Desplat Wins Oscar For Best Movie Score
Alexandre Desplat picked up the coveted Academy Award last night for Best Score for his soundtrack to The Shape of Water – his second Oscar in this category to date. The music, written and conducted by the French composer has also won the British Academy Film Award (BAFTA) for Best Original Music as well as the award for Best Original Score at the 75th annual Golden Globe Awards in Los Angeles, in January 2018.
The Shape of Water also won the awards for ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Production Design’, while director Guillermo del Toro won the award for ‘Best Director’. The soundtrack was released on Decca Records on 15th December ahead of the movie’s release.
The award-winning soundtrack to the movie The Shape of Water is available on the Decca label and it includes a sultry voiced Renée Fleming alongside jazz stars like Andy Williams and Madeleine Peyroux.
Born in Paris in 1961, Desplat learnt the piano, trumpet and flute, later studying with Iannis Xenakis and Jack Hayes in the US. His influences include early twentieth-century French composers, like Ravel and Debussy, jazz and world music, South American and African artists.
The music on the recording features numerous luminaries, including Renée Fleming singing You’ll Never Know, which was arranged and produced especially for the film by Desplat and La Javanaise by Madeleine Peyroux, alongside classic hits by Andy Williams, Glenn Miller and his orchestra, Carmen Miranda and Caterina Valente. The music for the recording was performed by the London Symphony Orchestra and recorded at Abbey Road Studios.
The Shape of Water is a fable, set against the backdrop of Cold War America circa 1962. In the hidden high-security government laboratory where she works, lonely Elisa (Sally Hawkins) is trapped in a life of isolation. Elisa’s life is changed forever when she and co-worker Zelda (Octavia Spencer) discover a secret classified experiment.
Alexandre Desplat has composed a long list of award-winning and award-nominated movie soundtracks including The King’s Speech, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Painted Veil, The Danish Girl, The Imitation Game, Argo, Zero Dark Thirty and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Parts 1 and 2.
