Bruno Coulais

Bruno Coulais
Bruno Coulais, July 2006.
Background information
Born	January 13, 1954 (1954-01-13) (age 55) Paris, Île-de-France, France
Genres	Film score
Occupations	Composer
Instruments	Piano
Years active	1978 - present

Bruno Coulais (born 13 January 1954) is a French composer, most widely known for his music on film soundtracks. Coulais was born in Paris; his father is from Vendée and his mother is an Iraqi Jew. Coulais recently performed the score for the stop-motion animated film, Coraline, released February 6, 2009.

Biography

Coulais began his musical education on the violin and piano, aiming to become a composer of contemporary classical music. However, a series of acquaintances gradually re-oriented him towards film music. Coulais was particularly influenced by director François Reichenbach, who asked him in 1977 to write the soundtrack to his new documentary México mágico. The first full-length production he composed the score for was the 1986 film La femme secrète by Sébastien Grall. Until the end of the 1990s, he remained low-profile, composing mainly for television. His name can often be found from TV films by Gérard Marx and Laurent Heynemann. He also composed the soundtracks for Christine Pascal's 1992 film Le petit prince a dit, and Agnès Merlet's Le fils du requin in 1993.

In 1994, he met the television producer Josée Dayan, who let him write a theme for the TV series La rivière esperance, aired on the France 2 network in autumn 1995. He worked with Dayan again with other major productions such as Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, Balzac, and Les nuiteux.

The largest turning point of his career came in 1996, when he worked with directors Claude Nuridsany and Marie Pérennou of the documentary Microcosmos. This single film, which gave a great significance to the music in it, was a great success and made Coulais one of the most wanted composers of French film music. In 1997, he won the César award for the best musical score in a film, as well as a Victoire de la Musique. His reputation was confirmed by the soundtracks to Himalaya (1999) and Les rivières pourpres (2000), and after that Bruno Coulais's name was to be found on most new French blockbusters, such as Belphégor and Vidocq.

After producing the soundtrack to Winged Migration in 2001, Coulais announced that he wanted to significantly reduce his contributions to film music, and instead concentrate on other projects, such as the creation of an opera for children, and collaborations with Akhenaton, Akhenaton's group IAM and the Corsican group A Filetta, with whom he had worked since he had made the soundtrack for Jacques Weber's film Don Juan in 1998.

In 2002, his name was found on the ending credits of the animation L'enfant qui voulait être un ours, and in 2004, on Frédéric Schoendoerffer's Agents secrets. The same year, he wrote the soundtrack to the film Les choristes by Christophe Barratier, which subsequently became an international hit. The music for this film received as great praise as the film itself, and it won Coulais his third César award. Since then, Coulais's collaborations in cinema seem to be limited to works by directors with whom he already shares some history, in particular Jacques Perrin, Frédéric Schoendoerffer, and James Huth.

Bruno Coulais's musical style may vary significantly between different projects, but there are some constant factors visible: his taste for opera and for human voice (in particular that of children), for a search for original sonority, for world music and mixing different musical cultures, and finally, a certain tendency to give preference to the ambience created by lighting rather than the film's narration.

Filmography

• La femme secrète, 1986, directed by Sebastien Grall
• Qui trop embrasse, 1986, directed by Jacques Davila
• Zanzibar, 1988, directed by Christine Pascal
• La campagne de Cicéron, 1990, directed by Jacques Davila
• Le jour des rois, 1991, directed by Marie-Claude Treilhou
• Le fils du requin, 1992, directed by Agnes Merlet
• Le retour de Casanova, 1992, directed by Edouard Niermans
• Les équilibristes, 1992, directed by Nico Papatakis
• Le petit prince a dit, 1992, directed by Christine Pascal
• Vieille canaille, 1992, directed by Gérard Jourd'hui
• Waati, 1994, directed by Souleymane Cissé
• Adultère mode d'emploi, 1995, directed by Christine Pascal
• Microcosmos, 1995, directed by Claude Nuridsany
• La famille Sapajou (television), 1997, directed by Elisabeth Rappeneau
• Don Juan, 1997, directed by Jacques Weber
• Déjà mort, 1997, directed by Olivier Dahan
• Préférence, 1997, directed by Gregoire Delacourt
• Gaetan et Rachel en toute innocence, 1997, directed by Suzy Cohen
• Belle maman, 1998, directed by Gabriel Aghion
• The Count of Monte Cristo (1998 miniseries), 1998, directed by Josée Dayan
• Serial Lover, 1998, directed by James Huth
• Balzac (television series), 1999, directed by Josée Dayan
• Épouse-moi, 1999, directed by Harriet Marin
• La débandade, 1999, directed by Claude Berri
• Scènes de crimes, 1999, directed by Frédéric Schoendoerffer
• Le libertin, 1999, directed by Gabriel Aghion
• Un dérangement considérable, 1999, directed by Bernard Stora
• Zaide, un petit air de vengeance, 1999, directed by Josée Dayan
• Comme un aimant (The Magnet), 2000, directed by Kamel Saleh and Akhenaton
• Les rivières pourpres (The Crimson Rivers), 2000, directed by Mathieu Kassovitz
• Harrison's Flowers, 2000, directed by Elie Chouraqui
• Belphégor, le fantôme du Louvre, 2000, directed by Jean-Paul Salomé
• De l'amour, 2000, directed by Jean-Francois Richet
• Un aller simple, 2000, directed by Laurent Heynemann
• Vidocq, 2000, directed by Pitof
• Origine océan quatre milliards d'annees sous les mers, 2001, directed by Gérald Calderon
• L'enfant qui voulait être un ours, 2001, directed by Jannick Astrup
• Le Peuple migrateur (Winged Migration), 2001, produced by Jacques Perrin
• Genesis, 2002, directed by Claude Nuridsany and Marie Pérennou
• Agents secrets , 2003, directed by Frédéric Schoendoerffer
• Les choristes, 2004, directed by Christophe Barratier
• Je préfère qu'on reste amis..., 2004, directed by Eric Toledano
• Brice de Nice, 2004, directed by James Huth
• Milady (television), 2004, directed by Josée Dayan
• Sometimes in April (television), 2005, directed by Raoul Peck
• Les Rois Maudits (television miniseries), 2005, directed by Josée Dayan
• Gaspard le bandit (television), 2006, directed by Benoît Jacquot
• La Planète Blanche, 2006, directed by Thierry Piantanida and Thierry Ragobert
• Truands (2007), directed by Frédéric Schoendoerffer
• Le Deuxième souffle (2007), directed by Alain Corneau
• Les femmes de l'ombre (2008), directed by Jean-Paul Salomé
• Living in Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders (2008), directed by Mark N. Hopkins
• MR 73 (2008), directed by Olivier Marchal
• Coraline (2009), directed by Henry Selick

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Bruno Coulais

• (French) Official Site
• (French)+(English) non Official Site
• Bruno Coulais at the Internet Movie Database