Don't mind me. Just strolling in the area, whistling some old tunes, from an era I like to call "the French Morricone years". They may or may not be related to Morricone, as lots of other composers took part in it. It's just that Morricone has been so insanely prolific, dominating the listing and influencing the other authors, that he kinda sets the tone.
And it's all about tone. French crime movies of that era (70s, 80s) still fluctuate from comedic to social-bleak, but they are all very dialogue-driven (often written by Michel Audiard, meaning fast and unrealistically perfect retorts - think Charade's Roger Stone), and they are all grounded in some kind of dry urban pessimism and underlying violence, with a vague sense of social madness.
So, Morricone's nostalgic dissonances were a perfect fit. Without apparent motive (Labro, 1971) is a simple thriller about trying to stop a seemingly disconnected series of assassinations, secretly related to an older, unresolved drama. The investigating cop is played by Jean-Louis Trintignant, a classic actor who always seems (a bit like Christopher Walken) barely hiding some weird instability or vulnerability. So of course it would sound like that :
That's the sound of fear, tension, violence and irreparable ancient injustice barely piercing through the surface of everyday life. It's one of these soundtracks that contain the whole movie in one tune, sometimes told better than the director could. And it's very, very morriconesque, recycling his usual tricks. For instance, madness, trauma, social dissonance are evoked in the same manner in his classic soundtrack for Fear Over the City (Verneuil, 1975), a movie about a puritan serial killer (imagine Norman Bates loose in Paris with a sniper rifle) :
Does something remind you of The Thing or The Untouchables ? The Carpenter/Morricone soundtrack uses roughly the same heartbeats for tension, and there's the already echoes of Frank Nitti's unhinged violence in there.
I'm saying : if the cracks of sanity and society made a sound, Morricone captured it well. This musical and thematic tension can be resolved several ways, and Morricone did also oversee some of that. Wait, I'd like to evoke a bit the musically satisfying ways society explodes in a few other movie soundtracks. Same promenade, taking a corner.
And it's all about tone. French crime movies of that era (70s, 80s) still fluctuate from comedic to social-bleak, but they are all very dialogue-driven (often written by Michel Audiard, meaning fast and unrealistically perfect retorts - think Charade's Roger Stone), and they are all grounded in some kind of dry urban pessimism and underlying violence, with a vague sense of social madness.
So, Morricone's nostalgic dissonances were a perfect fit. Without apparent motive (Labro, 1971) is a simple thriller about trying to stop a seemingly disconnected series of assassinations, secretly related to an older, unresolved drama. The investigating cop is played by Jean-Louis Trintignant, a classic actor who always seems (a bit like Christopher Walken) barely hiding some weird instability or vulnerability. So of course it would sound like that :
That's the sound of fear, tension, violence and irreparable ancient injustice barely piercing through the surface of everyday life. It's one of these soundtracks that contain the whole movie in one tune, sometimes told better than the director could. And it's very, very morriconesque, recycling his usual tricks. For instance, madness, trauma, social dissonance are evoked in the same manner in his classic soundtrack for Fear Over the City (Verneuil, 1975), a movie about a puritan serial killer (imagine Norman Bates loose in Paris with a sniper rifle) :
Does something remind you of The Thing or The Untouchables ? The Carpenter/Morricone soundtrack uses roughly the same heartbeats for tension, and there's the already echoes of Frank Nitti's unhinged violence in there.
I'm saying : if the cracks of sanity and society made a sound, Morricone captured it well. This musical and thematic tension can be resolved several ways, and Morricone did also oversee some of that. Wait, I'd like to evoke a bit the musically satisfying ways society explodes in a few other movie soundtracks. Same promenade, taking a corner.