GABRIEL YARED
 « If there is one thing that can yet help this world, it’s the beauty we bring to the things we do. We may all be trifling prophets but we’re here. [...] And in our little world of song writing or film music or whatever else we do, if we introduce beauty, [...] if we bring a bit of that, then we’ve done our job.»

- WATCH THE TRAILER -

With the participation of:

ANTHONY MINGHELLA
«I knew from when I first met Gabriel that he would be a good person to work with through my films. Because in a way, the music is like an actor in a film. And Gabriel’s skill is more like Meryl Streep, every time he acts in a film he finds a new personality, so you don’t recognize him.»

MICHEL OCELOT
(About Azur and Asmar) 
« This sequence features the scarlet lion with blue claws. He gives him sweetmeats but instead of killing him, he goes up to him and the lion agrees to take him to the black cliff. This piece, which seemed to be just a link sequence, becomes something extraordinary when the music is added. Including the moment when Azur brings the food instead of killing him. With the music it becomes magical and you feel these two beings – the human and the lion – are noble. It’s hardly anything but it greatly impressed me. »

JEAN-HUGUES ANGLADE
«Each time I want to recall “Betty Blue”, I sing the music to myself. I realized to what extend music could reawaken feelings. That’s why I place music above all the rest. It’s like a perfume. Perfume also has something extraordinary. It can evoke things 40 years later. You can be sent crazy by a perfume you haven’t come across in 40 years that takes you on a flashback. Music has that power with me. »

JEAN-JACQUES ANNAUD
«Everyone talks about the decline of classical music. But many listen to classical music without realizing it when they watch great movies. Great movies are accompanied by classical orchestras. It’s crazy. Today, the composers of classical music whose work will endure are film score composers. […]That’s why I’ve lots of respect, affection and admiration fore those I’ve worked with because I know that their work will be the classical music of the 20th and 21st centuries that future generations will listen to reverently. Gabriel is one of those. »

MAURICE JARRE
«Schumann said that music should come either from the brain, or the heart, but never the fingers. If you’re a good pianist, you can improvise and… “Oh, that’s not bad!” […] and we tend to write things that are found by the fingers. It’s up to the head and the heart to find melody and music.”

- WATCH THE TRAILER -

With the participation of:

JEAN ROCHEFORT
(about the National Popular Theater)
«The dream, in a small, confined space, where the walls are brought down by imagination. That was Maurice’s music and the theme. He was at ease in all that. He ended up in Malibu.”

VOLKER SCHLONDORFF
 « With Maurice, it’s relatively easy to discuss the music. He doesn’t compose small pieces for such and such a scene. He has an overall vision of the film score, like one would for the music for an opera. »

GEORGES MILLER
(about Mad Max III)
« Something about Maurice’s music can suggest immensity. Not by being bombastic, not by filling up the orchestra but something in his melody line, something in his orchestration, the way he uses the voices of the instruments that somehow suggests epic landscapes, […] somehow Maurice’s music is able to give you something that is three dimensional. »

PETER WEIR
« When Maurice is working and he has got into the general themes and feelings and he has some ideas, he’ll call me over, play on the piano […] and as he is playing, he’s watching you, you know, under theses brows, you know … like that. He’ll pick up everything, he becomes extremely sensitive […] and he might see a little frown on my face then he’d say “You don’t like that. I can do this. Or this. What if we head this way?” And he is watching my face. […] He thinks of nothing but the music at that point. »