Maurice Jarre, 1924 - 2009

Phil Nugent — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 15:30:00 GMT

In the course of a career that spanned fifty years, Maurice Jarre, who died Sunday in Los Angeles at the age of 84, composed some of the best-known music ever to grace a film soundtrack. Jarre, who had studied at the Conservatoire de Paris, began his film career with the score for George Franju's 1952 documentary Hôtel des Invalides. In the next ten years, he would work on some thirty pictures in his native France, including Franju's horror classic Eyes without a Face (1960), his celebrated version of Thérèse Desqueyroux,, and, later, his 1963 Judex, as well as The Olive Trees of Justice (1962), made in Algeria by the American independent filmmaker James Blue. Jarre's real big break came when producer Sam Spiegel hired him to apply the appropriate symphonic sweep to David Lean's epic Lawrence of Arabia (1962). The Lawrence score won Jarre an Academy Award, and Jarre became one of Lean's regular collaborators, writing the music for Doctor Zhivago (1965) and A Passage to India (1984), both of which also won him Academy Awards, and Ryan's Daughter (1970). His success with Lawrence also inspired other Hollywood producers to swing open their doors, and he was soon working on movies by such directors as Fred Zinneman (Behold a Pale Horse, 1964), John Frankenheimer (The Train, 1964; Grand Prix, 1966; The Fixer, 1968), William Wyler (The Collector, 1965), Richard Brooks (The Professionals, 1966), and Alfred Hitchcock (Topaz, 1969).

Jarre continued to work steadily through the '70s, '80s, and '90s, doing especially memorable work for John Huston on The Man Who Would Be King (1975) and Peter Weir on The Year of Living Dangerously (1975), and racking up Oscar nominations for The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972), Witness (1985), Gorillas in the Mist (1988), Ghost (1990), and the controverisal The Message (1976). He also won ASCAP Awards for Ghost, Fatal Attraction (1987), and Dead Poets Society (1989); in 1993, the society bestowed upon him its Lifetime Achievement Award, though his lifetime achievement in film scoring still had a ways to go: he would continue to work into the new millennium with his final movie score, I Dreamed of Africa (2000), followed by the score for the 2001 TV film Uprising. The father of the production designer Stéfanie Jarre, the screenwriter Kevin Jarre (Tombstone, Glory), and the popular electronic musician Jean Michel Jarre. Already famous for his tendency to incorporate exotic and native instruments into his scores, Jarre himself began to favor electronic scores over full symphonic music in the '80s, a development that he assured anyone who would listen had nothing to do with his finding the process any easier. He is survived by his fourth wife, Fong F. Khong, who he married in 1984.

Set Your DVR!: October 13 - October 20, 2008

Hayden Childs — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Here’s upcoming Movies of Interest in the next week! I realized that last week’s entry gave all times in Central Time. From here on out, I’ll do the Central/Eastern thing. I will also spill things over to the following Monday, because several great movies show on Sunday night. Finally, let me know in comments if you see something I missed!

Other than that, the rules are the same: I’m trying to avoid recommending obvious movies, but I know you’re a knowledgeable reader, so some of the ones here might seem large and unsubtle to you. But that’s alright. I’m using an in-law test: I’ll stick with movies that my in-laws have most likely never heard of. And no premium channels, because I’m too broke to afford them.

Mon, Oct 13:

10:30/11:30 am: The Circus Queen Murder on TCM. Pre-code murder mystery starring Adolphe Menjou. Not available on DVD.

11:00 am/12:00 pm: George Washington on IFC (repeat at 4:15/5:15 pm and again on 10/14 at 4:30/5:30 am). Slow and thoughtful take on African-American youths in a go-nowhere Southern town directed by the guy who made Pineapple Express. Obvious influences: Terrence Malick and Charles Burnett.

2:00/3:00 pm: Vanishing Point on FMC. The lesser of the two great existential car movies of 1971 (Two-Lane Blacktop is the other). This one’s still a pop culture point-of-reference, especially for Tarantino movies. Definitely worth a viewing.

5:00/6:00 pm: Dave Chappelle’s Block Party. As mentioned last week, this one is a fun and light take on the concert film, directed by Michel Gondry and built around Dave Chappelle’s general awesomeness.

7:00/8:00 pm: My Man Godfrey on TCM. Now that we’re headed into a genuine financial depression, take a moment to consider one of the great films about the repercussions of the Great one.

Tues, Oct 14:

5:15/6:15 pm: Gerry on IFC (repeat at 7:45/8:45 am and 12:45/1:45 pm). I mentioned this one last week, too. And I think it’s on again next week. No matter, though, because it’s just brilliant. Since I mentioned it last, Scott Tobias at the AV Club wrote a great article on it.

Wed, Oct 15:

12:00/1:00 am: The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. on TCM. Dr. Seuss’s live-action insanity. Check it out!

5:00/6:00 am: Shall We Dance on TCM. Fred & Ginger. Score by the Gershwins. A dance scene on roller skates.

10:00/11:00 am: The Legend of Drunken Master (aka Drunken Master II) on G4 (repeat 10/16 at 1:00/2:00 am). It seems hard to believe now, but long before teaming up with Chris Tucker, Jackie Chan made movies that were actually funny. I mean, there’s ass-kicking galore, but the gags he stole from Buster Keaton are just delightful.

10:30/11:30 am: Carefree on TCM. More Fred & Ginger. More dancing. More joking around.

12:00/1:00 pm: Room Service on TCM. Not a bad movie for delving a little deeper into the Marx Brothers.

5:00/6:00 pm: Swing Time on TCM. And even more Fred & Ginger!

Th, Oct 16:

Got nothing for today. Go to the park!

Fri, Oct 17:

1:00/2:00 am: Kiss of Death on FMC. Film noir classic with a great turn by Richard Widmark.

Sat, Oct 18:

3:00/4:00 am: Them! on CHILLER. I don’t know what CHILLER is, but apparently it is a channel I have. Them! is a classic monster movie, complete with proto-environmentalist themes, officious foolishness from the authorities, and monsters deserving of a pronoun and an exclamation point and nothing more.

6:30/7:30 am: Gods and Monsters on LOGO (repeat at 1:00/2:00 pm). Lots of biopics want to wallop you over the head with their themes (hey, did you catch that drugs and womanizing might have affected Ray Charles’s life? I wonder if his brother’s death had anything to do with that), but Gods and Monsters, which is about the horror film director James Whale, has a lighter touch.

7:00/8:00 am: Samurai 3 on IFC. The apex of the Samurai trilogy, also known as Duel on Ganryu Island. Toshiro Mifune is in top form, and the climactic battle is the template for Quentin Tarantino’s understanding of Japanese cool.

12:30/1:30 pm: The Day The Earth Stood Still on AMC. Y’know, fuck Keanu Reeves. Go to the source.

11:00 pm/12:00 am: Dick on Oxygen. I mentioned last week that this movie is hilarious. It still is.

11:45 pm/12:45 am: Crash on IFC. This isn’t the noxious Oscar-bait Crash, but the deeply perverse Cronenberg movie based on the J.G. Ballard story.

Sun, Oct 19:

11:00 pm/12:00 am: The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) on TCM. The silent version starring Lon Chaney. Yes, indeed.

Mon, Oct 20 (the overnight spillover):

1:00/2:00 am: Eyes Without A Face on TCM. Georges Franju’s horror classic that is guaranteed to give you the creeping heebie-jeebies. It's also well-written, well-shot, and well-acted, so what are you waiting for?

5:00/6:00 am: Kongo on TCM. Pre-Hayes Code movie that must be seen to be believed. A celebration of depravity loosely based on Conrad’s The Heart Of Darkness. As envisioned by Michel Houellebecq. There’s no DVD, so watch it while you can.

6:45/7:45 am: Ghost Ship on TCM. A Val Lewton production, this little horror film was on the losing end of a lawsuit that kept it out of the public eye for most of the last century. N.B. This is not the CGI craptacular from a few years back.

8:00/9:00 am: The Seventh Victim on TCM. Another Val Lewton production. I’ve never seen this one, but I know the Lewton name means it’s a moody little no-budget horror film that will stick with you for days.

1:30/2:30 pm: The Haunting on TCM. My good friend David Smay (author of the 33 1/3 book on Tom Waits’ Swordfishtrombones album, which you should buy and read and, preferably, love [plug!]), notes that when I mentioned this movie last week, I failed to include the following information, all of which increases your need to see it: (a) the coolness of Claire Bloom's sapphic sexy psychic, and (b) that she was lovers with Philip Roth for a long time (and then briefly married him). Also, if you've never seen her in James Joyce's Women then you should, because her performance of Molly Bloom's soliloquy at the end of Ulysses is AWESOME. Thanks, David! I will!

The Screengrab : georges franju

Maurice Jarre, 1924 - 2009

Set Your DVR!: October 13 - October 20, 2008