[Edit] August 02, 2012 - 05:44 AM by: Music Box Records (Member)
ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACKS FROM THE FILMS BY JEAN-LOUIS BERTUCCELLI L'IMPRÉCATEUR / THE ACCUSER (1977) • MUSIC COMPOSED BY SIR RICHARD RODNEY BENNETT INTERDIT AUX MOINS DE 13 ANS / LUCIE ON SEINE (1982) • MUSIC COMPOSED BY GABRIEL YARED
Limited Edition of 500 copies. First time on CD. 50 minutes of music, including 19 minutes of music never released before. 8-page CD booklet with French and English liner notes by Gérard Dastugue.
[Edit] May 16, 2012 - 9:14 AM by: Music Box Records (Member)
Some fresh news. That's it, we fixed these "so-called" legal issues. So we plan to release L'IMPRÉCATEUR on September 2012. We are happy to conclude this very long process and to make Richard Rodney Bennett's brilliant score available on CD with a new remastered sound. Another score by an Oscar winning composer and never released before will be added for this CD release !
In a previous thread -- your favorite 1977 scores -- i picked up one of the most fascinating score ever written for the screen : Richard Rodney Bennett's L'IMPRECATEUR / THE ACCUSER.
ToneRow asked me if i could tell a little bit more about this movie. It's been a hard-to-find/watch movie for decades since it seems to be tangled in legal issues : no public screenings any more for decades, never released on DVD and the scarce french VHS from the very early 80's edition are selling -- very well -- around $100 per copy. Fortunately my parents have a videotape recording of a TV broadcast from the late 70's -- maybe the first TV broadcast of that 1977 movie. There's a myth surrounding this mysterious movie. The mystery involving the movie is increased with the fact that the french LP is also hard-to-find, kind of Holy Grail for many film music lovers. I remember the cheapest price i spotted -- for fun -- was $150. Fortunately, once again, my mom and dad save the world ! They bought the LP when it got released. And the reason i picked up this title for the BEST 1977 SCORE is simply because is one the very few scores that would SCARE ME TO DEATH when, as a child, my mom used to play it -- it's one of my mom's favorite score. Perhaps i was five or six years old child when the opressive -- and yet absolutely fascinating -- Rodney Bennett's maelström shaked my ears for the very first time
Herrmann's PSYCHO ? Piece of cake !
The novel -- which i invite you to read -- was written on 1974 by René-Victor Pilhes and the movie was released on 1977. The movie belongs to a less-known french cinema trend of the 70's : the "Social Fantastic". Since i couldn't find an appropriate translation, this is what french novelist and essayist Pierre Mac Orlan writes about the literary concept of the “Social Fantastic:”
"For Mac Orlan, the notion of the social fantastic is the presence of the undefined, the mysterious and the threatening beneath the surface of modern society. It is the sinister, inexplicable nature of this phenomenon, the insidious threat as opposed to total, explicit horror that renders it more disturbing."
One night, Arangrude, an executive from Rosserys & Mitchell -- a multinational company -- dies in a crash accident.
The next morning all the employees and executives receive, from someone who'll call himself L'IMPRECATEUR / THE ACCUSER later, strange scrolls...
...in which he critizices the company, the run for profit, the management of the economy, etc. Some employees begin to suspect each other of being L'IMPRECATEUR...who also gives phonecalls in which he impersonates some senior executives by giving ludicrous and absurd orders. The senior executives eventually search for L'Imprécateur along the underground passages of the company. In their quest they note very large cracks -- previously mentioned by an employee -- in the walls :
and on their way for the search of L'Imprécateur down the sours and the catacombs,
-- an impressive maze that links buildings to other places, including the close cemetery -- they notice foundations are cracking more and more. [I know : at that point it's maybe a-little-bit-too-much-heavily symbolic!]
Just in case this movie gets released one fine day i won't tell the end of the story -- which has the same ending of one of my favorite british movie of the 40's.
Let's talk music. I'm sorry for the sound quality of the following posts -- the LP is 35 years old. It would be great to get, at last, a long-waited re-release of this masterpiece.
And guys, when listening to it : turn the lights off and listen to both links in the dark.
Well, you make it sound wonderful... and I'm sure it is. Bennett is a peerless British composer. Unfortunately, the youtube link leads to nothing. Message says it's a private video.
Thank you... I listened to the samples with the lights switched off and now I have to sleep with the lights switched on !
Not the kind of film music I'm usually fond of but [I don't know why and how] it definitely works ! And you really know how to sell the stuff ! Congrats !
BTW : I left you a message on the Gremlins thread. Did you get it ?
In his interview with David Raksin, Bennett said he chose the sound palette for this score from instruments he felt would sound glossy and hard-surfaced.
A very good friend of mine from this messageboard was kind enough to send me a cd-r from the LP release. I am not going to look for it now, since I am relaxing after dinner with a very dry and dirty vodka martini with olives.
Maybe tomorrow night when I get home from work I will get it out and comment more about the score which I consider to be Bennett's most Herrmannesque score.
I, too, would like to see this released since there is a definite cinematic interest now in French suspense and mystery genres.
I knew nothing about the film until you mentioned it in the thread. In fact, it's not even listed in Bennett's filmography in the article in F.S.M.. Must be a great score.
I knew nothing about the film until you mentioned it in the thread. In fact, it's not even listed in Bennett's filmography in the article in F.S.M.. Must be a great score.
When I had interviewed him back in 2001for the FSM article, Bennett did not think much of the film or director who he had considered incompetent for losing the final print of the film somewhere at Orly Airport. A phone call from Sir Richard to a friend of his who worked at the airport was able to track down the film and save it from obscurity.
Thank you very much for your most informative (and impressive) post. It is a model post we should all try to emulate - right up there with Morricone's series of posts about well.... Morricone.
Thanks very much for the links. This is clearly a very significant score in Bennett's output. There are some textures and modes here that I've not heard in his music before. It's a further reminder that scores of this intricacy and sheer musical imagination are simply not being written today.
The score certainly promises a very interesting movie. I like the notion of "The Social Fantastic". It chimes with atmospheres that directors such as Joseph Losey and Lindsay Anderson were exploring in films like Figures In A Landscape (excellently scored by Bennett) and O Lucky Man. I suppose Von Trier's Kingdom is a modern equivalent, although that veers towards the overtly gothic. Perhaps Michael Haneke's Hidden (Cache) might be a better modern example, or Cronenberg's Dead Ringers/Crash.
Anyway, this LP of Bennett's score should be investigated by film music labels immediately. A full CD release is clearly required.
It's a further reminder that scores of this intricacy and sheer musical imagination are simply not being written today.
Yes, they're very scarce. Howard Shore's THE GAME -- even if it does not reach to a such intricacy as in L'IMPRECATEUR -- shares some ideas, about texture for example.
I like the notion of "The Social Fantastic". It chimes with atmospheres that directors such as Joseph Losey
MR. KLEIN is a perfect example of this trend.
and Lindsay Anderson were exploring in films like Figures In A Landscape (excellently scored by Bennett)
Thanks for the tip !
I suppose Von Trier's Kingdom is a modern equivalent, although that veers towards the overtly gothic.
I might be wrong -- i only watched a few episodes -- but i recall that it belongs more to the surnatural -- even if settled on social issues -- than to the fantastic as theorized by Todorov and later expanded to "social fantastic" as in MacOrlan's quote.
Perhaps Michael Haneke's Hidden (Cache) might be a better modern example
It's not a better modern example : it's the BEST modern exemple !
Anyway, this LP of Bennett's score should be investigated by film music labels immediately. A full CD release is clearly required.
Yes, that would be wonderful. But i don't know if the legal issues in which the movie is tangled jeopardize also any attempt to re-release its soundtrack.
Thank you very much for your most informative (and impressive) post. It is a model post we should all try to emulate - right up there with Morricone's series of posts about well.... Morricone.
Merci Mademoiselle!
Tout le plaisir est pour moi, Monsieur !
And yes, i was too an absolute fan of those impressive threads on Morricone.
When I had interviewed him back in 2001for the FSM article, Bennett did not think much of the film or director who he had considered incompetent for losing the final print of the film somewhere at Orly Airport. A phone call from Sir Richard to a friend of his who worked at the airport was able to track down the film and save it from obscurity.
In his interview with David Raksin, Bennett said he chose the sound palette for this score from instruments he felt would sound glossy and hard-surfaced.
Which interview ? Is it a print interview or a filmed interview ? I'm curious about this.
Anabel, if you haven't already seen them, you might also want to check out a few other good examples of this sub-genre, namely Bartleby (various film versions), Antonioni's The Red Desert (Il Deserto Rosso), and the granddaddy of the Social Fantastic, Welles' The Trial (Le Proces). I guess The Trial is the obvious clue to this genre. In a word: Kafkaesque.
Very interesting films, many of them unconventionally scored. Perhaps in light of the current Western financial crisis, and the creeping social disorientation that will probably result, the genre of The Social Fantastic will be making a comeback... big time!
We have no problem saying that we are working on it.
Wow... fast work or coincidence? Well, the very best of luck to you (you're Quartet Records I presume). I hope you can get access to the original masters, although an official release using any good source would be very welcome.
Thanks, I'm very curious as RRB is one of my favourites. 
Well, the very best of luck to you (you're Quartet Records I presume). I hope you can get access to the original masters, although an official release using any good source would be very welcome.