Lift for the scaffolding

A perfect crime is thwarted by a series of unfortunate coincidences: Julien Tavernier (Maurice Ronet) murders the husband of his lover, Florence (Jeanne Moreau). As he tries to leave the scene of the crime, he gets stuck in the lift – trapped in a metallic cage, whilst Florence wanders aimlessly all night through the neon-lit streets of Paris, searching for him. Louis Malle’s thriller broke with the conventions of French cinema at the time. Instead of static studio shots, he captured the authentic nocturnal atmosphere of Paris. Yet the film felt cold in its rough cut – until Miles Davis came into the picture. (tb)

‘Malle recalls: “What Davis did was simply astonishing. He transformed the film. I remember how it seemed without music; once we’d finished the sound mix and added the music, the film suddenly seemed brilliant.’ Yet Davis’s contribution wasn’t originally planned at all. He just happened to be in Paris when the director was dissatisfied with the existing film score. Nor did the trumpeter feel like composing anything in the strict sense of the word. He had the film screened for him, jotted down a few notes and, in one night in 1957, improvised with his colleagues [René Urtreger (piano), Barney Wilen (saxophone), Kenny Clarke (drums), Ed.), who relied solely on intuition and their ears, to improvise the soundtrack in a single night in 1957.” (Marcus A. Woelfle, Neue Musikzeitung, Oct 2018)