DVD REVIEW - Music By Gabriel Yared


Music By Gabriel Yared
Digital Classics DVD
52 mins approx.


An imminent release from Digital Classics DVD is Music By Gabriel Yared, a fine portrait of the composer of The English Patient and Cold Mountain.
Filmmaker Rani Khanna follows Yared as he guides us from his early days in The Lebanon and Brittany, to his time in Brazil, where he first honed his musical skills, to the present day, where he is seen working on the score for Cold Mountain and preparing for a concert in Rio.
The film is sprinkled with extracts and scenes from his ballets and film scores, and the composer is seen playing themes on the piano, rehearsing the Brazilian musicians in music from Betty Blue, The Talented Mr. Ripley and Camille Claudel, and performing music from one of his ballets.
Director and frequent collaborator Anthony Minghella is interviewed, and there are scenes of the two working on Cold Mountain, including footage from a recording session for the score.
Covering so much ground in such a short running time makes the portrait a little shallow perhaps, but it is a good introduction to the composer for anyone not overly familiar with his work, and with so little currently on DVD for the film music fan, it is a more than welcome release. In any case, those of you looking for a bit more depth, might find rewarding the scenes in Rio where Yared deconstructs his themes from Betty Blue and The Talented Mr. Ripley in front of an audience.
So go on, grab your copy of this DVD and, who knows, further film composer portraits may be considered.