The Shape of Water (Soundtrack)

The Shape of Water Soundtrack
Soundtrack by Alexandre Desplat
Publication ; (s)	December 8, 2017
Format (s)	Download , CD
Title (number)	26th

The music for the film Shape of Water - The Whispering of Water (original title The Shape of Water ) was composed by Alexandre Desplat .

production

“Right from the start of Shape of Water , when everything floats through the water, there is this flowing movement that runs through the entire film, the camera never rests. This movement is already musical, all I have to do is set the emotions of the main character and their relationship to music and then basically slide along on the pictures. "

- Alexandre Desplat

The music for the film was directed by the French composer and Oscar winner Alexandre Desplat composed

The music for the film Shape of Water was composed by Alexandre Desplat . It is the French composer's first collaboration in this capacity with director Guillermo del Toro . The film is set at the beginning of the 1960s and is about a silent cleaner who works in a US secret laboratory and falls in love with an amphibious creature held there. Desplat explained that he and del Toro had known each other for a number of years, and when he told him about this love story between an amphibian man and a woman, he was immediately fascinated: “It was just wonderfully poetic, and an artist like Guillermo one can trust to create something extraordinarily beautiful out of it. The camera is constantly in motion, I wanted to correspond to this constant flow with my music. "

In a video interview with Zach Laws, Desplat said that he wanted to give the silent Elisa in the film a voice with the music, with which she can express her feelings, but also the other minorities in the film, since all the characters shown in the film are next to her Film (apart from the heads of the research facility) is outsiders to society, including people who did low-level jobs such as cleaning women, African-Americans, mute and gay men, according to Desplat. At the same time, he wanted to use the music to make it possible to distinguish who are the real monsters in the film and who are not. According to Desplat, the creature in the film is a real man and not a monster, only among people are the real monsters.

In the film, in the early 1960s, mute Elisa lives in an apartment above a dilapidated Baltimore movie theater and works at night as a cleaner for a top-secret, high-security US government laboratory. One day a scientist and the security chief come to the base with a strange creature, an amphibian man captured in the Amazon in South America. Initially, Elisa still feels disgust for the mysterious amphibian man, but the two soon become friends. To prevent the creature from vivisection, Elisa removes it from the base and places it in her bathroom.

Desplat said of the preparations for the project that was taking place during this time: “I didn't have to do any research, I knew the music from that time. As a child, I heard American music from the thirties, forties, and fifties. My parents had a large record collection, that's part of my education, just like I don't have to research Stravinsky or Bach anymore because I grew up with them. [...] My research is primarily to find access to a film, the secret path that I transform into music that guides the audience. With the right score, the individual scenes become a flowing whole. ”Desplat also explained that the beginning of Shape of Water , when everything floats through the water, has this flowing movement that runs through the entire film and the camera is still never: "This movement is already musical, I just have to set the emotions of the main character and their relationship to music and then basically slide along on the pictures."

Desplat describes the film, which is very open to music, as a kind of musical because this theme is pervaded by this. For example, Elisa sees music programs on television, she dreams of singing with a band, and she plays songs for the creature on the cassette recorder. Desplat had therefore tried to take the audience on this journey with the music.

publication

The soundtrack includes 26 pieces of music and was released on December 8, 2017 by Decca Records . On February 28, 2018, pieces from the film music specially arranged for the Oscar concert were played live by the Los Angeles Philharmonic .

Track list

The Shape of Water
You'll Never Know ( feat.Renée Fleming )
The Creature
Elisa's theme
Fingers
Spy meeting
Elisa and Zelda
Five Stars General
The Silence of Love
Egg
That is not good
Underwater kiss
The Escape
Watching Ruth
Decency
He's coming for you
Overflow of Love
Without Yo
Rainy Day
A Princess Without a Voice
La Javanaise - Madeleine Peyroux
I Know Why (And So Do You) - Glenn Miller & His Orchestra
Chica Chica Boom Chic - Carmen Miranda
Babalu - Caterina Valente , Silvio Francesco
A Summer Place - Andy Williams
You'll Never Know (feat.Renée Fleming)

reception

Hannes Koenitzer from Robots & Dragons thinks that the soundtrack by Alexandre Desplat underlines the story told in the film perfectly, without the music pushing itself into the foreground.

Andreas Borcholte from Spiegel Online says that the soundtrack from old Swing and the lovely film music by Desplat caused rapture: "You feel like you are in an American dime novel by Amélie ."

Awards

On December 18, 2017, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that Alexandre Desplat's work was on a shortlist from which it was nominated for the Best Film Music category at the 2018 Academy Awards . An official nomination took place in January 2018. Here is a selection of nominations and awards from well-known film awards.

British Academy Film Awards 2018