The Boy in the Tree (The Boy in the Tree)

“Göte is a young teenager who seems to be at odds with his family and who perhaps doesn’t really know what he wants himself. Feeling dissatisfied and rebellious, Göte joins two malicious poachers, even though he loves animals and nature. The conflict between his own feelings and his need to rebel reaches its peak when a forester begins to track down the young men, closing in on them with ever-tighter circles.” (FilmStack)

Even as a boy, Quincy Jones – who often skipped school to go to the cinema – knew that he wanted to become a film composer one day. However, his dream did not come true until 1961, when he was performing with his big band in Stockholm and Arne Sucksdorff happened to notice him quite by chance and asked him to compose the music for The Boy in the Tree. ‘After years of arranging and producing music for world-famous bands and singers, Jones had to travel to Europe and conduct a Scandinavian orchestra to produce his first film score. (…) Although it features original material with pop-soul influences, this wonderfully atmospheric soundtrack, released as a vinyl EP, could not simply be dismissed in the US as a purely ‘Negro’ project. With this soundtrack under his belt, Jones finally felt ready to take the plunge into Hollywood: as a composer who had proven that he was capable of engaging musically with any film – regardless of genre, style or subject matter.” (Carol Cooper, Criterion, March 2020)