Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #575
Written 1/15/05, Revised 8/10/12
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Buy it... if you are partial towards the heartwarming, sentimental
performances of boys' choirs, especially when they are layered over
resounding orchestral depth.
Avoid it... if a constant stream of simplistic and repetitive
choral songs and their instrumental equivalents deters you from your
willingness to experiment with a uniquely European endeavor.
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| Coulais |
The Chorus (Les Choristes): (Bruno
Coulais/Christophe Barratier) A smash hit in its native country of
France, The Chorus was the nation's submission for "Best Foreign
Film" at the 2004 Academy Awards. Despite its familiar storyline, The
Chorus launched past its competition in French cinema and became the
most popular film during that year in the country. A feel-good story in
the subgenre of "noble teacher versus troublesome students," the drama
follows the efforts of kind-hearted but washed up composer Clement
Mathieu (Gerard Jugnot), who becomes a teacher at a reformatory school
in 1949 France. Appropriately named "Le Fond De L'Etang" ("Rock
Bottom"), the school has your usual collection of young boys identified
as brats and thieves, and the institution is run by a militaristic
headmaster in a castle-like structure. The new teacher slowly assembles
the delinquent boys into a choir, a move that sets him at odds with
headmaster, but the protagonist eventually proves that a little tender
loving care and the inspiration of music can turn the boys around.
Adapting his material from a little-known French film called The Cage
of Nightingales, co-writer and director Christophe Barratier made
his surprising feature debut with The Chorus, and Miramax bought
the right to release the picture in a limited number of American
theatres in January of 2005. French composer Bruno Coulais, slowly
gaining recognition in the United States at the time for his extensive
work in Europe, was tasked with writing an underscore integrated with
the choral performances in the film itself. Utilizing the Bulgarian
Symphony Orchestra and the voices of Les Petits Chanteurs de Saint-Marc
Choir, Coulais combines his own material (a cross between the romantic
sensibilities of John Barry and Craig Armstrong) with several pivotal
thematic ideas by Barratier (who also has a musical background) to
create a score that spent several weeks atop the French music charts.
Selling a million copies in France alone, the album for The
Chorus also made a star out of 13-year-old lead actor and vocalist
Jean-Baptiste Maunier and renewed interest in boys choirs across the
nation. The score was nominated for a BAFTA award and the song "Vois sur
ton Chemin" ("Look to Your Path") received an Oscar nomination. Multiple
releases of the score in the United States, each with slightly different
contents, followed over the subsequent ten years. Much of the soundtrack
could technically be classified as "source music," though some of the
vocal performances, a few wordless, are utilized in the film as a
substitute for a traditional orchestral underscore.
Studying Coulais' work for
The Chorus from a
technical standpoint reveals a very simplistic score with easy melodies,
a minimum of counterpoint, and significant repetition. But the key
element in the equation is the charming heart of the music, and not only
has Coulais' simplistic approach won the ears of fans, but it also
serves the plotline of the film quite well. The score is comprised of
two intermingling parts: the actual choral themes performed by the boys
and the adaptation of those songs into the dramatic underscore. The
performances by the boys on screen mirror those you hear on the album,
and they vary in sonic depth depending upon the level of orchestral
backing that Coulais provides them. For instance, a simple voice-only
performance of a melody is often accompanied at first by only the piano
(a common instrument in any school), but Coulais masterfully adds the
strings, woodwinds, and percussion of the orchestra as these pieces
progress. The building momentum that these songs ultimately achieve by
their finales is resounding, and especially appealing are cues during
which Coulais allows the boys to perform above the orchestra for several
minutes. The "In Memoriam" track near the outset of the album highlights
the primary theme with this beautiful and expressive combination. Cues
near the latter half of that album, in which the choir performs solo
without any instrumental accompaniment, do begin to test your patience
with their repetitive nature. But the second part of the music, the
score itself, often interjects with outstanding results. Almost always
pleasant and optimistic in tone, Coulais' underscore often consists of
deep bass strings with the choir performing wordless vocal renditions of
primary themes on top of them. The militaristic rhythm of "L'Incendie"
presents a forceful introduction of brass and snare to the boys as they
chant the main theme with tremendous resolve. Tender melodies for piano
and woodwinds occasionally exist without the boys' presence, perhaps for
the teacher's love interest in the film's story. The highlights of the
album are the several Coulais score cues that utilize the boy's talents,
as well as, of course, the songs that also incorporate the full
orchestra. The 2005 American album from Nonesuch Records includes two
snippets of dialogue (in French, of course) that begin and end abruptly
in the final tracks, and most of the appealing songs and score cues are
thankfully concentrated near the start of the product. A 2012 reissue of
those contents by Varèse Sarabande adds five bonus tracks, most
of which simply the orchestral backing of the songs without the vocals.
Overall, for enthusiasts of boys' choirs and heartwarming, sentimental
choral performances in general,
The Chorus translates into a
strong, albeit repetitive album.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
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