Cannes film festival. Why is Carnival of the Animals the official music of the festival?

It now symbolizes the 7th art and especially the Cannes Festival. The Carnival of the Animals, emblematic music resonates with each climb of the steps in official competition and on the screens before a screening. So why this classic song?

She is forever associated with the Cannes Film Festival. These few musical notes before the screening of each film in competition thrill festival-goers and moviegoers around the world. We feel special emotions, enchantment, magic, a grandiose side and at the same time so simple, like a flower that grows and grows towards the sky.

These thirty seconds of jingle come from Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saëns created in 1886. The composer created this suite to celebrate mid-Lent, the aim was to make people laugh. Each piece is named after an animal: the lion, turtle, hen and rooster or the swane, but especially the one that interests us: Aquarium.

The composer was criticized for this suite considered too childish, he banned the public performance (with the exception of the Swan). We will have to wait for the reading of his will to see the sequel play out again.

In 1983, during the renovation of the Palais des Festivals, the question of a logo and a sound comma for the step-climbing ceremonies arose. Gilles Jacob, then Director General of the Cannes Festival, remembers a film score. A real favorite : “this theme was wonderful” explains Gilles Jacob to France 3 Côte d’Azur.

To read : Cannes Film Festival 2023: complicated birth, growth crisis, revolution… How the “bunker” has evolved in 40 years

I thought it was a work by Ennio Morricone. I made my son, who is a music lover, watch the film where it came from and it was he who revealed to me the origin of the music.

Gilles Jacob, former CEO and president of the Cannes Film Festival

at France 3 Côte d’Azur

Gilles Jacob talks about the film The Harvests of Heaven by Terrence Malick with Richard Gere released in 1978 and presented at the Cannes Film Festival in 1979.

Ennio Morricone takes up Camille Saint-Saëns’ theme from the start of the film. The soundtrack was also nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Score at the time.

Gilles Jacob explains: “my son makes me listen to the original recording of Camille Saint-Saëns and says to me “look, Ennio Morricone paid homage to this composer“.

Amused and convinced, Gilles Jacob decides to keep this idea and very quickly the jingle will be systematized at each start of an official screening: ” I found that it was very aquatic, fluid music and it went well with our animated logo which represented a palm tree coming out of the water, knowing that the piece is called Aquarium, that fits very well” adds the former Director General.

Since then, this music has been inseparable from the Cannes Festival. Every evening, she accompanies the film team as they compete on the red carpet:

At the editorial staff of France 3 Côte d’Azur, we have a little suggestion, for the 80th anniversary of the Festival in two years: what if the Cannes National Orchestra played live on Carnival of the Animals on the steps of the Palais des Festivals?