As we noted a few months ago, celebrated composer Alexandre Desplat has written the score to David Fincher’s upcoming and eagerly anticipated “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.”
Like many others, we first noticed Desplat for his chilling and haunting score to the creepy Jonathan Glazer mindbender, “Birth” starring Nicole Kidman (a film we highly recommend if you haven’t seen). Fincher himself was also one of those people that was deeply marked by Desplat’s unsettling compositions.
” ‘Birth’ is one of my favorite scores, as good as anything I’ve heard in 25 years,” Fincher recently told Variety. “Alexandre’s music is playful and witty. But I think it’s the oblique nature by which he goes at things. With composers, I think you have to hire somebody you believe in and then get the fuck out of the way.”
Update: The music in the trailer while magical, is not Desplat’s. The piece is Camille Saint Saens’ “Aquarium” from “Carnival Of The Animals”.
“The story of Benjamin Button is somehow epic, but the orchestra is not huge and loud,” Desplat said of his feathery touch to the score. “Chamber music is the most delicate thing you can imagine. Precision on such a score is crucial because if the trumpet doesn’t have the right mute, doesn’t play perfectly in tune or plays too loud — it’s very exposed. It doesn’t work.”
We obviously don’t have ‘Button’ or any of its score yet, but we do can look back on Desplat’s elegant and unnerving work on “Birth” below. It’s a score soundtrack we’ve been meaning to buy and have never gotten around to it. We need to rectify that soon.
Scene: Opening of “Birth”
Scene: Disquiet in the Theater
Scene: Closing Ocean Sequence
