There was a small notice in last week's newspaper that the American Cinematheque here in Los Angeles would be paying tribute to Maurice Jarre with Saturday and Sunday night screenings of two of his films ("Doctor Zhivago" and "The Damned") preceded by discussions with the composer.
What follows, therefore, are some very random memories about Jarre:
1. He looks great. He was always a handsome young guy, but now he's a handsome 83-year-old...and very affable, in an Elmer Bernstein sort of way. And despite all his years of dealing with English-speaking directors and casts and musicians, his own command of the language is still a bit fractured...but delightfully so.
2. He does a fairly good impersonation of Alfred Hitchcock, with whom he worked on "Topaze." The director apparently had a short attention span or fairly little interest in the music written to accompany his film. He pretty much left everything up to Jarre..and ducked out after spending only a few minutes at the "Topaze" recording session.
3. Because the time allotted to writing the score for "Lawrence of Arabia" was so brief, Jarre had to put himself on a schedule of writing for five hours and then napping for 20 minutes...and then writing for another five hours and then napping for 20 minutes...and on and on and on. It's the sort of thing you could probably do only when you're young (or youngish; Jarre was 38 at the time).
4. Producer Sam Spiegel actively encouraged Jarre not to attend the Oscar ceremony the year he was nominated for "Lawrence of Arabia," explaining that the Academy was not going to give the award to someone who wasn't an American. (Possibly the real explanation: Spiegel just didn't want to pay for Jarre's plane flight.) But Jarre did win...over stiff competition that included Elmer Bernstein for "To Kill a Mockingbird," Franz Waxman for "Taras Bulba," Bronislau Kaper for "Mutiny on the Bounty," and Jerry Goldsmith for "Freud." According to Jarre, Spiegel co-opted the Oscar for himself, and it took Jarre quite a while to finally get his hands on it. (He was finally able to do this only when, out of exasperation, he visited the producer's office and to his surprise saw it on what was apparently semi-permanent display there. "Baby, just take it," said an ultimately resigned Spiegel.)
