Alexandre Desplat just won his second Golden Globes trophy for his work on Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water.
On Sunday, Jan. 7, the renowned Hollywood composer went on-stage to accept Best Original Score for a Motion Picture. He has beaten fellow nominees Jonny Greenwood (Phantom Thread), Carter Burwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), John Williams (The Post), and Hans Zimmer (Dunkirk)
Desplat received his first Golden Globes for Best Original Score for his work in The Painted Veil in 2007. He also currently has seven more nominations from the award-giving body for his previous movies such as The Danish Girl, The King's Speech, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Harmonious Collaboration
On his acceptance speech, the composer thanked del Toro for continuing to tell odd, but deeply human stories on-screen.
"Your movie has moved me so much, inspired me so much," he stated. "At the end of the day, this movie is about love. Nothing else. Love. Sharing. Humanism and respect. The music just had to convey that."
This is not the first time that Desplat worked with del Toro on a movie or a television series. According to his IMDB page, he also scored the first episode of Trollhunters, an animated series created by del Toro on Netflix, in 2016.
Desplat's award-winning creation played a major part in The Shape of Water. In the new movie, Sally Hawkins is Elisa, a mute who enlivens her quiet existence with music.
Importance Of Sound
Needless to say, the composer's Golden Globe was a well-deserved win for the movie and for the man. In an interview with Award Daily, he revealed how he crafted the opening theme of The Shape of Water which immediately plunges the audience into the water wonderland of Elisa and the creature.
"That was the idea, trying to figure out what water and love sound like without doing what Debussy would have done before. Luckily, there was a great visual as the film opens, that floating," he told the publication. "So, I asked myself what can possibly capture that? I had to find accommodations between the melody, the change of chords and the instrumentation right away because the sound is the first thing you hear."
Del Toro gave him the freedom to find the melody that perfectly captures the odd but beautiful love story. He shared that the director did not ask for anything precise, just something that sounds European.
"He wanted the score to be like the composers of the '60s who reinvented film composing and to capture the identity," he explained.
The Shape of Water also stars Michael Shannon, Octavia Spencer, Richard Jenkins, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Doug Jones. The movie was released on Dec. 1 in the United States.
