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Join Telegram ChannelA tribute combining abundant archives and behind the scenes of this protean artist at work until the last years of his life. A pure moment of happiness.
How to tell in 1h50 Michel Legrand and, among other things, his 70-year career as a film music composer, the insane number of his legendary soundtracks that have become the soundtrack of our lives, his 3 Oscars (The Thomas Crown Affair, A summer of 42, Yentl), his work as an arranger (for Aretha Franklin, Michael Jackson, Aznavour, Nougaro, Salvador…), his passion for jazz which made him one of the first Europeans to work with Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Bill Evans or still his only directing experience with Five days in Junestory of his adolescence during the Occupation?
This mini-inventory à la Prévert proves it: such an undertaking has all the makings of a mission impossible. Except that with this documentary discovered at Cannes Classics, David Hertzog Dessites at no time claims to be exhaustive. He tells Legrand like a patchwork, a fragmented fresco, assuming his biases (favoring the Demy chapter, particularly careful with his American career) and interweaving testimonies (Quincy Jones, Pierre Richard, Barbra Streisand…), archive images of a insane richness and above all plunged behind the scenes of an artist at work until his last breath (his compositions for the resurrection of Welles' unfinished film, On the other side of the wind and his final concert at the Philharmonie de Paris) which shows him driven by a passion that is still as lively as ever but also brittle, rough, harsh.
Avoiding the trap of pure hagiography, this passionate film makes you want to dive back into the maestro's discography all the time.
By David Hertzog Dessites. Duration 1h49. Released December 4, 2024