Couverture / Jaquette

A towering figure in film and music, Michel Legrand created some of the most creative and innovative film scores of the second half of the 20th century. A prolific and highly versatile composer, Legrand worked with virtually every legendary figure in popular music and film from Maurice Chevalier to Barbra Streisand and from Orson Welles to Jean-Luc Godard. Just prior to his death at the age of 87, Legrand sat down with his longtime collaborator Stéphane Lerouge to recount many of the significant and memorable episodes from his life. Translated by Sam Taylor, this book shares Legrand's stories as told to Lerouge to English readers for the first time.

Note biographique

French film music specialist and historian, Stéphane Lerouge has conceived and produced the soundtrack series Ecoutez le cinéma ! (Listen to Films!) for Universal Music France, since 2000. The series includes rare and classic scores by Georges Delerue, Maurice Jarre, Antoine Duhamel, Lalo Schifrin, Ennio Morricone, John Barry, Quincy Jones, Howard Shore, John Williams and Michel Legrand. Stéphane Lerouge also hosts film music talks and lectures in European festivals and institutions (Festival de Cannes, Mostra di Venezia, Cinémathèque Française, Festival Lumière). In 2016, he worked on the music segments of Bertrand Tavernier's documentary My Journey Through French Cinema.


Sam Taylor is a literary translator and novelist. His five novels have reached an international audience, and his award-winning translations include works by Laurent Binet, Leïla Slimani and Marcel Proust. Born in England, Sam was a writer and editor at The Observer for eight years before spending a decade in France. He now lives in the United States with his family.

Table des matières

• Preface, by Damien Chazelle


• 'It's not true, it's not false. It's just life.' Foreword, by Stéphane Lerouge


• 1. My Friend the Piano


• 2. The War at Eight


• 3. 14, rue de Madrid


• 4. Mademoiselle


• 5. Spring of '44


• 6. Childhood Summers


• 7. Raymond


• 8. Summer Tours


• 9. 6, rue Jenner


• 10. Paris-New York


• 11. Dizzy, Miles and Co.


• 12. New Waves, Old Waves


• 13. The First Half of Demy


• 14. The Second Half of Demy


• 15. Passport to Hollywood


• 16. How Dark is Your Soul?


• 17. I Sing


• 18. The Union of Dwarf Aviators


• 19. Three Images of Steve McQueen


• 20. My Substitute Fathers


• 21. Writing Situations


• 22. Macha, Act I


• 23. The Go-Between


• 24. Through Walls and Across Borders


• 25. Sarah, Stan, Stéphane and Co.


• 26. Macha, Act II


• 27. The Ones That Got Away


• 28. A Scent Like the End of the World


• 29. Elle s'appelle Barbra


• 30. Fraternizing with the Enemy


• 31. From Chaplin to Beauvois


• 32. Citizen Orson


• 33. Macha, Act III


• 34. Waiting for Tomorrow


• The Sunlight of His Music, An afterword by Macha Méril


• Acknowledgments


• Index

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