Composer Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch Says Her Music Keyed On The Beauty And Hope Within ‘Living’ – Sound & Screen
deadline.comComposing the score for the Oliver Hermanus-directed drama Living began with a very simple question: Is it really necessary to write only sad music for a story about a man facing his mortality?
For Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch, the answer was no. “It took a while for me to kind of, maybe, go on the same type of journey with Mr.
Williams, embracing the tenderness of the situation and try to find that balance from the fact you are reaching the end of life and there is a sadness to it,” the composer for the Sony Pictures Classics film said at Deadline’s Sound & Screen awards-season event. “But it’s also a celebration if you lived your life in the way that’s worth living.” RELATED: Deadline’s Sound & Screen: Full Coverage Based on the Akira Kurosawa film Ikiru, Living takes place in 1952 London, where veteran civil servant Williams (Bill Nighy) has become a small cog in the bureaucracy of rebuilding England post-World War II.
As endless paperwork piles up on his desk, he learns he has a fatal illness. Coaxed by a vivacious colleague, he begins his quest to find some meaning in his life before it slips away. “It’s about finding that beauty,” Levienaise-Farrouch said of the film written by Kazuo Ishiguro. “But it should also bring hope.” The French composer and pianist has a colorful resume.
Read more on deadline.com
