For moviegoers, it was the meeting of the day. A brilliant composer, notably for his friend and neighbor David Cronenberg, Howard Shore gave a music lesson at the initiative of Sacem, this Monday, during the 76th Cannes Film Festival. And the musician with three Oscars to tell his relationship to music, his various collaborations… But a surprise was in the audience: the arrival of Martin Scorsese. And the already fascinating music lesson orchestrated by Stéphane Lerouge became the discussion of two friends, too happy to recount their memories. They thus commented on several of their collaboration.
Howard Shore: “I was working on “Chromosome 3” by David Cronenberg, in the same building, I had set up an electronic music studio, it was Griffin (Dunne) who organized the meeting. »
Martin Scorsese: “I needed someone to offer me something new. There was a note of humor in his music, a particular tone, a strangeness, I found that perfect. It marked a new beginning for me. »
Howard Shore: “I actually rented different electronic instruments and experimented, I loved that tick-tock, tick-tock, like a metronome. […] I used one of the first computers. I worked with Marty in the editing room, it was a very organic process
What’s next after this ad
Martin Scorsese: “I relearned with him how to create film music. For “Taxi Driver, I sent the film, and Bernard Herrmann wrote the score with the brass. Before meeting Howard Shore, I thought about my films, with music that I already knew. It took me a long time to understand how to use film music as such. »
Howard Shore: “I like to receive the scripts upstream, to dream of the film. With Marty and Thelma Schoonmaker, I make first recordings, with a very small group then with a whole orchestra. And then, if it sticks, we record. Sometimes Marty loved the first sketches so much that we use the music directly, without going through the orchestration, just with demos. »
“Aviators” (2004)
Martin Scorsese: “For Aviator, we had a lot of Hispanic elements, I had in mind the vision of haciendas, southern California, tiled roofs…”
Howard Shore: “And so I used castanets. Marty had also wanted to place Bach in the film at all costs.
Martin Scorsese: “When you receive music that has all the necessary elements, the texture of the drama, the characters and that sticks with its images, it’s sacred. In the editing room, you need a mutual understanding, my difficulty is to manage to express clearly what I want. »
Howard Shore: “I am open to all his musical ideas because we have the same objective: the film. »
“The Departed” (2006)
Howard Shore: “For Marty, all the characters in the film were dancing, like in a tango.
Martin Scorsese: “The music also had to show that it was all going to end badly, and I remember there were four guitarists.
Howard Shore: “We had auditioned a lot of guitarists, right down to the one who used the 1920 Gibson with the perfect sound for my movie
“Hugo Cabret” (2011)
Martin Scorsese: “I wanted something bigger, with more orchestration.
Howard Shore: “I was writing for a sextet in London, then sending the tapes to Marty in New York and then we used an orchestra.
Martin Scorsese: “It was very formative for me, the music adds a layer to the story. When you hear the music on the train and the snow is falling, the music is so full of emotion and fantasy that it reminds me of my fascination when I watched the spectacle of a station when I was a child. He caught it in the music
Howard Shore: “Hugo Cabret also had a French side that I tried to find. »
At the end of the meeting, a gift was offered to Martin Scorsese, the letter of intent from Orson Welles to the composer Paul Misraki for the music of “Mr. Arkadin”. And we saw the director of “Killers of the Flower Moon” happy as the cinephile collector he remained.
