If you look at the professional resume of Alexandre Desplat, you will be speechless. During his 35-year career, the French composer of film music has managed to write music for more than 200 (!) Short films and feature films. Over the past decade, he has consistently appeared in six to seven films a year, receiving nine nominations and two Oscars for Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel and Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water. During the online video call where I meet him, he looks tired and I ask him how he is doing.

“This morning I was in the studio at 9, and last night I left here after midnight,” he tells me with a half laugh and continues: “I don’t see my friends, my family, I don’t have days off. I know I have to stop this because it’s crazy and life is slipping away in the meantime. On the other hand, I love music and what I do. It’s also not easy to say no. I used to be lucky that directors like Anderson, Polanski, Gavras, Clooney took me and asked me to write a script for their films. Now they are all my friends and I cannot refuse them, so I do everything. But there are worse things. Morricone has written music for 400 films…”.

In a few days Desplas will be in our area, in particular in Thessaloniki, at the personal invitation of Mayor Konstantinos Zervas, to give a big concert in the city’s Concert Hall as part of the 57th Dimitrios. As he speaks to me in Greek, which he speaks well, he is eager to drink ouzo and listen to rebetika, because his mother, a Greek woman, born in Volos and originally from Asia Minor, often forced him to listen to Greek music when he was little.

“Theodorakis, Hatzidakis, Kharchakos, among others, played at home, so Greek music and related instruments are part of my education. My mother is from Smyrna, so I have always heard stories about the Holocaust. At the concert in Thessaloniki, we will pay tribute to Smyrna with a short adagio that I composed. Something without too much passion or melodrama, but which I think will fit and be quite touching.”

As a contemporary composer of film music, Despleix certainly uses all the “weapons” at his disposal to create in an era when the dominance of the image tends to limit the melody to a supporting role. “As society develops, so does cinema. We can’t make films like 1945 or 1965. Almost every year someone comes up with a new idea and of course the music has to follow. However, since I have been working in this field for several years now, I have noticed that trends come and go very quickly. In the 1980s, for example, at one time all the scores were done on a synthesizer, but soon people got tired of it, and we returned to orchestral music.”

My mother is from Smyrna, so I have always heard stories about the Holocaust. In Thessaloniki we will pay tribute to short adagios.

»Recently there has been a general trend towards very atmospheric soundtracks with strong electronic elements. Not quite to my taste. I personally believe in melodies, I basically feel that people like to listen to melodies and a good melody takes a lot of work, it’s hard to compose. Eventually, though, I end up using everything: electronics for sounds that can’t be reproduced in any other way, jazz bands, bouzouki solos, or a 90-piece orchestra. In Guillermo del Toro’s new Pinocchio, we used exclusively wooden musical instruments to get that specific sound coloring that was suitable for the film.”

But how difficult is this creative tinkering with every director who has his own vision and, as a rule, fears that his composer will … ruin the film? “When you decide to write a film score, you also decide to share your time and your art with another artist. Communicate and find bridges that will allow you to maintain your musical identity and at the same time remain committed to the project. This is what you learn over time. I like to adapt, watch the film, the actors’ movements, the camera and act accordingly. With Wes (Anderson), for example, everything is very symmetrical, the editing is special, so the music follows similar patterns.

It is no coincidence that, in addition to those already mentioned, Despley has also worked with such great names as Stephen Friars, Greta Gerwig, Luc Besson, Catherine Bigelow, Tom Hooper and many others. As for the genre of films, which is the most difficult to “dress” musically, he answers immediately and without any hesitation: “Comedies for sure. You see, the music itself is not funny. You have to find ways to make it easy and at the same time interact with what’s happening on the screen. Of course, don’t get too serious, because then the joke won’t work.”

Alexandre Desplat will conduct the State Orchestra of Thessaloniki at the Thessaloniki Concert Hall while lowering the curtain on this year’s Dimitrios on 20 October.