Alexandre Desplat: Last News

Every passing day is another day closer to the Cannes premiere of Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch,” and you can expect plenty of updates regarding the auteur director’s buzzy, star-studded period dramedy in the coming weeks. Today, we were afforded a tantalizing glimpse at the original soundtrack for “The French Dispatch,” which looks to be yet another top-shelf addition to Anderson’s roster of indelible cinematic playlists.

Anne Hathaway, Tahar Rahim, Marisa Tomei, Joanna Kulig and Matthew Broderick have been set to lead the cast of She Came To Me, the romantic comedy from writer-director Rebecca Miller (Maggie’s Plan).

Jazz Tangcay Artisans EditorWhen the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released its shortlists in nine categories in February, only one female composer made the cut for best original score — Lolita Ritmanis for “Blizzard of Souls.” Even then, the Emmy-winning composer was considered a long shot.Ritmanis was up against Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (who landed nominations for “Mank” and “Soul,” the latter alongside Jon Batiste), Terence Blanchard (“Da 5 Bloods”), James Newton Howard (“News of the World”), Alexandre Desplat (“The Midnight Sky”) and Ludwig Göransson (“Tenet”).

Jazz Tangcay Artisans EditorWith deserving artisans having taken home their Oscars, Variety looks ahead to the below-the-line contributions for films voters might see on the ballot next year.Wes Anderson’s much-anticipated “The French Dispatch,” about a fictional American magazine based in France, includes the work of many of his frequent collaborators: Composer Alexandre Desplat, production designer Adam Stockhausen and costumer designer Milena Canonera all won Oscars on the director’s similarly quirky “The Grand Budapest Hotel”; cinematographer Robert D. Yeoman was nominated.Liesl Tommy’s biopic of Aretha Franklin, “Respect,” stars Jennifer Hudson as the Queen of Soul.

This morning, in a rare feat, composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross pulled a pair of Original Score nominations for Soul and Mank.

Kamasi Washington was among an ensemble cast of musicians who paid tribute to the 50th anniversary of Marvin Gaye‘s album ‘What’s Going On?’ at the 2021 Grammys.Jazz musician Washington was joined by PJ Morton, Alexandre Desplat, Ledisi, Sarah Jarosz, Anoushka Shankar, Grace Potter, John Beasley, Camilo Regina Carter, Bebel Gilberto, the Afro-Peruvian Jazz Orchestra, and many more for a performance of album single ‘Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)’.

The original motion picture score race has begun, and already two-time Oscar winning composer Alexandre Desplat is a contender for his music on George Clooney’s sci-fi Netflix movie The Midnight Sky which recently received a Golden Globe nomination.

Jon Burlingame Composer Alexandre Desplat has made seven films with George Clooney, either as producer or director — including the Oscar-winning “Argo” and the Oscar-nominated “Syriana” — but creating music for “The Midnight Sky” may have been the their biggest challenge to date.“Music is a character in this film because a good portion of it is silent,” Clooney tells Variety. “My intent was for the film to be a meditation.

Chris Willman Music WriterNominees for the Hollywood Music in Media Awards are being unveiled Friday, with a packed slate of songs and scores in film, TV and videogame categories. Names in contention range from Alexandre Desplat, James Newton Howard and Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross as returning veterans in the score divisions to stars like Taylor Swift, H.E.R., Brandi Carlile, Travis Scott, Haim and Janelle Monae as nominated songwriters for feature film themes.Kenny Loggins has been tagged for the HMMAs; Career Achievement in Music honor, which has previously gone to figures including Diane Warren, Smokey Robinson and composer John Debney.Loggins will perform on the livestreamed awards show, which has been set for 7 p.m.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans EditorScoring a film can feel like an isolated process — but scoring a film about isolation during a pandemic takes it to a whole new level.That was the situation for Academy Award-winning composer Alexandre Desplat, who worked with The London Symphony Orchestra on the score for George Clooney’s “The Midnight Sky.”In the film, Clooney, who directed and stars, plays Augustine, a lone astronaut who is left in the Arctic after a global catastrophe. He tries to contact a group of astronauts, warning them not to return to Earth.While recording the score, Desplat had to adapt to the restrictions of quarantine, layering in strings, piano, brass and woodwinds.

Alexandre Desplat, the Oscar-winning composer of The Shape of Water and The Grand Budapest Hotel (and 11-time nominee, for everything from The Queen to Little Women) is George Clooney's go-to music guy. The pair have collaborated on four of Clooney's films as a director, starting with Ides of March (2011), through The Monuments Men (2014), Suburbicon (2017), and now, The Midnight Sky.

Over the past decade, are there any film composers with a better resume than Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross? Honestly, since 2010, when “The Social Network” was released, Reznor and Ross have become names that are mentioned with the likes of Hans Zimmer, John Williams, Alexandre Desplat, and more as some of the best musicians working in film today.

Jon Burlingame World conditions make this year’s Grammy voter choices in the visual-media categories somewhat harder to predict, in part because so many of us have been staying home watching television.

The cast of Guillermo del Toro’s stop-motion animated version of “Pinocchio” has been reported about for a while now. But we have yet to hear an official word from the filmmaker or Netflix about the full all-star cast, until now.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans EditorThe Cannes Film Festival’s virtual roll out continues this week with its Marché du Film, which featured composers Alexandre Desplat, a multiple Oscar winner, and John Powell in a keynote conversation on Monday morning. Moderated by Variety‘s Jon Burlingame, the composers discussed a range of topics from how they choose projects to budgets and processes.

Without a doubt, Alexandre Desplat is one of the most talented and respected composers in the film industry. His music has won numerous awards, including Best Original Score Oscars for “The Grand Budapest Hotel” and “The Shape of Water” (he’s been nominated 11 times total).