The Musical Box

maurice jarre last february in berlin. ap photo by markus schreiber.

The music of Maurice Jarre is instilled in everyone with a love of great film, whether they know it or not. His scores for Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago, both of which won him Oscars, deservedly accorded the French composer and conductor legendary status over 40 years ago. Throughout his career, though, Jarre scored films by a wildly varied array of groundbreaking directors, including Alfred Hitchcock, David Lean, John Huston, Elia Kazan, Clint Eastwood and Peter Weir.

Jarre died last weekend, reportedly from cancer, at age 84.

Lawrence and Zhivago, of course, were Jarre’s signature works - familiar but very different sounding epics. Lawrence was pure orchestral splendor with a theme as rich, vast and mysterious as the deserts that Peter O’Toole saw as his kingdom in 1964. Here is a link to a youtube video of Jarre conducting the Lawrence theme.

Zhivago was a different beast. While its centerpiece, Lara’s Theme, was often horribly mangled into easy listening fluff by ‘60s pop lounge lizards, the tune itself was the image of romantic simplicity. The bulk of the Zhivago score was as orchestrally ornate as Lawrence.  But Lara’s Theme offered its graceful melody on balalaika.

As a brief remembrance in today’s New York Times editorial section suggests, there were few film-and-music combinations more enchanting than Jarre’s Zhivago score and the images it illuminated of the movie’s most striking presence: a 24 year old Julie Christie.

Here is a link to a youtube video of Jarre conducting a portion of the Zhivago soundtrack.

Jarre was, like all great film composers, adaptable to the ethnic, cultural and even atmospheric settings of the films he scored. Some of his soundtracks graced movies that were massive commercial hits, such as 1989’s Dead Poet’s Society and 1990’s Ghost. But there were also overlooked triumphs that beautifully emphasized the emotive and stylistic scope of Jarre’s music.

A personal favorite among the obscurities was Jarre’s 1986 score for Peter Weir’s The Mosquito Coast. The music was a blend of nocturnal orchestration, electronics and even soca music. Maybe a better title for the segment featuring the latter would have been Lawrence of Aruba. The Mosquito Coast remains in-print on CD and is highly recommended.

But for the full effect of Jarre’s music, set aside a weekend, lose the cell phone and watch Lawrence of Arabia and/or Doctor Zhivago from start to finish. Hearing their soundtracks on CD is fine. But what Jarre created for these two epics wasn’t simply music. His scores remain some of the most commanding storytelling devices the movies have ever known.