Alexandre Desplat's fifth collaboration with film director
Wes Anderson,
The French Dispatch features a lean, jaunty chamber music score that looks to instruments like harpsichord, banjo, and tuba as well as piano and strings. Embellishing
Anderson's hyperreal version of 1960s France and events surrounding a publication based on The New Yorker magazine,
Desplat's light touch here was heavily inspired by the works of French pianist/composer
Erik Satie. Interspersed with score tracks on the soundtrack are songs and instrumentals ranging from
the Swingle Singers and accordionist
Gus Viseur, to American crooner
Gene Austin and ye-ye star
Chantal Goya, to segments of '60s film scores by
Ennio Morricone and
Mario Nascimbene.
Jarvis Cocker makes several voice appearances in the film as Tip-Top, a thinly veiled version of French pop singer
Christophe on a cover of
Christophe's 1965 hit "Aline." (
Anderson and
Cocker enjoyed making "Aline" so much that they recorded a whole
Tip-Top album to accompany the soundtrack release.) Harpsichord and tuba open the soundtrack on
Desplat's stately "Obituary," which adds plucked strings and a simple piano melody before expanding its palette to include woodwinds and brass -- usually with just one player representing each instrument or section -- as they rotate solos. Most of the rest of the score follows that track's example, with one-note-at-a-time keyboard lines and the feel of a combo more than an ensemble. Some of the more distinctive score entries take the form of the waltzing "Mouthwash de Menthe," the swinging "Kidnappers Lair," and "Blackbird Pie," which is musically illustrated by fluttery woodwinds and fanfare-like brass. While most of the 30 minutes of score here were tracked at Abbey Road Studios in London, the piano solos were recorded remotely by
Jean-Yves Thibaudet, who captures the fanciful, off-balance spirit of the project on pieces like "Moses Rosenthaler." ~ Marcy Donelson
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