- Date: 2000
- Composer: Ennio Morricone
- Period: Contemporary (1950- )
Review
The versatile Italian film composer in the score for this film suggests the high French Baroque era of the sumptuous reign of the "Sun King," Louis XIV.The film was released in May 2000, premiering as the opening night event at the Cannes Film Festival. It was one of the most sumptuous and expensive French films ever made, and it has a rich, highly appropriate and imaginative score to support it.
The impetus of the film was a pair of letters written by an eyewitness to a party that took place in April 1671. These letters, conveying a strong sense of the legendary extravagance and emptiness of Louis' court, inspired Jeanne Lebrun to write the screenplay in five days. Since the film was budgeted at over 37 million dollars, the Gaumont film company elected to film it in English, hiring British playwright Tom Stoppard to adapt the dialogue.
The film, directed by Roland Joffé, is about the real-life François Vatel, head servant to the ill and debt-ridden Prince of Condé. When the King announces he will visit Condé for three days in April, Condé realizes he has been given one last roll of the dice. If he can entertain the King with the most inventive, sumptuous, and elaborate meals and the most excellent and novel entertainment, he will be back in favor at court and his financial problems will be over.
His means of carrying out this nearly impossible task is typical of French noblemen of the day: He orders Vatel, to see that it is done. The movie is about the increasing difficulties Vatel has, and how he overcomes them (or not). Complications happen when a beauteous lady in waiting, Anne de Montausier, recognizes Vatel's genius (for instance, he invents whipped cream on the spot when the kitchen runs out of eggs for crème anglais). Although she is coveted both by the King and his court Chamberlain, Anne falls in love with Vatel.
The story provides ample opportunity to use actual music from that historical period, to compose music written in (or directly evoking) French Baroque music to portray music supposedly performed for the characters in the movie, and to write original background music in a more modern style for the twenty-first-century audience. Morricone availed himself of all three options in fashioning his soundtrack.
Some critics have complained that the movie is long on spectacle and short on story. One could not guess this from Morricone's music. He produces a sound that impersonates French Baroque music. Newly composed "source music" (vocal "symphonies" and dance music) sounds most like music of the era, but fits in nicely with the score, which deftly uses more modern forms and harmonies. As the pressure on Vatel mounts (each success only increasing the expectations he must meet), the music becomes claustrophobic and dissonant.
Morricone, who habitually does all his own orchestrations, here provides a score with a mix of tradition, resourcefulness, and innovation that would make the real-life François Vatel proud. ~ Joseph Stevenson, Rovi
Albums with Excerpt Performances of the Work
| Title | Date |
| Peace Notes: Live in Venice [1 DVD/2 CD] | 2008 |
| Vatel | 2000 |
| Vate, vate las alas, song | |
| Vatene lieta homai coppia d'amici, madrigal for 4 voices, S. viii/121 |
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