Maurice Jarre
From Alfred Hitchcock Wiki
- born: 13/Sep/1924 (Lyon, Rhône, France)
Biography
Maurice Jarre is a French composer of film scores noted for the scores of many motion pictures, in particular those of David Lean -- "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962), "Doctor Zhivago" (1965), and "A Passage to India" (1984). All three of these scores won Academy Awards and are widely considered to be among Jarre's best work.
Other notable movies scored by Jarre include Luchino Visconti's "The Damned" (1969), John Huston's "The Man Who Would Be King" (1975), and great music for "Mohamed: The Messenger of God" (1976), "Top Secret" (1984), "Dead Poets Society" (1989) and "Jacob's Ladder" (1990). His best television work is probably the score for the miniseries "Jesus of Nazareth" (1977), directed by Franco Zeffirelli . Jarre's television work also includes "Shogun" (1980), and the theme for PBS's "Great Performances". Now officially retired, Jarre scored his last film in 2001, a TV movie about the Holocaust entitled "Uprising".
Jarre wrote mainly for orchestras, but began to favor to synthesized music in the 1980s, mostly for practical rather than aesthetic motivations, many critics feel. Jarre denies this and has pointed-out that his electronic score for "Witness" was actually more laborious, time-consuming and expensive to produce than an orchestral score. Jarre's electronic scores from the 80s also include "Fatal Attraction", "The Year of Living Dangerously" and "No Way Out". A number of his scores from that era also feature electronic/acoustic blends, such as "Gorillas in the Mist", "Dead Poets Society" and "Jacob's Ladder".
The broad, exotic theme for Lawrence of Arabia and the Russian-flavoured "Lara's Theme" from "Doctor Zhivago" are arguably his most famous creations, but much of his lesser known work is equally impressive, among it the barn-rasing music for "Witness", his passionate love theme from "Fatal Attraction", and the moody electronic soundscapes of "After Dark My Sweet". His score for David Lean's "Ryan's Daughter" (1970), although set in Ireland, completely eschews Irish music styles, owing to Lean's preferences. In the 80s, Jarre turned his hand to science fiction, with scores for "Enemy Mine" (1985) and "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" (1985). The latter is arguably his most imaginitive score, written for full orchestra, augmented by a chorus, four grand pianos, a pipe organ, digeridoo, fujara, a battery of exotic percussion and three Ondes Martenot. The Ondes Martenot features in several of Jarre's scores, including "Lawrence of Arabia", "Jesus of Nazareth" and "The Bride". In 1990 Jarre scored the hugely popular supernatural love story/thriller "Ghost". His music for the final scene of of the film is based on "Unchained Melody" composed by fellow film composer Alex North.
Maurice is the father of Jean Michel Jarre. His youngest son Kevin is a screenwriter, with credits on such movies as Tombstone and Glory.
Filmography
With Hitchcock...
- Topaz (1969) - composer & conductor