Francis Lai - A Man and A Woman

Today’s record is a film score I found a few years back while thrifting. I bought it based on the cover alone and was pleasantly surprised with the content inside. Today we are looking at Francis Lai’s soundtrack for the romantic - and dramatic - motion picture, A Man and A Woman.

Un homme et une femme (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, 1966)

Lai was a French composer most famously known for his film scores throughout the 20th century. A Man and A Woman was not his first time composing for a movie, but it pushed him into stardom, thus leading to a lifelong career in film scoring. The movie was released in 1966 and follows a dramatic love affair between two recently widowed people. Lai blends classical and orchestral music with elements of bossa-nova jazz to highlight the story for the viewers. Although this mixed style was used frequently for films around this time, the use of jazz can be traced back to his upbringing.

Lai grew up with an immense love for jazz music, influencing him to write his own compositions. At age 16, he began playing the accordion which would soon change his life forever. After moving to Paris in his 20's, he became the accordionist for one of France's most famous singers, Edith Piaf. He began writing and composing music for her during this time, furthering his impact on music.

Lai made his film debut in 1964 with Roger Vadim’s La Ronde, then worked on Jean-Luc Godard’s Masculin/Feminin before getting his big break. In 1965, he was introduced to director Claude Lelouch who was seeking a composer for the soundtrack to A Man and A Woman. Besides the obvious push into stardom, this soundtrack created a career-long friendship between Lai and Lelouch who became frequent collaborators.

The soundtrack is quite short, falling just under 30 minutes with 9 tracks. The title track is most famous for its beloved, “dabadabada, dabadabada,” melody heard throughout the soundtrack. Most of the songs are light and upbeat, marking the happiness and joy the two widows find within each other. However, a track like the instrumental for “Today It’s You,” combats that with some darkness and tension, showing the struggles of relationships and romance. Lai had clear intentions in the music to portray the ups and downs of a relationship revolving around death. Many of the songs are reprise-ish or instrumental variations of another. He had a point to make and showed it through only a few tracks - which is quite impressive. To get a better look at this, let's specifically target a few tracks where this is shown.

This song is not only the most popular of this soundtrack but is also one of Francis Lai’s most known compositions. The track starts with a 3 note motive that feels very hesitant. It keeps the listener on their toes, waiting for what’s coming next, similar to the feeling of falling in love. The keys take the melody, and the vocals match the sounds softly in an almost humming manner. The drumset follows a very light jazzy beat throughout, using brushes to achieve that specific sound. When put together, we get a light and romantic song that makes any listener feel like they are also falling in love. There is hardly any tension, just the feeling of closeness and freedom found within another person.

This is the second track on the record and the clearest example of how Lai incorporates bossa-nova into the soundtrack. It begins with that plucked acoustic guitar we often hear in bossa-nova classics. The piano and flute accompany Pierre Barouh’s vocals and speak in a way that seems improvised as a “response” to his “call.” The feeling of freeness and improvisation with the soft drum beat riding throughout is an inviting comparison to jazz music. When this goes on while Barouh talks, it is closely related to how jazz artists introduce themselves and their bands, while a few bars repeat as an intro. The song is still soft and bright though, following alongside the majority of the soundtrack.

This song is the biggest standout in this score. It is the furthest thing from being soft and laid-back like the rest of the soundtrack tends to be. The song starts with a very heavy timpani, pounding in rhythm with what seems to be cellos. While this is happening, the violins are playing staccato back and forth creating a frenzy of tension. The violins move to an elongated melody, and trumpets join to keep the tension alive and well. We get brief calmness during a middle section when the piano accompanies the violins to play a heartfelt melody. The sound still pulls at the heartstrings so heavily, portraying love and loss at the same time. This song has to be my absolute favorite in the soundtrack with the way the tension rises and falls, moving from instrument to instrument.

I think film scores are some of the most underrated forms of music. When a soundtrack fails to or barely includes vocals, people rarely care for it. This discussion lightly goes hand in hand with some of last week’s in regards to how instrumental music is often overlooked. Some of the best film scores emerged from the 1960’s, and this week's album is exactly one of those. It is short, sweet, and gets right to the point, so I recommend checking it out, even if it’s only for a song or two.