What do
Les Choses de la vie
,
La Grande Bouffe
, La Guerre du feu or
Le Guignolo have in common
? These films, among some two hundred others, have all been set to music by Philippe Sarde, composer of all excess. During its 13th edition, which takes place from October 9 to 17, the Lumière festival in Lyon paid a vibrant tribute to this man who is becoming rare publicly. Faithful to directors Claude Sautet, Bertrand Tavernier, Pierre Granier-Defferre, Yves Boisset and Jacques Doillon, he has lived through half a century of cinema, also working with Jean-Jacques Annaud and Roman Polanski.
He is officially 73 years old but
“has lied a lot in his life,”
joked the director of the festival, Thierry Frémaux, as a preamble to a meeting between the musician and the public on Tuesday, October 12. One day, a journalist reminds him of his date of birth, June 21, 1948. Sarde maintains that he was born ten years later, which would have made him write the score of
Things of Life
for Claude Sautet, at the age of 11 years. A little young. When the director came to see him, one evening in 1969, Sarde was actually 21 years old. It remains nonetheless an
"amazing precocity"
, considers Stéphane Lerouge, creator of a collection of discs on cinema at Universal Music.
Son of an opera singer, Philippe Sarde very early attended rehearsals at the Paris Opera.
He grew up in music and studied at the Conservatory.
But what fascinates him is the cinema.
His father, an antique dealer, gives him a projector, he watches an old
Fantômas
.
The film is silent, he undertakes to sound it, at the piano.
“I understood then that music could transform a scene,” he
says.
He will never cease, from then on, to be a
“musical scriptwriter”
more than a composer by intervening in the editing of the films.
Great mixes
For
Coup de Torchon
by Bertrand Tavernier, he changes the ending.
“She wasn’t okay at all. I said to Bertrand: I will build it for you musically, then you will edit the images ”
. During the meeting at the Lumière festival, the opening scene where Philippe Noiret lights a fire in the African savannah to reassure children during a solar eclipse was broadcast, his face projected in Chinese shadow on the screen. As if to sign his score: a thriller theme on a tango rhythm.
“One of the red threads of his writing are the great mixtures: amalgamating training and languages that are a priori incompatible”
, analyzes Stéphane Lerouge.
Philippe Sarde, surrounded by Benoît Poelvoorde and Édouard Baer, on stage at the Lumière Festival on October 9, 2021. JEFF PACHOUD / AFP
In
César et Rosalie
by Claude Sautet, a Moog synthesizer is integrated into an orchestra.
For
Alain Corneau's
Choice of Arms
, Sarde reverses the traditional writing scheme by placing two solo jazz double basses in front of a symphonic ensemble.
“Changing universes, tirelessly, makes it possible not to let oneself be locked in a style, in a cage.
The poison is to always do the same thing, ”
believes the musician who has always refused to give in to the fashion of the moment.
Even if it means getting angry with Jean-Paul Belmondo: in
Le Guignolo
by Georges Lautner, the actor wanted disco for the legendary scene where he flies over Venice suspended from a helicopter.
Sardinian imposes a romantic music, convinced that it will age better.
Bebel will refuse to work with him again.
From one extreme to the other, the composer summons 220 musicians for
La Guerre du feu
by Jean-Jacques Annaud, with the London Symphony Orchestra, the Percussions de Strasbourg and a choir, but can also write for a solo flute in
Rêve de monkey
by Marco Ferreri.
He played Stan Getz, tenor saxophone legend, for
Lautner's
Mort d'un pourri
.
Over the years, those who have forged great friendships with filmmakers who have now disappeared found less affinity with the younger generation.
Very little for him, the
"sound design"
of the original tapes
"expired in two months"
.
Directors are still looking for him, such as Bruno Podalydès or Louis Garrel recently.
But
"there is a moment when you have to say to yourself that we have been at the end of a certain road," he
breathes.