Alexandre Desplat: "In a few years there will be no soundtrack composers, it will be cheaper to create them with AI"

PalmaConsidered by many the great European film music composer of this century and the natural successor to Maurice Jarre, Alexandre Desplat (Paris, 1961) has two Oscars in his career (for The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Shape of Water) and ten nominations – and since Sunday also the Master of Cinema of the Atlàntida Mallorca Film Fest –, but he continues to feel uncomfortable with praise. “I am not the best at anything, just a composer with little time to write music for some film,” Desplat protests. “It’s curious, because most composers in the history of cinema ended up in cinema by accident: Alex North, Ennio Morricone, Nino Rota... They all wanted to be classical composers. But I always wanted to work in cinema”.

When did you fall in love with soundtracks as an art form?

— Very soon. I liked cinema a lot since I was a child, I went there a lot and I also watched many films at home. And I realised that there was a lot of different music, from jazz to symphonic or a song, and that it was very important to convey emotions. I started buying soundtrack albums and ended up with a large collection of film music, which I listened to again and again. And then I started buying videos of the films to watch and listen to them at the same time. That's how I learned to love and understand film music.

In film criticism, it is common to accuse the director of using too much music in a film. What is the ideal amount of music in cinema?

— A film is a fragile object. If anything breaks, an imbalance occurs. Critics usually blame the composer, but the director or the sound mixer is the one who decides. I make the music I've been asked for, but the rest is not in my hands. It's like if in a movie there are too many close-ups of an actor, it's not his fault! With music, the problem is not just the quantity you use, but the volume, which must be correct. When I write the music, I do it thinking about the volume at which it should sound, and sometimes it's loud and sometimes it's soft. Sometimes I write the music without looking at the images, guided by the sound and the voices. The music must blend in, but not disappear. The key is balance. There's a joke that says the best film music is the one you don't hear, but that's nonsense.

Is your way of working with a regular collaborator like Wes Anderson very different from that with a director you don't know?

— With a director like Wes Anderson there is a familiarity and an established friendship, but it remains a challenge, because you don't want to repeat yourself and the director doesn't want you to repeat yourself. Even so, there is a continuity in the style that you have to follow, and you need imagination to find something new without changing the mode of work. The relationship is easier, yes, but the work is not.

Now that you mention it, after the Oscar for The Grand Budapest Hotel he repeated with Anderson in Isle of Dogs, but he totally changed his style with all those Japanese percussions.

— If you look at my filmography you will see that I never make two or three types of films in a row. If I make an animated film, I won't make any more that year or the next. If I make a thriller, I won't make another one for a while. Otherwise, I'll end up repeating myself, and I don't want to. After The Girl with a Pearl Earring everyone offered me period films, but I refused them. I didn't want to get trapped in that prison. Changing style doesn't make my life easier, but it pushes me to take on challenges and explore places I don't know... Terra incognita.

You are one of the current masters of melody, but in modern Hollywood, soundtracks where sound texture and percussion matter more than melody are in vogue. What do you think of this trend?

— Fashions are something that go out of style very quickly. Writing a melody is very difficult, and writing a good melody is incredibly difficult. It requires a lot of work. I've always liked melodies, but I've also made soundtracks without melody, I have no problem with that. Now, there are films that call for a melody. And if you work with Wes Anderson, he'll be happy if you give him a melody. What doesn't attract me is making music with synthesizers and sound design. I am a musician and I like to share the recording experience with other musicians. But nowadays anyone can be a composer.

Are you referring to the emergence of AI? Do you think it will be a threat to soundtrack composers?

— Yes, of course. In a few years there will be no soundtrack composers, it will be cheaper to create them with AI. You will even be able to tell the AI to make a soundtrack in the style of Alexandre Desplat, or Maurice Jarre or John Williams. The proliferation of home studios where you can create your sounds leads many people to think they are composers, and this is changing the notion of what composing is. There is a new generation of directors who are not great supporters of original music in cinema because of their egos, they think they can solve everything with sound design. Then, when they reach the editing phase and see that something is wrong, they try to fix it with music, but since there is no budget anymore, they do it with an AI: they press a button and they have it. And I fear that this is already unstoppable and could make thousands of years of musical scholarship disappear.

You mentioned John Williams, one of your mentors. What was it like working on franchises for which he had created the original music, such as Harry Potter or Jurassic World?

— A great challenge. I tried to move into his territory, but by doing something of my own. Since I use an orchestra, as he does, at least a certain familiarity in the sound is maintained. But I don't write like Williams. Nobody writes like him, he is unique and I wouldn't dare try to imitate him, it would be a mess. So I try to make my own way and sound as good as I can to try to get close to him. Nowadays there are many soundtracks, those you mentioned before, that don't look towards John Williams. I don't know where they are looking, honestly. Perhaps towards another planet. But John Williams contemplates 2,000 years of music, he is a scholar. And his talent and genius as a composer are incredible. When you listen to any of his pieces, from Star Wars to Seven Years in Tibet, the richness of every bar and every note is an inspiration. The same does not happen to me with simplistic two-note soundtracks.

You are building an artistic society with Wes Anderson that is reminiscent of Williams with Spielberg or Alberto Iglesias with Pedro Almodóvar. Is there any European director with whom you would like to have a similar relationship?

— I would love to work with Almodóvar, but Alberto is a fantastic composer and a great guy. I wouldn't even consider trying to replace him. It would be like scoring Vertigo or Star Wars again. No way. And I won't pursue a director who already has a great partnership with a composer, like Tim Burton and Danny Elfman or Sam Mendes with Thomas Newman. It's beautiful when a director is loyal to their composer, I respect that a lot. But I have to say that Pedro himself told me once that he would like to work with me... If I weren't already working with Alberto [Riu]. I would also like to work with other Spanish directors, but they don't call me. Maybe they think I live in Los Angeles and have three Lamborghinis. But I live in Paris and I work on small, artistic films by directors with few resources like Raymond Depardon or Tariq Saleh. What matters to me is that the film is good.

Regarding his method, he has often explained that he writes the character's music, not the actions. Tell me a character you've enjoyed writing.

— Colin Firth in The King's Speech, Nicole Kidman in Birth (Premonition), Ewan McGregor and Olivia Williams in The Ghost Writer, Helen Mirren in The Queen... They are so iconic that you can create around them a bubble of sensations and emotions. And play with the tone of their voices.

Does the actor influence a lot the way the character's music is written?

— Yes. There are films in which I would not have worked if the cast had not been exciting to me. I spend weeks in my studio looking at actors. Sometimes I don't want to spend my holidays watching some actors or actresses. Maybe it's a bit childish, but I want to feel pleasure when I work. Pleasure is important.

To finish, tell me your best memory related to music.

— [Silence] There are so many... Perhaps the moment when you find the missing chord or a melody. Also listening to a piece that moves you so much that it makes you cry. Or a concert by a jazz band you adore. It's very hard to choose one. Perhaps listening to the " Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, by Debussy. But also listening to a Bill Evans record at 16, or going to a Dizzy Gillespie concert at 20.