La rançon de la gloire (Bande originale du film)

After triumphantly directing Des hommes et des dieux ? it won the Jury Prize at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival and the Cesar for Best Film ? Xavier Beauvois has moved towards Dino Risi or Ettore Scola with La Rancon de la gloire. His dark and yet poetic new comedy is based on the real-life story of two crooks who stole Chaplin's coffin in 1978 before demanding a ransom from his family, and that improbable duo is now portrayed onscreen by Benoit Poelvoorde and Roschdy Zem. To write the music, Xavier Beauvois called on a composer whose career in films has crossed Chaplin's path before: Michel Legrand. A legend in film-music, Legrand, the composer of The Thomas Crown Affair and Summer of 42, has created a spectacular symphonic score that integrates several veiled references to the Limelight music written by... Charles Chaplin. With great swathes of lyricism and combinations of jazz and sacred music, the original soundtrack for La Rancon de la gloire already seems destined to become a major opus in the Legrand filmography. As Xavier Beauvois says, "Today, the more I see La Rancon de la gloire, the more the score makes me love the film. Michel Legrand has made the film his own; and he's made it more intelligent, more beautiful, and infinitely greater. He's accomplished his mission with greatness in his soul, and more than that, even."