The game was worth it. Released almost 4 weeks ago in cinemas, “‘L’Amour ouf’ by Gilles Lellouche has already won over 3 million spectators in France. In this romance set against the backdrop of the 80s and 90s, François Civil and Adèle Exarchopoulos play Clotaire and Jackie, two passionate lovers, transported by a masterful soundtrack, designed to immerse the audience in the atmosphere of the time. Designed by the director with the musical supervision of Emmanuel Ferrier, the film’s soundtrack. includes cult titles of the time, such as “Nothing Compares 2 U” by Prince, “Eyes Without A Face” by Billy Idol and “That’s My People” by NTM All, for a total cost of 750,000 euros.
A title worth 200,000 euros impossible to integrate
A budget considered colossal, but assumed by the production: “And again, it must have been more expensive“, explains producer Alain Attal to BFMTV. “Little by little, there was a desire from Gilles to lower the sail a little so as not to make a jukebox with his film.” The idea was not to transform “L’Amour ouf” into a simple musical compilation, but to make each song a cornerstone of the film’s atmosphere. “We were lulled by this cinema where the music is really highlighted. When I saw the credits for ‘Zodiac’, with its crazy sequence shot on Santana, I told myself that’s what I wanted to do. Dare to look for titles like that. This music is crazy! You take it away, the scene is no longer the same!“, he adds.
Gilles Lellouche, who spent 17 years imagining “L’Amour ouf,” has never hidden his attachment to this carefully designed playlist. For him, tracks like “A Forest” by The Cure and “Eyes Without A Face” by Billy Idol were absolutely essential to maintain the essence of the film. “Since 2006, he has been telling us about his film using the music he dreams of“, explains producer Hugo Sélignac, who describes Lellouche’s passion for integrating these pieces: “He showed us how the camera moved with these pieces in the background.“
Each song is thus integrated into the scenes to accompany the emotions of the characters, even if a piece particularly dear to the filmmaker could not ultimately be used: “Never Tear Us Apart” by INXS. The title, which symbolized for him the intensity of certain scenes, became inaccessible after its use in the series “Euphoria“. “There is music that escaped me for a question of money, of budget, because this music was taken from the series ‘Euphoria’. And suddenly, they went crazy, but completely crazy in terms of prices“, he explained in an interview with “Allocinated”. The cost of this song alone was 200,000 euros, an amount impossible to fit into the budget.
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Fortunately, despite this concession, the director managed to compose the playlist of his dreams: “The music that is really essential to the film is in it“, he says. Having become THE flagship song of the film, “A Forest” by The Cure, cost 15,000 euros, a reasonable amount if we compare this amount to that requested for “Never Tear Us Apart “. Emblematic of the 80s, this song was perfectly integrated into the key scenes of the film, and even enjoyed new popularity in the charts with the release of “L’Amour ouf”.
