In October 1962, the famous director David Lane's new work "Lawrence of Arabia" was about to be released, just two months before its premiere, but the soundtrack part was slow to progress. A few months ago, Lane had high expectations for the film's music, inviting two of the world's top classical composers, Benjamin Britten and Alam Khachatulyan, to work on it himself.
Joining the soundtrack team was a young man named Maurice Jarre. His just-finished soundtrack to "Spring in the Flowers" caught the attention of producer Sam Sperger, which had just won that year's Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
Sperger learned that the Frenchman wanted to be able to compose some dramatic soundtracks, and Hachaturian and Britten were masters of composing such music, so Speger invited Judd to be the deputy of the two composer masters.
Maurice Judd
Who knows, four months before the premiere of the film, Britton and Hachaturyan have withdrawn due to scheduling problems. At this time, director Ryan was concentrating on the post-production of the picture. At the moment, the big director is thinking about how to use widescreen 482mm lens to better represent the scene when Ali enters the mirage, and whether it is appropriate to let all the female characters in the film have no lines.
During this time, Columbia Pictures was desperately looking for a master scorer, and Sperger struggled to find Broadway composer Richard Rogers, but Lane disliked Rogers's musical style very much. The approach of clinging to the Buddha's feet has never found a replacement that satisfies Lane.
Until two months before the premiere, everything was ready, just waiting for the music. But the soundtrack work had stalled, and Lane finally couldn't sit still, so he called Judd, the only composer on the soundtrack team.
David Lane
Lane said unequivocally: "Two months later, the film will be released, and you have to do everything in six weeks, including composing and recording." ”
Six weeks to complete the soundtrack of an epic film, which sounded like a fantasy in that "workshop-style" era. Fortunately, during this time, Judd has not been idle, and he already has a clear outline in his mind, just waiting for the director to call.
Six weeks later, Judd successfully completed all the musical parts, including the creation and rehearsal of 100 orchestral pieces, as well as more than two hours of original recording work.
Lane greatly appreciated Judd's talent, and when he listened to Judd's soundtrack, he was willing to modify his carefully captured footage to match the beautiful music. Judd later recalled: "When Lawrence went into the desert to rescue the lost man, Lane listened to the music I composed and immediately decided to extend the time of the shot so that my music could be preserved intact. ”
Opportunity always favors those who are prepared, and in this way, Judd completed a huge work in the history of film and music as a substitute.
Stills from Lawrence of Arabia
Under the producers' initial agreement, the soundtrack would receive a grant from the British government and finish the final recording in London. But the added clause is that the soundtrack conductor must be British. To this end, the studio brought in Sir Adrian Ballett, a well-known conductor in the British music scene.
Ballt confidently arrived at the rehearsal site, where Judd was already waiting. Although Bauert is a master classical music conductor, he does not have much experience with film scores. In order to strive for perfection, Judd began to explain to Ballett in a serious way how to harmonize the orchestra with the film picture in the performance, and Ballett listened in the clouds.
In the end, Judd's rhetoric forced the master conductor to retreat, and the baton was still in Judd's hands. But in order to receive the grant, Ballt's name was retained on the end credits.
"Lawrence of Arabia" has achieved the golden combination of David Lane and Maurice Judd, although the entire soundtrack has gone through twists and turns, but the substitute Judd lived up to expectations, perfectly interpreting Lane's film spirit, and leading the aesthetic landscape of Hollywood film music to a new realm that is very different from the Golden Age.
In the early days of the sixties, Judd used such an epoch-making epic work to tell the world that the soundtrack of the new era should not be used to interfere with ongoing events, but should imply an emotion that could not be directly expressed in the film. This concept is still considered to be the basic principle of film music to this day.
However, At that time, Judd did not expect that this soundtrack would be nominated for the Oscar for Best Score. At the time, no one on the crew informed him that Judd had heard the news from a French radio. He was overjoyed and excitedly called producer Sperger, hoping that he would be offered a ticket to the awards ceremony.
Sperger said coldly on the other end of the phone: "You don't have to travel far to the ceremony, you know, this kind of award is usually for Americans, you don't really have a chance." Judd felt that Spegg's words made sense and slowly forgot about it.
Unexpectedly, Judd was lucky enough to win the award. He waited at home and waited for five months without seeing the trophy.
Later, he came to the United States on business and found the trophy awarded to him in Speger's office, and it turned out that Speger had forgotten to send this little golden man, a symbol of supreme honor, to Judd.
After receiving the trophy, Judd gleefully prepared to take it back to France. Unexpectedly, when passing customs, he was stopped, and the guards did not recognize the Academy Award, thinking that Judd illegally carried gold out of customs, no matter how Judd explained, he would not let it go. Finally, the guard took out a knife and made two cuts in the trophy, and found that this golden little golden man was only gilded, so he was satisfied to let Judd out of the customs.
In this way, Judd returned to France with his first Oscar trophy, and the little golden man still had two "knife wounds" on his body.
After Lawrence of Arabia, Lane and Judd's relationship began to become intimate. In 1965, Lane directed another epic blockbuster, Doctor Zivago, and this time, he thought of Judd again. However, MGM Pictures, the producer at the time, was not in favor of handing over the film's soundtrack to the French, on the grounds that Judd might be good at Arab and desert subjects, but the company had better candidates for Russian style.
Poster of Dr. Zivago
At that time, Hollywood studios had a fine division of labor and had built a perfect product production model. The music departments of major film companies not only have their own symphony orchestras, but also have departments that review theme songs. The composers of these companies have their own strengths, they have a specialty in the art, and the company will select the right composer for different themes.
However, Lane is a strong director, and he completely disregards the opinions of the filmmakers and insists on asking Judd to be the soundtrack of the film.
This time, Judd tries to incorporate electronic synthesis into the music. At that time, the electronic synthesizer was not yet mature, the size was large enough to require a truck to transport, and there were few functions, and its use in film music was still in its infancy.
Many composers of that era did not trust this kind of "complex high-tech music", but Judd was extremely interested in this new musical material and tried to use it to represent the special scene in the film.
Stills from "Doctor Zivago"
Judd wasn't the first to use electronic synthesizers in film scores, but he was one of the early beneficiaries of synthesizer soundtracks. With the advancement of science and technology, electronic music developed rapidly, and soon emerged in the 1970s, becoming the mainstream sound effect of film soundtracks in this period.
Of course, Judd did not completely abandon traditional orchestral music, and in Doctor Zivago Judd duly incorporated the Orthodox liturgical music style and found many inspirations from Russian composers in the nineteenth century. In order to make the soundtrack more authentic, Judd also boldly used 35 Russian grand piano musicians who could not read the score.
"Doctor Zivago" won him the Oscar for Best Original Score again, and the theme song of the film set a record single sales at the time and became one of the most colorful works in the history of film music.
This time, Judd finally attended the grand meeting, but this foreigner did not even have an acquaintance at the venue, and some of them were alone, and they could only sit in their chairs and say nothing. At this moment, an old man in the front seat suddenly turned around, smiled at him, and said, "You are Maurice Judd, right?" Seeing that someone took the initiative to greet him, Judd was overjoyed and quickly shook hands with the old man and greeted him.
"I tell you, I think you can win the prize this time." The old man told Judd with a mysterious look. After listening, Judd hurriedly waved his hand: "I am not so lucky, I was surprised to win the award three years ago." The Oscars don't always give trophies to the French. ”
He remembered what Speger had said to him a few years earlier. The old man disagreed, and told Judd with a serious face: "This is what my granddaughter said, she said, Grandpa, I like your music, but I have to tell you, 'Doctor Zivago' is better written!" ”
The heartwarming conversation was very encouraging to Judd, who was not familiar with the scene, and he later learned that the elder in front of him was Alfred Newman, the godfather of Hollywood soundtracks, and one of the finalists of the Oscars.
——END——
Follow the sounds that follow, listen to global music, read dry goods reviews