electronic music

Yes. Some people ask me if my son Jean Michel has influenced me in using synthetisers. I always answer that I worked with them long before he was born.

• Don't you consider that, at some point, you can have abused a little from synthetisers?

I agree. I am not satisfied of several of those works.

• Why then you worked with synthetisers?. Because in some films like Witness or The Mosquito Coast one can imagine the reasons, but in many others you don't.

Well, it is a way of seeing it. But think on this: I had to work in movies, many movies, to pay all my former wives!. Sometimes I did it only for money, and fast. But, yes, now I wouldn't do some of those soundtracks the way I did them. Anyway, at least Witness gave me good results. It was a risk that Peter Weir assumed an we were good, don't you think?

• Sure. I want to ask you about two works that interest me. One is The Man that Would Be King and the other Mohammad-Messenger of God. I like your facility to combine spectacularity and intimism, like we have commented on A Passage to India.

The idea in The Man that Would Be King was that the music should recreate all that majestic surrounding and emphasize the adventure, but also speak about the frustration or, rather said, the curse of both protagonists, even before happened what happens them. A kind of premonition with the music. In the case of Mohammad-Messenger of God, Menahem Golam asked me -almost beg me- to be scrupulously respectful with the figure of Mohammad, since the film had to please the arabian world. But we decided that, since the Coran specifically prohibites to show any image of the messiah and that no actor could represent him, let the music spoke about him, in a respectful way. It was difficult, but interesting and I am very proud of that work.

• How do you see the present times in the film industry?

I'm a little pessimistic. Nowadays, if a studio assumes that his film is bad, there is always an executive that gets more nervous than usual and thinks that if they change the music, the film will become a masterpiece. This happens because they can't change the script, neither the actors, nor the photography. So they replace the music... and the film is still a disaster!. David Lean once said that when the patient is dead even the best surgeon can't do nothing for him...

• Has this influenced on your decision of leave the cinema?

Somehow yes. I'll tell you one story. Some months ago, while I was preparing a new work, I told a young cinema executive my intention of including in a soundtrack two themes from Bach. But when he asked me which has been the last hit from that Bach?, then I knew that I had no longer place in cinema.

• From actual composers, which ones are you more interested in?

I'm very interested in Thomas Newman, Elliot Goldenthal. They are innovators. From what we call 'classics' I admire so much Grusin, Williams, Goldsmith. They are and they'll be always big ones.

• Of all your films, which one you would pick up?.

A Passage to India. It is my favourite movie. Wonderful.

• I do totally agree.

© Conrado Xalabarder, 2004