Compilation: Joseph KOSMA
La marie du port; Le déjeuner sur l'herbe; Juliette ou la clédes songes
TRAVELLING NAÏVE K1608 [46:16]
This attractively packaged disc presents music by Joseph Kosma for two lesser known films by the great French director Marcel Carné, most celebrated in the UK for Quai des Brumes (1938) and Les Enfants du Paradis (1945). Kosma and Carné collaborated on six occasions, with La Marie du Port (1949) and Juliette ou la clé des Songes (1950) being their last two works together. Sandwiched between these is music by the same composer for Jean Renoir's 1959 classic Le Déjeuner sur L'herbe.
Alongside the music, the album presents copious amounts of dialogue from the films, which in this age of video and DVD seems terribly pointless. Doubly pointless to an English speaking audience whose French may not be of the highest order. These CDs do not come with subtitles! The music is generally light and melodic, in typical 1940s-50's French style. Unfortunately there is little of it on this 46 minute album, and what there is appears in inevitably poor sound. The best that can be said is that if you liked "Les Films des Années 40: music and dialogue from the films Simplet, La Romance de Paris, Circonstances Atténuantes & Trois Valses" http://www.musicweb.uk.net/film/2002/Jun02/Annees_40.html which I reviewed recently, you will also like this. The mixture is much the same. Everyone else is better off watching the films
Gary S Dalkin
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