Benoit Charest’s swinging Triplets of Belleville score is reborn live

Canadian composer Benoit Charest has worked on numerous films and recordings, but his most popular work remains his score for the 2003 animated film The Triplets of Belleville. The oddball movie finds its ideal complement in Charest’s music, which draws strongly from hot jazz such as Django Rheinhardt’s. “Belleville Rendez-Vous,” the highlight, was nominated for Best Original Song at the 2004 Oscars, where it lost to the decidedly zero-swing Return of the King song “Into the West.”

That setback aside, Charest’s Triplets score has since maintained its power to delight and only gained stature — enough so that Charest has taken it on the road, performing it live with the film. I called the composer by talk about this latest project.

The Pitch: What is the process of scoring an animated film versus a live-action film? Do you need to complete the score and song before the animation can start?

Benoit Charest: How is it different? To start with, all films are different. Everyone has their way to work, and every film has its problems to be solved, and everyone has their way to come about [solving] them. In the case of animation, which is a rarer thing — and in the case of Triplets and old-school animation, where you would see the characters playing instruments — you would compose the music before they did the animation.

The tunes I did in Les Triplets were based on a form and a certain length, so the animators could animate the scene on it, essentially. So, it’s a reverse process in that aspect, but it was used a lot by all the Walt Disney cartoons, et cetera, et cetera: They would have a musical piece, and they would base the animation on the musical piece to seem as if they were playing the instruments.

Other composers I’ve spoken with speak of the terror of temp tracks, and directors getting too fond of pre-existing music, but based on what you’ve said, I’m assuming that wasn’t the case.

No, but obviously, there were inspirations: the music of Django Rheinhardt, and a bit of Duke Ellington’s music and, you know, all kinds of diverse influences in the music. The director did not put any music in place, waiting for the new music to be composed. I never had to deal with that on this projects. In projects where things go faster because of many issues, temp tracks do give the editing some kind of a form or shape or structure that will make it flow. Sometimes it is a good thing, and sometimes it is a bad thing. It can help you, in a short matter of time, to determine what the director wants. I mean, if you stick “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” on top of any home video, it will be amazing, because it is Stevie Wonder.

Triplets doesn’t have a traditional film score because you’ve composed music for a band, which is in the film. Were the lyrics for the songs something in which you had a hand, or were they already done for you?

The lyrics were a mish-mash. The director, Sylvain [Chomet], and his wife came up with the final lyrics, but there were a lot of little bits and pieces that we would find with interesting rhythmic structure, which could be sung. One song originally was written for another movie — a documentary I didn’t get the gig for. The director on that said, “This is a quirky, nice little song,” but it had different lyrics, but she felt it was much too playful for her subject, so she rejected it. “Belleville Rendez-Vous” was much more elaborate, but I had that little riff on my reel, and when he [Sylvain] heard that riff, he said, “That’s the song.” His eyes lit up! [laughs]

What are the challenges, as a composer, in performing this music live? Do you have to keep it very very tight?

The difficulties are, I would say, keep the troops on their toes, so they don’t fuck up. [chuckles] Basically, you gotta crack the whip sometimes. It’s closer to a classical performance than a rock or jazz performance, where the structure and the content of the concert would evolve in different ways from one night to the other. Classical music, if you have practiced with a certain director, every night, there will be little errors or fluctuations in the tempos, but basically it will be something that is kind of set. We are slaves to the film. The music was composed to have a punch here or a chord here, so at some times we have a click track, so we are able to follow the rhythm of a particular scene.

How is it, given that you’re playing with jazz musicians, to keep them on task, given the genre’s propensity toward improvisation?

There’s one or two tunes where we have open solos, where the guys will improvise, and it will be different from one night to the other. I think the challenge is to play it flawless: in terms of notes and dynamics, et cetera, so that’s what we’re trying to aim at doing when we do a good gig, you know?

Have these live performances led to you discovering any new aspects to the music?

Yes, definitely, but that happens to every creator and composer. There’s always some little, “Oh, well, I would have done it this way, here,” but film composing is about doing a score with the budget you have. Unless you’re doing a big, expensive film, where they can record an orchestra at Abbey Road for a whole week, you have to come up with ingenious ideas for songs. 

The Triplets of Belleville

Accompanied live by Le Terrible Orchestre de Belleville, conducted by composer Benoit Charest

8 p.m. Friday, March 3, at the Polsky Theatre at Johnson County Community College