Absolute Trust

"Colours in Music: Zbigniew Preisner", presented by Deutsch-Französische Filmakademie / Masterclass, Dolby and Volkswagen.

"I like being paid a million dollars but I wouldn’t leave aside my art for that," says film composer Zbigniew Preisner about the prospect of working for Hollywood. Preisner, widely known for his work with Krzysztof Kieslowski, was at the Talent Campus for a talk with Peter Cowie.

The composer describes his own working style and understanding of film music as depending on "a conception". Preisner believes that film music should follow the rhythm of the picture. He thinks that what should be lying at the heart of any relationship between director and composer is absolute trust – as it was between Kieslowski and himself. The first time they met Kieslowski asked Preisner "to write good music for him" and after their first collaboration he did not need to ask again. "We never talked about the position of the music in the film," says Preisner, "we always talked about the function."

He also emphasizes his strong disapproval of the way film music is treated today, especially in Hollywood: For Preisner, film music is dead when it is used just for its own sake; it becomes totally disconnected with the film itself. "Money isn’t everything. What about art, dreams, language? The things we want to tell the audience?"

Övgü Gökçe