Annette is the 2021 musical romantic drama film directed by Leos Carax, starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard. The film featured original music composed by Ron Mael and Russell Mael of Sparks, with lyrics co-written by Carax, and two soundtracks were released for the film. The "Cannes Edition" soundtrack, consisting of 15 songs were released first ahead of the film's Cannes' debut and was preceded by two singles–"So May We Start" and "We Love Each Other So Much". The "Ultimate Edition" soundtrack was released in digitally and as a double CD shortly after and contains virtually all of the music from the film as well as demo music produced for the album.

Background

Ron and Russell initially conceived the script of Annette as a concept album in late-2010, but wanted it to be adapted into videography–feature film, as "We learned since then that movie people really need the physical, typed-out screenplay. But since the piece is pretty much wall-to-wall singing, we were really in a way bypassing the step of there being a screenplay."^[1] Much of their music had been developed when they conceptualised it as an album, and Carax asked them to write few more songs, including "Girl from the Middle of Nowhere" and "Sympathy for the Abyss" which were written for the film.^[2][3]

While initially planning tas a stage production, Ron wanted to conduct the orchestra, Russell intended to play Henry McHenry (Driver's character) and opera singer Rebecca Sjöwall providing soprano vocals and serve as the female vocalist, adding that "the origin of it really was that they enjoyed doing the Ingmar Bergman project, but there were so many characters involved in order to be able to tour with that that we wanted to have a piece that had fewer featured performers. So it was working backwards in a certain way."^[1] Once the script was adapted into a film, they decided to play cameos over lead parts, giving the roles to Driver and Cotillard which would help the theatrical prospects.^[4] For the puppet, Carax had used a real girl for vocals, though Ron and Russell did not intend to, but appreciated the idea.^[2]

Carax wanted their actors to sing live for the film, despite not being trained,^[5] even though Cotillard and Driver had sung in previous film roles and the former had a musical career outside film.^[5] This led Ron and Russell impressed with their musical approach.^[2] Speaking to Simon Thompson of Forbes, Ron opined: "I think it is more fun, but not necessarily that we’re molding them, but naturally, they’re more in keeping with the stylistic approach that we prefer for a movie musical." Ron did not feel it as an artifice of mimicking Broadway performers or reality show talents (such as American Idol), and not that "they are unable to convey exactly the right sort of tone through what they were projecting vocally in the film; it’s authentic. They knew what the material was, so they worked to fit their vocals within those musical pieces."^[6]

The sound of the film varies from wide range of songse with each scene, as Russell and Carax wanted "the music doesn’t necessarily all have to be consistent, stylistically. It can be things that sound a bit more like a band. But then there’s songs that are more orchestrated, and ones that sound a bit more classical, and ones where the dialogue is being conveyed in a more sung-spoken sort of way", which became one of the trademarks of the film, which refers to "the music is kind of all over the map in a certain way."^[7] He further opined that pop music has a certain form, adding "They're three and a half minute songs in a general way, but that within that format, you should always be an artist trying to push the boundaries of what you can actually do within that three or three and a half minute form. And so we’ve kind of always taken a bit of pride in trying to push ourselves and challenge ourselves to find new ways to experiment within the form."^[8]

Russell appreciated the visualization of the two-dimensional versions in the album, citing two of the scenes. He said "A scene like this crazed waltz that the character Henry suggests they do aboard the ship during the storm, that was in our original version, but the way Leos brought it to life was beautiful and surprising in a great way to us. There had been some discussion of what would be the best way to shoot that scene, and whether it should be done on a real ocean in a real boat, or on a soundstage in a more artificial way [as in the end result]. The scene when Henry and the baby Annette wash up onto the island almost looks like a theater piece, done incredibly well."^[1]

Singles

Original soundtracks

Accolades

References