One day in 2007, The French composer Alexandre Desplat in New York received a call from Ang Lee's longtime partner, The Famous Fox screenwriter James Chamus, who invited him to compose music for Ang Lee's new work, Color Ring.
At the time, Despra was already Hollywood's hottest film scorer, the composer with the most Oscars for Best Original Score since the 21st century, and even overshadowed the famous John Williams and Hans Zimmer. He has long admired Ang Lee, and he did not hesitate to agree to this cooperation invitation.
A few days later, Ang Lee called Despra, and the two talked for hours. Despra learned that "The Ring" is a story of intelligence assassinations and love affairs that took place in Shanghai in the 1940s. That day, they only had a brief communication about the film and spent more time talking about the film music of that era.
Lee told Despra that Shanghai was the most cosmopolitan city in China at that time, full of avant-garde musical atmosphere, so he did not want to use traditional Chinese music as the background of the film, but hoped to use the international musical language as the atmosphere tone.
At that time, Hollywood was in the golden age, and Ang Lee deliberately started a big discussion with Despra about the music of the golden age. You know, few Hollywood directors are as familiar with film music as Ang Lee.
According to music critic Alex Ross in A Brief History of Film Music, most commercial film directors in Hollywood today are not proficient in film music, and their control of the soundtrack often depends on an industrial model of reproduction.
Before the composer participates in the soundtrack work, the director usually selects a few short pieces of music that he personally believes best express the spirit of the film to provide the composing reference for the composer, called the "temporary track". Upon arrival, the composer was tasked with "homogeneous breeding" of these temporary tracks. In other words, it is to carry out different forms of adaptation and re-creation.
Composers use electronic synthesis equipment to perform and variation "temporary tracks", resulting in heavy metal versions, baroque versions, piano versions, electric guitar versions, orchestral versions, and so on. Let these temporary soundtracks change into a look suitable for various emotional pictures for the director to choose.
This simple and crude soundtrack model has led to a more and more similar trend in Hollywood film music, and soundtrackists have become less and less aware of the free creative environment of the past. However, Ang Lee had a very deep study of film music, which really surprised Despra.
Ang Lee begins with hitchcock's Notorious and Jacques Turner's Cat People soundtracks, both of which are roy Webb and happen to be Despra's favorite composer. The two talked speculatively, including Franz Vauxman's Butterfly Dream and Lang's Heart Like Iron, and Bernard Herman's Psychopath. They pretty much flipped the music of the 1940s Hollywood movies over the phone. When it comes to having fun, I hum a few words from time to time.
Despra later recalled a long phone conversation with Ang Lee: "I thought I was the most standard movie music fan, and I had collected enough movie music to be able to count it at any time. But after chatting with Ang Lee, I realized that in fact, he was not only a film expert, but also a music expert, and he had done his homework very deeply, and he already had the concept of film music in the 1940s. ”
Lee hoped that Despra could borrow some elements of the music of the forties films, but not exactly copied them, and he had his own ideas about the soundtrack of "Color Ring". Subsequently, Despra came to Shanghai to find creative inspiration and communicate more deeply with Ang Lee.
After meeting Lee, Despra realized that Lee did not want him to recreate the soundtrack style of the 1940s. Ang Lee believes that the bright style and title-style motivations of the 1940s may create a comedic feel.
After in-depth discussion, the two decided to make the music seem more depressing and to exercise effective moderation of the romantic piano movements in the 1940s soundtrack. At the same time, avoid the saxophone that Hollywood is accustomed to expressing sexy elements. Sachs tends to feel frivolous, in the words of Despra, "After all, it's not a game, it's really someone who has been killed." ”
Ang Lee defines the music of "Color Ring" as a lyric poem with a narrative style, less romantic. Ang Lee believes that the vaguely uneasy mystery is not only in line with the feeling of the whole film, but also the most charming musical feelings, too rich in colors, but will distract the audience.
After careful deliberation, Despra believed that it was necessary to suppress the sound of the orchestra as much as possible, using string quartets, harps, vibrato, flutes, violin solos, etc., and replacing the saxophone with a sexy but low-key electronic cello to avoid over-manipulating the music and destroying the overall atmosphere of the picture.
In the post-production stage, Ang Lee and Despra still felt that the orchestra was too loud and the emotions were pushed too much, which hurt the development of the story. Therefore, they decided to focus the music on the characters and the story itself, rather than on the broad panorama or the things around the protagonist, so as to reduce the lyricism of the music.
In the soundtrack, Despra still inherits some of the styles of the aforementioned Golden Age soundtrack masters, such as Vauxman and Weber, but removes their gorgeous structure and sound, trying to maintain the necessary themes of love, desire and danger, while avoiding the temptation of sentimental melodies or jazz styles.
In addition, he also tried to avoid any obvious Asian characteristics in the creative process (as Despra said: "Although the story takes place in Shanghai in the 1940s, in fact, Chinese films at that time used Western soundtracks"), presented in a more modern way, trying to give the audience a feeling that the story is "unfolding instantly" in front of the eyes.
The waltz that Despla created for the film left a deep impression on the audience. The French have always loved dance music, and this pleasant and melodic genre is considered by composers to be an important way of communicating film music.
Despra paid tribute to Maurice Judd and Georges Delerue, two of their predecessors. When he wrote "Color Ring", he remembered the intoxicating dance themes of their respective masterpieces, "Doctor Zivago" and "Midsummer Love". In particular, "Doctor Zivago" makes people feel the unforgettable love in the chaotic world as soon as they listen to it. Inspired by the works of his predecessors, Despra composed the understated and deep waltz for "Color Ring".
In addition, the use of the harp in "Color Ring" is also the finishing touch of the entire soundtrack. Despra believes that it has a lonely and gentle touch, and when mixed with other strings, it will make the things in front of you seem to add a layer of transparent tulle that seems to be nothing, hazy and mysterious, thus forming a kind of broad and diverse expression effect.
To be sure, without Despra's soundtrack, the artistic appeal of this love story would be much weaker. Although the audience hardly feels their presence when watching the film.