Gaspar Noé
Gaspar Noé is one of the most daring and accomplished filmmakers of his generation, responsible for celebrated movies like Irreversible and Enter the Void. As part of the RBMA Radio: Live Los Angeles festivities, we thought it natural to sit down with the director to discuss the role of music in film.
In a conversation with film composer and soundtrack supervisor Brian Reitzell for Red Bull Radio Live: Los Angeles 2016, Noé discusses a number of scenes where music has acted as inspiration or influence and showcases a wide range of films, including Un Chien Andalou, The Wizard of Oz and The Deer Hunter.
Hosted by Brian Reitzell Welcome to the Red Bull Music Academy live in Los Angeles. We’re broadcasting over the next two weeks live from downtown Los Angeles. Tonight we’re here at the Cinefamily’s lovely theater in Hollywood, where we are going to be talking to Gaspar and playing some of his favorite film music scenes ever, which is one of the most impossible things for anyone to have to do, so thank you Gaspar. Without further ado, I think we should get into it. You ready to just play some? Then we’ll start talking about what we see and what we hear. Let’s play the first clip.
Gaspar Noé I said it was good to start with the best musical openings from movies that I had ever seen, and probably these two excerpts were the ones that moved me the most, with the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Probably, in the case of Buñuel’s movie opening that you’re going to see again, it’s not so much the music itself, but it’s the contrast between the music and whatever you’re going to see on screen. In the case of the other excerpt that you’re going to see, that is The Contempt by Godard, it’s the mix of the music and the most radical opening credits I had ever seen. All opening credits have titles and this case all in the sound. I went to film school when I was 17 and they say, “Well you can know in like the first three shots of a movie, you know if the movie’s going to be good or bad.” Sometimes you know, since the first shot you know this is going to be a masterpiece and sometimes the music really makes it. Brian Reitzell You certainly have to seduce the audience in the beginning. Gaspar Noé Yeah, but the first three shots are more important than any other shots in the whole movie besides probably the last shot. Brian Reitzell It’s also interesting with the Buñuel film, it was a silent film made in the ’20s and he would go into the theater with his gramophone and play records, and then in 1960 they did where they sonorized it and they added his records to the film. Gaspar Noé This one movie that I almost put on the list of excerpts that I wanted to put, but I already put 15 excerpts instead of the ten that they allowed me, so I could not put 20 or 30, but I was thinking of this silent movie called The Passion of Joan of Arc, that I have seen lately and the silent movies at the time were played with organs or with the piano or whatever and I saw there’s a film festival in New York where they show all these old silent movies and there was guy with an organ playing on stage and it was so moving because you feel like you’re in the temple and the sound is not digital, the sound doesn’t come from the loud speakers, it was on stage, and you really made the movie even bigger than ever. I had seen that movie many times but the fact of seeing someone on stage playing with an organ and having a big screen. Brian Reitzell That’s cool.
Gaspar Noé That’s just the opening of the movie. Brian Reitzell There you have it. Gaspar Noé That’s all the credits of the movie. You won’t have any more credits. Brian Reitzell Spoken yet, it’s beautiful. Gaspar Noé There’s something about Godard, there are not so many directors in the history of film that were that inventive when it comes to the language itself. And the way he was using the music and how he was editing the music has never been done again. I want to also put an excerpt of one of his many movies in which he would put in music, suddenly cut it, people talk and the music starts again but I was allowed to put ten next to it. When it comes to the music editing, he’s the most inventive one who was doing things that now people are doing rap music or mixing sounds. But yeah he created this side of sound editing that never existed before. Brian Reitzell That’s beautiful. With Un Chien Andalou, it’s a tango we’ll use our imaginations, it’s a lovely contrast between what’s happening. That is so stark, though! Those chords and that music is so ... It’s intense. It’s a very intense way to start a film! Gaspar Noé Also sometimes in some movies you have one melody that comes over and over and over and over that gets into your head and that seemingly comes over many times with slight differences during the movie. There are many movies that use that trick... Brian Reitzell Casino used the exact same ... Gaspar Noé Casino used this and actually when you like the movie and you like the music in the movie, when you see that in another movie, you’re so happy! Lately I saw a French movie and they were using the soundtrack for ... What’s the name of the, this TV show with Roger Moore? Brian Reitzell The Saint? Gaspar Noé No, the other one. Tony Curtis and Roger Moore ... Audience Member The Persuaders? Gaspar Noé The Persuaders, yeah, so they used the music and this music you know from your childhood and you see it in another context you really enjoy listening to it and they remix it and it was weird and they used it many times in the movie. But there’re scenes that you like so much that you’re happy when you see it in a different context or in an opposite context. Brian Reitzell Yeah, let’s move on. Speaking of starring a movie and a piece of music, let’s show... Gaspar Noé I don’t know how he worked with the musicians, for example, Godard, did he show them the edited, did he get the music and edit his image according to the music? It happens sometimes that people shoot the movie in a rush and they edit it in a rush and then you have to deliver the print and the musicians are ready to make the music but the edit is not finished, so you cannot do it to the image. But you can deliver the music and see what works. You can extend the shot or reduce the shot to make it to the pace of the melody. I don’t know how he worked but he made it great. Brian Reitzell It seems to me that the film was probably finished and then Georges Delerue, who was a very sort of, conventional styled film composer probably scored afterwards and then… Gaspar Noé Well, I don’t think so because he was shooting so many movies at the time, he was making one, two, three movies a year and you’re always pressed to deliver once the shooting is made, like the movie has to be on the screen like four months later, so probably he gave an idea of the kind of music he wanted. Sometimes also people have references for movies like Kubrick for 2001, he had all these references and then he made Alex North compose the soundtrack for his movie and he showed him the references. But he didn’t like it, how it sounded so at the end they dealt all the references and they put all the originals that he had in mind. Brian Reitzell Yeah they call that “temp music.” I don’t believe in the word temp music. If something works and it works great, then go and get it and Kubrick certainly did that. Gaspar Noé That’s what I did for my last movie, yeah. Just try it, it works. Have you tried to do it? Brian Reitzell Yeah, well you’ll see as we go through this list, there’s quite a few scenes where the music sort of came first and then was edited to it. But it’s interesting about Contempt how Scorcese took that theme and used it all over Casino. Gaspar Noé Also, I almost put another clip before Mamma Roma. Pasolini used to put music of Vivaldi or Bach on his first movies and whether they were dealing with Jesus’s life or through various people’s life, the fact that he would put the best classical music ever on it, it would make it like people were sanctified by the melody or by the music back then. That sometimes elevates something that is very close to the ground. Brian Reitzell Yeah, certainly Kubrick did that. Let’s move on to the next clip... Gaspar Noé Are we showing two clips? I was told probably don’t put two in row but I said, “Yeah, those two clips I wanted to put them in a row,” they are sung by young female singers and in my childhood maybe those are the two songs sung by girls who were 12 years old that touched me the most.
Gaspar Noé I guess the difference between the two clips that made me dream when I was a kid, I think the voice of Judy Garland, her voice I’m not sure… Brian Reitzell No that’s not Jodie Foster’s voice… No, she’s lip syncing and not as well as Judy Garland. Gaspar Noé As a kid you’re very sensitive, I was probably nine or ten when I saw that excerpt and the girl was 12, it drove me crazy! You want to make movies like that when you’re ten! Brian Reitzell That was Bugsy Malone, which was directed by Alan Parker who also did The Wall by Pink Floyd and a lot of music movies right? Evita, Midnight Express. Gaspar Noé Yeah, there’s something about music, the pitch of voice really can be very motherly, can be creepy, whatever but in some movies the musical scene where people sing can be the best scene in the whole movie and when I think of The Wizard of Oz, that’s the scene I think the most about. You told me just before we got here into the room, that the producers wanted to cut that scene because it too long. Brian Reitzell The studio. Gaspar Noé The studio wanted to cut it off because it’s not related to the story, it’s too long and they re-edited after, re-including like this is the director’s cut. But originally they didn’t want it. Brian Reitzell Yeah they tested it and it was too slow to put that in, and they also said that she sounded too old, they wanted her to be more youthful. The studio took it out and the producers fought and they got it back in and then it won the Oscar. I mean, it’s legendary. It’s a beautiful song! Gaspar Noé Yeah there are some songs in your life, for example when you’re depressed and when you’ve been partying too much and you crash the next day, what can make you feel better? I always put “Abbey Road” by the Beatles or the Velvet Underground with the banana on the cover. Or you can just put this [gestures at film screen] and it puts you in a good mood and you feel better. Brian Reitzell I ask a lot of people this question but what’s your favorite Beatles record? Is it Abbey Road? Gaspar Noé My favorite song of the Beatles ... Brian Reitzell Not song, record! Gaspar Noé Abbey Road, yeah. Brian Reitzell Mine too, that’s great! Most people say Sgt. Pepper’s or the White Album but... Speaker 4: What did he say? Brian Reitzell Abbey Road! Abbey Road, best Beatles record hands down. Gaspar Noé But for my favorite song of the Beatles, if there were just one it’s “Number Nine, Number Nine, Number Nine…” Brian Reitzell I thought you were going to say “Honey Pie” but we’ll take “Revolution 9!” Gaspar Noé Or “The Long and Winding Road” that I wanted to put in my last movie. I wanted to put it at end of the credits sung by a little girl because it was a school project for weird kids and the school was called Langley, so it was called The Langley School Project and there’s one version with a young, nine years old, girl singing “The Long and Winding Road.” And I wanted to put it at the end and to get to rights of that song was so complicated. I went through Yoko Ono, I went through Paul McCartney but then the prices, the people were asking just to... It was not because of Yoko Ono or Paul McCartney, it was mostly about dealing with the people that now own the rights and it was not even a recording by the Beatles. It was a recording made with a young girl and I couldn’t put it at the end of the movie. Brian Reitzell It was made by a Canadian School, beautiful. Do you know the version of “Desperado,” the Eagles song sung by a 12-year-old girl? It’s heartbreaking! Gaspar Noé Yeah, you should check ... Brian Reitzell Don Henley’s got nothing on this 12-year-old girl! Gaspar Noé But in that case also the fact is like these young girls or young boys singing, I almost put an excerpt also of a Night of the Hunter but the voice of a kid can be so much more touching that an adult voice. Brian Reitzell That was definitely not Jodie Foster! What’s interesting and Gaspar didn’t know this, but when I saw this list, the next clip that we’re going to show... Gaspar Noé There was another clip before because yeah he told me something about this clip I didn’t know, the guy who composed “My Name is Tallulah” is Paul Williams. I had no idea! I almost put a clip of Phantom of the Paradise with Paul Williams fucking the girl in the front of the eye of the guy who’s staring at them and who commits suicide is such a painful scene. I love Brian De Palma, and there’s another thing about Brian De Palma, we’ll talk about him later. I had to get rid of Paul Williams fucking the girl in front of his boyfriend. That clip for me was another great clip and I didn’t know that he also composed for another of my favorite bands and we’re going to show it in Serpico. Brian Reitzell Yeah. Check this out.
Gaspar Noé I hope you’ve all seen this movie called Superstar. It’s on YouTube, on Vimeo, everywhere, on Dailymotion. It was banned for many years because Todd Haynes, who directed it, did it without taking care of paying the music rights. It was a short film, 40 minutes long, and he didn’t care about contacting the Barbie doll company, he didn’t care about contacting the Karen Carpenter family. He made this great, great film about anorexia and it’s like, it’s probably the best biopic I’ve seen of a singer and it’s made with Barbie dolls. It’s touching. There are not many movies that I’ve seen like 15, 20 times; that’s one of them. Brian Reitzell Yeah, it looks really good. Unfortunately, it’s hard to sort of see in here, but... Gaspar Noé It was hard, but hopefully on internet everything is legal now. Brian Reitzell Oh no. Yeah you can see it. You can see it. Gaspar Noé Everything, you know? Brian Reitzell It’s a shame it hasn’t been... Gaspar Noé No music rights anymore, it’s just... Brian Reitzell It’s really a shame it hasn’t been properly released because it’s an amazing film. It’s full of incredible music, too. There’s Gilbert O’Sullivan, I mean, it’s something else. Gaspar Noé I like, also, I don’t know who did that, like, weird, creepy sound. Brian Reitzell The score. Yeah. Gaspar Noé No. Brian Reitzell Yeah. Gaspar Noé When she collapses it’s like [winces]. Will you show other clips of musics that create the inner mood of the mind? Brian Reitzell Yeah, their score, I don’t know who did it. The whole movie has some of the creepiest synthy stuff. You know, Todd Haynes went on to do the movie Safe and, of course, Carol and a whole bunch of movies, but Safe has got a beautiful synth score. The guy has taste. Gaspar Noé It’s very weird to learn that was the same guy who composes [inaudible] music. Brian Reitzell I think he built all the sets, little miniature things and stuff, Ex-Lax boxes and things. Wow. Superstar. OK, let’s move on to our next clip, which is... Gaspar Noé Which is also like a popular song, put in a different context. It’s very nice when you’re in a movie, you have something very soft to your ears while you have something very hard to your eyes. Because it makes things more acceptable. Brian Reitzell You like contrast. You like contrast. We’re seeing that. Gaspar Noé Here’s one of my favorite directors ever and one of his best scenes ever.
Brian Reitzell Kenneth Anger. Gaspar Noé Long life to Kenneth Anger. Brian Reitzell That is Scorpio Rising from 1964. Short film. There’s no dialog in the whole movie, it’s just pop songs. I’d really love to know how they licensed those songs. I have no idea. Gaspar Noé I guess he didn’t care about the... Brian Reitzell He probably didn’t. Gaspar Noé ...because it was shown in underground festivals, underground contexts, so I don’t think he ever licensed the rights to use The Wild One with Marlon Brando or those images of the Christian movie with Jesus... Brian Reitzell There’s like Elvis Presley and Ray Charles. “Wipeout” is in the movie. Gaspar Noé But the ’50s and the ’60s were another age, people were not chasing you to… Brian Reitzell That was one of the first to do that, that I know of and I know that Martin Scorsese got so much from that. Gaspar Noé Yeah, you can tell that both Martin Scorsese and David Lynch were very inspired by his use of music, because when you see The Big Shave, certainly The Big Shave, that was one of the first shorts by Scorsese. It seems like the movie would maybe be a son of Kenneth Anger in that way. Yeah. He invented something that people call the music video or the MTV style because the song would occupy all the sound. Brian Reitzell The editing to the song is really kind of amazing considering he wasn’t doing it on a computer with Pro Tools. Gaspar Noé If I’m not wrong, that’s one of the rare moments in the movie where he adds something to the music. Brian Reitzell The screams. Gaspar Noé Because the pig screams are really scary and he just like permitted himself to play with the music, also. Brian Reitzell Yeah. Gaspar Noé That’s also the thing about when you deal with music rights, you always have to tell if you’re changing the sound it makes, if you’re adding something. Sometimes it’s complicated because you want to mix two musics and they tell you, “No. No, if you put the music you cannot mix it with another one.” On the editing room you say, “Oh, it sounds much better when I put this rap music or this pop music mixed with the classic music.” It makes sense, but then they say, “Ah, but...” Also, if you then tell the TV that you have, like, 100 minutes of music for a 70-minute movie, they will tell you you’re wrong. But you’re not because we put two musics at the same time. It happened to me on Enter the Void. The music track was much longer than the movie itself. Brian Reitzell Yeah. That’s okay, you can do that. You can do that. Gaspar Noé You have to tell. Sometimes you’re refused because you say, well, I’m going to mix that music with another one, and they say, “No no no. Our artist...” Brian Reitzell Yeah, right. Gaspar Noé They never contact the artist, they just decide for the artist that you shouldn’t mix it with something else. Brian Reitzell Yeah, not everybody’s going to approve of you taking their song and putting something over it, like pig squeals and things, but you can do it. I mean, you can put songs on top of each other. You know this. You’ve done it. Gaspar Noé The good thing now is that the editing in an Avid system or ever in a computer is very easy. You can try everything then can you negotiate it or not, but you can try it. Brian Reitzell Yeah, I mean, I’ve had cues in movies where there’s three cues in the same scene. You just have to put them on the cue sheet. It looks really ridiculous, but you can layer things and do things, as long as you get approval. Gaspar Noé Also, in Scorpio Rising, at a point you can listen to Blue Velvet, the song that’s also in the movie by David Lynch. But then when you see David Lynch’s movie you think of Scorpio Rising. There is a connection between the movies that gives us in songs. Brian Reitzell Yeah, he borrowed it for sure. For sure. Oh no, he did. He did. I have to say that with Kenneth Anger’s films, when I was in San Francisco kind of growing up, those VHS films played in all the clubs, but without the music. It was the music of the club, you know, because they’re so visually interesting and the editing was so musical, like the way he cut is so musical. Good stuff. OK. Now we’re going to move on to something that... Gaspar Noé It’s a very different job. There’s another excerpt that I thought of putting but I already wanted to put The Contempt. There is a movie by Godard called A Woman Is a Woman. At a point you have Belmondo and Anna Karina there, they put a song on the jukebox and you see the record turning around and you can listen to the whole song and you see the record turning around. You see that they’re staring at a photo and they’re watching it. When you stop the story, you put music on or a song on, you can really pay attention to what the music is saying. There’s another movie that many people consider as the best French movie from the ’70s that, unfortunately, for right reasons has never been put on DVD, neither in France or here. But there is one scene in which someone puts a record and you listen to the whole song and then someone, the girl who’s listening to the record, decides to sing a song, and once again it’s twice touching. First, because she’s listening to a record and then because something more natural comes after. It’s another case of how touching a song can be without any, like, weird editing or action around. Brian Reitzell ...or score. OK, let’s watch this next one.
Gaspar Noé It’s funny. She’s so touching. Brian Reitzell Yes. He’s a pretty good whistler, too. Wow. What was that clip? Gaspar Noé That movie in French is called La Maman et la Putain, in English it’s The Mother and the Whore. The director, Jean Eustache, committed suicide a few years later and it was a big problem because then his family didn’t want the movies to be re-released, so that they’re kind of blocking them. If you can catch it on the net, don’t miss it. It’s three hours and a half long. Brian Reitzell Wow. Gaspar Noé In many movies... This one is long, so the whole movie has a particular place, but I like in movies when somebody, the directors or the people who make it, decide to extend the moment with music or without music. That’s one of the most peaceful moments in the movie. Like probably in The Wizard of Oz that was the most peaceful moment in the movie. Brian Reitzell Yeah. The calm before the storm, before the flying monkeys. It’s really cool how the music goes from the turntable as playing as our score to the actors making it their own and sort of connecting into a whole other world. Gaspar Noé I also know, when you make a movie I guess sometimes that people are beautiful physically, some people are beautiful in the way they move, but also some people have such a sweet voice that it would be a bad idea not to use that voice and not make people sing. You have to... Some people are so... When they sing a cappella, you say? Brian Reitzell Mm-hmm, a cappella. Yeah. Gaspar Noé It can be more touching than if there are any instruments behind them. Brian Reitzell Apparently not Jodie Foster, though. Now I’d love to hear... Going back to that, quickly, I think she was upset that she didn’t get to sing. Gaspar Noé I think she got the part for Taxi Driver after that. Brian Reitzell Yeah, right around the same time. The same year, I think. Gaspar Noé Good years. Brian Reitzell All right, let’s move into another world, Gaspar. Gaspar Noé Now we’re going to show clips with, let me see what’s... Yeah, of music made or added to films. In the first case, it was not composed for the movie, but it’s a movie that used the music from a famous, like, electro artist from the ’70s, ’80s. This movie was banned for many years, almost all over the world. You’re going to see a short clip, but in horror movies, sometimes the horror’s onscreen, but the feeling of fear is not so. There’s some kind of sounds that put you in a state of fear. Brian Reitzell This is not your cliché horror film score, for sure. Gaspar Noé The sound and the voice-over add a lot to the situation you are going to see. The triple mix is magic. The movie is Austrian. Brian Reitzell Roll the Austrian clip.
Gaspar Noé The movie is called Angst and it was released lately on DVD and Blu-ray here in America, but it was banned for many years everywhere. The music was by Klaus Schulze. Brian Reitzell Klaus Schulze. Gaspar Noé I can tell more about Klaus Schulze, then. Brian Reitzell For those of you that haven’t seen the movie, that wasn’t his grandmother that he was killing, just so you know. The movie was scored by Klaus Schulze, who was an original member of Tangerine Dream. He was a drummer. He also played with Manuel Göttsching in Ash Ra Tempel. He went on to become an incredibly prolific electronic musician. I knew the soundtrack to this movie for years before I ever saw it. When I saw the movie I was really shocked, because it’s kind of beautiful, atmospheric ’80s music, great drum machines. A few years ago I did a movie called Bling Ring and I licensed a song from this movie. Then I learned that Michael Mann had licensed the same song for Manhunter. Musically, it’s great, okay? Whether you’ve seen it or not, but musically what’s going on there is so complex and it’s beautiful, it’s emotional with his voice-over. It’s just these sort of airy synth chords. I mean, you talk about how that influenced you. I mean, I get you in there. Gaspar Noé I’ve probably seen this twice longer and he ends up killing the whole family. The music is there until the end, and the moment he kills the music finally gets out on his count and he’s okay. The climax is when the music stops. Brian Reitzell Yeah, I mean, it’s beautiful stuff and well, we’ll connect that later, but... Gaspar Noé In the case of this movie, it wasn’t composed for the movie. It was not composed for Angst. Brian Reitzell I just I do know that Klaus Schulze scoring and then having… Some artists can’t really serve, they can make music for a movie but they can’t necessarily score to picture. I know that he made this music and then the filmmaker cut it to it, but I’m not sure if he was actually asked to make music for it. But I don’t know. It wasn’t released as a record, it was only released as a soundtrack, so he could have been involved. Gaspar Noé But there’s some movies from the ’70s, ’80s, when you see them you said, “Whoa, who made that music?” And also there’s another director that when you see his first movie you say, “Oh, who made that music?” And it was the same director himself who made the music, it was John carpenter, and for example when you see Assault on Precinct 13, that music turned me crazy. The movie started with that main scene, and you already like the movie. I don’t know how he allowed me to use that music for one scene in Love. I was really happy when I learned that I could put it. The movie is really good and before it even starts, especially he was in advance of his time with his synthesizer. Brian Reitzell Yeah and that was even earlier, Carpenter was doing it before this, this was like ’84. Gaspar Noé I remember being with girls when I was a teenager and later, who were so afraid of like mind possession that, of The Exorcist, and that was a very female thing. I never heard a guy being afraid of the music of The Exorcist because it will remind him of the possession of the young girl. But there are so many girls that whenever the music of The Exorcist was played somewhere they would run away. And so the music added to the fear. Brian Reitzell Well yeah and that music wasn’t made for The Exorcist, it was Tubular Bells. Michael Oldfield, yeah. I heard that when the score was delivered for The Exorcist that guy threw the score out the window and ran downstairs and jumped up and down on it and hated it so much and replaced it with Michael Oldfield’s music. You ever done that? Gaspar Noé No. The next clip is one of my favorite music soundtracks of these last years. I cannot imagine now that I’ve seen the movie without seeing that it’s got many variations, I wouldn’t, I cannot imagine the movie without that music because it’s like ... I don’t know... Brian Reitzell Well in this clip the music was made for the movie. Gaspar Noé It’s perfect, it’s perfect. Brian Reitzell You can really tell and we’re going to move into something a little more contemporary. Gaspar Noé I didn’t know this musician before this movie was released. Brian Reitzell This is her first score, so sometimes the first score is the best. Many cases of that, so let’s take a look at the next clip.
That was Mica Levi’s score Under the Skin, which came out two years ago maybe, and she has a band called Micachu and the Shapes who are very interesting band as well. And that was her first score, and the viola, the use of the sampler, I mean it’s really, I think it’s one of the best scores of the last ten years. Gaspar Noé I agree. Brian Reitzell It’s very creative, and it’s also great to listen to on its own, which is cool because that kind of brings us, or I’d like to talk about one of your films because Thomas from Daft Punk, you worked with him on Irreversible. Gaspar Noé Yeah, mostly on Irreversible but also on Enter to Void. I never had anybody composing music because I was always afraid that he would not work, and I would make people lose time so, I like better, editing the movie and trying songs, pre-existing songs or musics that people propose me and you just try. But when I was preparing Irreversible, the whole project happened very quickly. We shot the whole movie with three pages’ script. Everything was improvised, and the music was improvised. But there was one scene in the movie in which people are dancing. I said I don’t want to have people dancing and not knowing what the music is going to be. And among the electro bands from that area – we shot that movie in 2001 – I would say the first record of Daft Punk was the one I was listening the most to. Brian Reitzell Homework, yeah. Gaspar Noé Also, Thomas Bangalter, one of the two members of Daft Punk, he had released a record on his own and there were some musics there were easier to negotiate with him because he was not, there were not inside a big publishing company. So I said, “Oh, did you say we can use your very fast electro melodies on my movie?” And he said, “Oh, of course,” so I used them during the party scene. And then he said, “Well, if you need anything else for your movie, just let me know.” So people were dancing on the real music and you can see, you can tell that they’re dancing on the real music. And there were three different songs, because it was a long take, like eight minutes take because it was three pieces in one scene. And then he came to the editing room and he said, “Oh, can I do something else for you?” But because the movie was also made of like certain scenes, certain master shots, he could feel the mood of the scene, he could take the length, and he very quickly composed many tracks for the movie. And when I tried them, he didn’t know for which scene they would work, but when I tried them they were working perfectly to many different scenes. So I ended up working with Thomas Bangalter and I’m so happy that he did it. Some of them sounded like John Carpenter, some other ones sound far more experimental like the one at the beginning in the gay club. But also at the end of the movie I wanted to put some like classic music to elevate the movie, and many directors they put Bach or Beethoven. I put Beethoven. And then but I thought maybe it was too classical, so we ended up finding like a twist, and turning it to something different. Also, when I shot Irreversible actually I was not thinking of shooting that movie. I really wanted to do Enter the Void which was an experimental big budget movie or a big budget movie with experimental scenes in it. I was very inspired by 2001, and I said well, how can I end this movie announcing that my next movie is going to be trippy? So I said can we doing something that reminds of the last scene of 2001, Beyond Jupiter and the Infinite with that [makes sound] I think it’s Janice, Luke Saturna. Brian Reitzell Ligeti? Gaspar Noé You see all this images, but when I saw that movie that was my first drug trip ever. I was with my mother and my father, and it was legal, I really felt I was drugged. Brian Reitzell Me too. Gaspar Noé I said, well, it would be great if we could end up this movie in a trippy way that would announce the next movie if it ever happens. Brian Reitzell Wow, you were foreshadowing your next film. That’s cool. Gaspar Noé Yeah, we did some weird effects with Thomas and so the first part is Beethoven, the last part is something weird we did. Brian Reitzell So Thomas did score your movie. Gaspar Noé Yeah, and then the truth is that... Brian Reitzell Did you cut around with some stuff that he gave you as well? Gaspar Noé No, some pieces were great but they were longer than the scene itself so if you want to listen to the music more properly you have to buy the CD because... Brian Reitzell Yeah. I have it. Gaspar Noé In the movie there’s one or two scenes that are one minute long, or two minutes long, but on the soundtrack itself it’s three minutes, four minutes long. Brian Reitzell It’s a proper record. Gaspar Noé He’s so nice to work with. Brian Reitzell Yeah, nice guy. Gaspar Noé Like the most [inaudible] people, they were also so humble. Brian Reitzell French, yeah. Gaspar Noé French are not humble. Brian Reitzell [laughs] Brian Reitzell So here, sticking with, well, here’s the next clip.
Gaspar Noé We used many different sounds for the last part. I think there’s some reverse music, we used the projector sounds, great projector sounds. Brian Reitzell And before that the sprinkler, right? You have Beethoven’s 7th Symphony, one of the pieces Beethoven really liked. And the sprinkler comes in, and your strobeyy trippy stuff at the end, sound-design-y. Gaspar Noé Actually that scene initially was much, much longer, but my distributors people freaked out. They said the movie’s going to be banned because people are going to have epileptic seizures. Can you reduce it? And I said what’s the legal timing for strobe lights in clubs? And they said, you know, check it, because I think it would be good if it lasts for three minutes. But I had to reduce it to one minute and a half, something like that. Sometimes you have to make a deal with the producers, that’s the only deal I made for them. I actually don’t want to, I saw it probably would happen. Some people people fainted during the rape scene, some people walked out, many many. Hopefully no one had an epileptic seizure at the end. If one day when I try drugs that are illegal and get to small stroboscopes and put them on the different pace on the different eyes, after ten minutes you don’t know where you are or how much time you’ve been spending there. It really turns your brain into a weird place. Brian Reitzell Try being a drummer and being on stage and having them play to that every night. Gaspar Noé The other funny thing about some people, they came to me and said, “Oh, were you inspired by John Boorman, for Irreversible?” I said, “Yeah, I was inspired by the rape in Deliverance.” “No, no, by Zargos,” and I didn’t remember when the movie was released that he used the same 7th Symphony for the end of Zargos. Brian Reitzell Great minds think alike. Gaspar Noé He had good taste. Brian Reitzell Yes. Lovely, very nice. You and I were sort of just talking about, it’s not on this list but one of my favorite music films is Eraserhead, and... Gaspar Noé That’s like the best soundtrack ever. Is it the best. But yeah there are maybe two songs and I wanted to put an excerpt of that movie, but it’s mostly drones and [makes whooshing sounds]. Brian Reitzell Yeah, a lot of textures. Gaspar Noé But you remember more the soundtrack than you remember the movie, or you remember them both but whenever it was released on CD, I bought it, I offered to some friends, and yeah it’s the most perfect soundtrack ever heard. Brian Reitzell Yeah in my studio I have surround sound, and I can mute the center channel, and just listen to the sound, and what’s so great about Eraserhead is those rooms feel different because of the tone of the sound. But I think he spent like four years doing that, like in his bathtub. Gaspar Noé And also the sounds are so organic. Brian Reitzell They’re all organic. I mean it’s all organic sounds made together. Gaspar Noé Yeah, when it comes to, when you think what’s the soundtrack of any movie you see in your life? Which one is the one that sticks the most to your mind? That would be... Brian Reitzell Eraserhead. Gaspar Noé For the movie I did after Enter to Void, I said, “Well, can I do something that would be a mix of Eraserhead, of like the end of 2001, what can I do? Can I put many different musics at the same time?” Also, when you’re tripping out and the movie’s about someone who’s dying and gets confused in his mind, so he dreams he comes out of his body and of course he never comes out of his body, he’s just dreaming that maybe it’s going to happen. And when you fall asleep, when you’re wasted, whatever, sometimes it’s sounds get weird, especially when you’re wasted. On where you have a car crash, no the sounds, audioscenatory sound mixes that can reproduce what’s going on inside your head. And I tried to do something like that in my trippy movie Enter the Void. But someone else did it much better in a documentary. Brian Reitzell With a similar title too. Gaspar Noé Yeah so instead of showing any clip of Enter the Void, I’m going to show a small excerpt about someone who’s falling from a mountain, and who’s really ready to die, and when he’s ready to die he has this music coming into his head and it’s called Touching the Void.
Gaspar Noé The sound editor or the sound mixer of that scene is a genius. Brian Reitzell Yes, yes. Gaspar Noé I wish I had scenes that mix that well in my movies. Brian Reitzell Oh you’re doing fine, you’re doing fine, trust me. You know, they say if you have song stuck in your head the way to get it out is to listen to it from start to finish. So that guy probably never heard that whole song. Gaspar Noé It’s painful when you get music in your head that you don’t like. Brian Reitzell I know. A sonic memory that just eats at you. Gaspar Noé I don’t know if it happens to you, but sometimes people invite you to a restaurant, and you’re happy to meet your friends, but the music is so loud and is so bad that you just say, “Hey, what’s the problem?” Brian Reitzell Yeah, music can really... Gaspar Noé It can put you in such a bad mood, the bad music. Brian Reitzell We’re going to keep things moving here. Gaspar Noé Talking about Enter the Void. Before doing Enter the Void, besides some references that I had, like 2001: A Space Odyssey, or Eraserhead, or some experimental music from the ’70s, I also wanted to show this ghost floating over his sister, who was a stripper. I said, “Well, I want to find the best strip scenes in the history of cinema.” So I checked all of the clips that were dealing with girls. Showgirls, etc., etc. Blue Iguana. But the good thing about music in movies is that sometimes people can be very sexy when they dance, or when they are almost not dancing. Something comes out from the way people move that talks much more than what they say. So I needed to show clips to Paz de la Huerta, who was playing the main character. And for sure, the most exciting scenes that I have seen of a stripper were scenes with Melanie Griffith. So instead of showing you one clip, we’re going to show you clips of two different movies. And Melanie Griffith was also a woman who made me want to grow up. Brian Reitzell And I think both of these films were made right next to each other. Gaspar Noé Yeah. Brian Reitzell So it was like her stripper phase. Gaspar Noé Yeah, but I don’t know who made the music for the first clip. Brian Reitzell I do. Gaspar Noé The second clip was Pino Donaggio, and the first clip is an Abel Ferrara movie, Fear City. The second clip is Body Double.
Brian Reitzell We both have a thing for the ’80s, don’t we? I love the way it cuts from Frankie Goes to Hollywood into the score, and then back. That’s nice. Gaspar Noé The song came out at the same time as the movie. Sometimes it’s good when you have the song of the summer coming out at the same time… Brian Reitzell That was the big summer... Gaspar Noé ...and the music is inside. Brian Reitzell Oh, it’s always good, Gaspar. That was the biggest record of the year, I think, too. Gaspar Noé I think the record was called Welcome to the Pleasuredome. Brian Reitzell Yes, it was. It was a double record. Gaspar Noé And then someone recommended me to see The Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome. “Does it have any link with Frankie Goes to Hollywood?” They said, “No, no.” Brian Reitzell It’s all connected. Gaspar Noé They stole the title of Kenneth Anger. Brian Reitzell Wow. It’s all connected. Gaspar Noé The Pleasure Dome sounds like a good place, I don’t know where it is. Brian Reitzell It’s right down on Santa Monica, actually. We can go there afterwards. Anything? Fear City? There’s another scene in Fear City where she’s dancing and the editing is fantastic. It goes from the score, which is by a guy that I don’t think did a lot of other movies, that’s why we don’t really talk much about him. But it’s also very much a synth score. It’s perfect for the movie. But there’s a woman being killed in a subway station, and it’s cutting in this really cool, slightly butter knife style that’s syncopated with the music, and I had never seen it until I saw your list, so thank you. Gaspar Noé I like Pino Donaggio, but maybe at the time I was even more obsessed with Giorgio Moroder’s soundtracks. Especially ... Midnight Express is a great movie, a good movie. But the soundtrack, the main theme, sticks in your mind like Boney M. Brian Reitzell Scarface. Gaspar Noé Yeah, sometimes some themes make you think of the movie all the time, because you’re obsessed with the music. Brian Reitzell And the rhythm. OK, cool. Gaspar Noé Now I think we’re going to show an excerpt of Love. Brian Reitzell Yes. Gaspar Noé The movie is very long, and there are many, many different music scenes. When I shot Love, I didn’t have any clue of what I was going to put on it. All I know is that I had put on the side, 10% of the very little budget of the movie, to negotiate the rights of music that I wanted to be famous. You know, when you’re in a car and you’re depressed, you listen to the song that you listened to since you were a kid, whether it’s the Bee Gees, the Beatles, or… Brian Reitzell “Over the Rainbow.” Gaspar Noé “Over the Rainbow.” It puts you in a melancholic mood, and I wanted the movie to be very melancholic. So I said, “What are the best experimental pieces – not experimental, instrumental pieces – that I could put in the movie?” Of course many of them were coming from England or America, so they’re much harder to negotiate, because they’re more expensive. But we were very lucky. Once I finished the first cut of the movie, I had a music supervisor who started negotiating the movie. And probably because it was a French production, we didn’t say too much that it was an English-speaking movie. We said, “Well, it’s a small French production,” which it was. And also, we’d say, “Well, it’s very hard to release, because it’s got some love scenes that are not going to make the movie that commercial.” But with the very low budget, we managed to have all of these famous musicians. I even got the Goldberg Variations by Glenn Gould that my father always said, “That’s my favorite music, ever.” I just never thought I would ever be allowed to use that. But also I could have John Carpenter. I even called, I texted and talked to David Lynch’s representative. Because once I knew I couldn’t put the song of the Beatles at the end of the movie, I said, “Oh, I could probably put ‘In Heaven,’ the music of Eraserhead that inspired me so much when I was a film student.” And he said, “Yeah, OK, you can use it.” But at the very end, I noticed that it was better not to have any vocals in the final credits, because it was even sadder. So I re-put the Goldberg Variations played by Glenn Gould, my father’s favorite piece ever. But yes, David Lynch was very friendly to me. And also, I was lucky because there’s one piece that I’m obsessed with, “Maggot Brain” by Funkadelic, that I listen to over and over again. I’ve been listening to it for the last ten years. Once I shot one scene in the movie, I tried it on it, and it was so good that that’s the first one that I asked my music supervisor to negotiate, and we got it. And then there’s another piece that I really wanted that was from Pink Floyd. But that was harder because Pink Floyd is very hard. But I met the daughter of one of the members, and it finally happened, so that’s what we’re going to see.
And also, the first scene was shot in a techno club. We didn’t know what music we’re going to use, so we made people dance to anything – Daft Punk, all of this electro music – and then because it’s in slow motion, it doesn’t matter, because we could put classical music, modern music, or whatever. But it really worked with the Pink Floyd. Brian Reitzell “Is there anybody out there?” Gaspar Noé Yeah. It was a piece from The Wall. And those melodies really make the two scenes. Brian Reitzell Let’s check it out.
Gaspar Noé Actually, it was too long because the music is great, but it’s very long. “Maggot Brain,” that’s for three minutes. Brian Reitzell Nine? Gaspar Noé Nine. Yeah, but ... I think it’s ... Yeah, 11 minutes, and the scene is eight minutes long. Brian Reitzell Eddie Hazel on guitar, everybody. I think it was completely played once, too, right? Gaspar Noé The guy, I don’t know if he was on acid, heroin, or the two at the time. He improvised on stage. Brian Reitzell Whatever it was, it worked. It’s beautiful. I’ve tried to put that song on a couple of movies, and nobody ever took to it. You beat me to it. Gaspar Noé Yeah. And then the guitarist died, but there are many different, like, re-recordings, live recordings. But not one is as good as the original, played by himself that time. And then that music inspired, also, John Frusciante. He did an homage to “Maggot Brain,” and he did a piece, “Before the Beginning” that was...I thought maybe that one I could also work on the scene if I could not get the rights for “Maggot Brain,” but actually, it did not work on that scene. But it really worked very well on another scene. So I had the two of them, and they communicate with each other. So a few scenes later you hear “Before the Beginning.” That’s another masterpiece of guitar improv. And I had friends in common with John Frusciante, I called him and he agreed to let them use that song in another one. And I’m so happy in the end. Brian Reitzell They work out really nicely Gaspar Noé I had the most melancholic soundtrack I could ever dream of. Brian Reitzell You got Pink Floyd in there! That’s not an easy thing to do! Gaspar Noé John Carpenter. Brian Reitzell Well, I know! Gaspar Noé And Pink Floyd. But yeah. I had Beck, Glenn Gould. And also, there’s one musician that you hear all the time on Love, Erik Satie. His melodies are very repetitive, but there is one movie that inspired me for the use of Erik Satie when I was a film student. In New York, some people were trying to do porn movies that were intelligent, and one of them had a very intelligent idea. Brian Reitzell Soundtrack. Gaspar Noé They used Erik Satie for a porn scene. And I remember that the movie kind of, I liked it, but most I said, “Well, one day, if I do a movie with some erotic scenes, I’ll put Erik Satie.” It makes it so pure, so emotional. So we’re going to show you an excerpt of the movie Nightdreams that inspired me.
Brian Reitzell Wow. It sounds like they were playing the music on set. She’s sort of in time with it, a little bit. Gaspar Noé Probably some director was playing the music on set. Even when it’s not on the soundtrack, after they just put it. Brian Reitzell Well you want to create mood, usually. Satie, wow. You know, I’ve licensed that song, too, but for a very different kind of scene. Gaspar Noé I’m sure, at the time, they didn’t license it at all. Brian Reitzell No, and I was telling you that that music, when I licensed it a few years ago, it had just come into the public domain. So now you can license Erik Satie’s music for a fraction of what it would cost you before. There was a wartime... During war, they put a pause on copyrights, so it’s been a little bit over 100 years with the wartime pause. Gaspar Noé It’s weird, sometimes musicians who are still alive, they have the moral right to refuse you to use their music in a context. For example, when I was coming to the final mix of Love, I wanted to use in one particular scene the music of Cannibal Holocaust, that is pretty sweet. It’s a very violent movie with cannibals, like, eating everybody. Brian Reitzell It’s a great score. Gaspar Noé The music is very sweet, so I wanted to put it in a scene in which a cop is trying to convince a couple to go to a swingers’ club. And we contacted the people who had the rights, and actually the musician. And when he learned that I wanted to put his music in an erotic movie, he said, “I totally refuse.” The music was in Cannibal Holocaust, but he said, “No, no, I don’t want to hear my soundtrack in an erotic movie.” Brian Reitzell Wow. Gaspar Noé So I had to replace it with something else. It happens like that. Brian Reitzell It does. I think it was Italian, Cannibal Holocaust. It’s been lovely hanging out with you. We could probably do this all night long and go real deep and dark and, yeah. But we’re going to have to wrap it up, and we thought we’d... You want to ...? Gaspar Noé No, we’ll just show the last excerpt. We’ll be gone when it’s over. But it’s an excerpt of the movie of someone who died a few days ago, and this is one of the best endings in the history of cinema. Mainly because people sing a song that makes the whole movie become even bigger at the last moment. I’m sure you’ll recognize the movie, recognize the actors and the director. Brian Reitzell Definitely. Gaspar Noé And that makes you cry because of what people sing. Brian Reitzell It’s a nice way to end our show. So thank you all for coming. I also would like to throw a shout-out to the Cinefamily for having us here, and the Red Bull Music Academy. And if you’re really interested in film music, I do a show once a month on RBMA radio called “Music in Film,” and go down the rabbit hole. There’s so many interesting things here. Again, I wish we could talk all night, but we can’t, so enjoy the show. Thank you.
(video: clip from Un Chien Andalou and Contempt)
(video: clip from Contempt)
(video: clip from Wizard of Oz and Bugsy Malone)
(video: Superstar)
(video: clip from Scorpio Rising)
(video: clip from The Mother and The Whore)
(video: clip from Angst)
(video: clip from Under the Skin)
(video: clip from Irreversible)
(video: clip from Touching the Void)
(video: clips from Fear City and Body Double)
(video: clip from Love)
(video: clip from Nightdreams)
(video: clip from The Deer Hunter)