In 1957, Miles Davis walked into a screening room. He was there to watch Louis Malle's debut film, "Ascenseur pour L'échafaud" (Elevator to the Gallows), and after a few screenings, he went on to create the score.
The movie has oddly been disassociated from the French New Wave in cinema. That's a whole other post though. One of the most attractive elements of this film is the score by Davis. The music is flat-out gorgeous. Melancholy, chilling, sad and desperate, the notes crawl under your skin and literally make the hair on your neck tingle at some scenes, like the opening and closing moments, and when Jeanne Moreau wanders aimlessly through the Paris night searching for her missing lover/co-conspirator.
Yet it's not just the music itself. How it was produced is every bit as intriguing. According to the featurette on the DVD, the improvisational approach Miles took to scoring this film was similar to his landmark jazz album, Kind of Blue. This film project also paved the way for his explorations in modal music on albums like Milestones. The score is an often overlooked bridge from one genre of jazz to the other -- the latter being one he pioneered as much, if not more, than other jazz musicians of his day.
Jazz has fascinated me for several years. I don't claim to understand the structures or know all the styles. But after listening to Kind of Blue for the first time in 1994, the idea that a group of musicians walked into a studio and essentially created that flawless collection of music on the spot, vibing off one another and freestyling within a minimalist structure ... I was, and still am, floored by the level of talent and creativity displayed by that album.
The scoring sessions for Gallows were conducted in a similar vein. Miles Davis hadn't even met a few of the musicians he collaborated with on this elegant music. He didn't need to. He led. They followed. In all, there is about 20 minutes or so of music used in the film. Although it's used sparsely, it punctuates the most dramatic scenes and doesn't overpower the film -- even though now, with hindsight and the stature of Miles Davis, Louis Malle and French cinema of that era, it's become a more prominent feature.
For me, the music practically saved the movie from being an almost laughable melodrama. Between the main characters' overwrought, breathy pleas of love and the cartoonish rebellion in the form of the young dimwits who stumble into the whole mess, I often had a hard time suspending my disbelief. But the Davis score? Ah, now that goes down nice and smooth.
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