Georges Auric

Georges Auric

Birth : 1899-02-15, Lodève, Hérault, France

Death : 1983-07-23

History

Georges Auric (15 February 1899 – 23 July 1983) was a French composer, born in Lodève, Hérault, France. He was considered one of Les Six, a group of artists informally associated with Jean Cocteau and Erik Satie. Before he turned 20 he had orchestrated and written incidental music for several ballets and stage productions. He also had a long and distinguished career as a film composer. Georges Auric began his musical career at a young age, performing a piano recital at the Société musicale indépendante at the age of 14. Several songs that he had written were then performed in the following year by Société Nationale de Musique. Along with his early successes professionally, Auric studied music at the Paris Conservatoire, as well as composition with Vincent d'Indy at the Schola Cantorum de Paris and Albert Roussel. Having gained recognition as a child prodigy both in composition and piano performance, he became a protégé of Erik Satie during the following decade. During the 1910s and 20s, he was a significant contributor of avant-garde music in Paris and was significantly influenced by Cocteau and the other composers of Les Six. Auric's early compositions were marked by a reaction against the musical establishment and the use of referential material. Because of this and his association with Cocteau and Satie, Auric was grouped into Les Six by music critic Henri Collet, and was friends with the artist Jean Hugo. His participation led to writing settings of poetry and other texts as songs and musicals. Along with the other five composers, he contributed a piece to L'Album des Six. In 1921, Cocteau asked him to write the music for his ballet, Les Mariés de la tour Eiffel. He found himself short of time, so he asked his fellow composers of Les Six to contribute some music. All except Louis Durey agreed. During this time, he wrote his one-act opera Sous le masque (1927) (an earlier opera, La Reine de coeur (1919), is lost). It was also in 1927 that he contributed the Rondeau for the children's ballet L'Éventail de Jeanne, a collaboration between ten French composers. In 1952 he participated in yet another collaboration, the set of orchestral variations La Guirlande de Campra. Les Six, though an informal and short-lived group, became known for its reaction against the musical establishment of the time and the promotion of absurdism and satire; the group rebelled similarly against Wagner as it did against Debussy. The music of these composers, including Auric, represented the specific cultural scene of Paris at the time and rejected the international styles brought by Russian and German music, as well as the impressionism and symbolism of Debussy. Auric's later development as a populist composer was prefigured by many of the techniques and ideals of Les Six, especially the use of popular music and situations. Music of the circus or the dance hall played a significant role in the music of Les Six, especially in their actual collaborations. However, Les Six soon drew apart, with Auric and others taking different approaches to their art. ... Source: Article "Georges Auric" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Profile

Georges Auric
Georges Auric

Movies

The Christmas Tree
Original Music Composer
A French-American millionaire, his girlfriend and his war buddy try to grant his dying son's every wish.
Therese and Isabelle
Original Music Composer
Two young girls experience awakening sexuality in the heated atmosphere of a Swiss girls' boarding school.
Don't Look Now... We're Being Shot At!
Original Music Composer
During World War II, two French civilians and a downed British Bomber Crew set out from Paris to cross the demarcation line between Nazi-occupied Northern France and the South. From there they will be able to escape to England. First, they must avoid German troops - and the consequences of their own blunders.
Poppies Are Also Flowers
Original Music Composer
In this anti-drug film narrated by Grace Kelly, a group of narcotics agents working for the United Nations inject a radioactive compound into a seized shipment of opium at the Afghanistan–Iran border, in the hopes that it will lead them to the main heroin distributor in Europe.
L'âge heureux
Music
The young heroines are the "Petits Rats de l'Opéra" =pupil of the opera of Paris ballet class .One of them,Delphine,wants to be a ballerina.It's her wildest dream.But alas,in the wake of a night on the roof of the opera -a forbidden place- ,she is fired -and however she was not alone on that roof,her friends were with her!Delphine is desperate and she hides the terrible truth from her mother .What will become of her?
Thomas the Impostor
Original Music Composer
In the First World War, when Paris is expected to fall to the Germans, the attractive widow, Princesse de Bormes, organises a convoy of cars to evacuate the wounded from the front, and bring them back to her villa in Paris to recuperate. The authorities will not give them passes until an innocent 16-year-old boy, Guillaume Thomas de Fontenoy, joins them and is mistaken as the nephew of the popular General de Fontenoy. The Princess is enraptured by Thomas and her daughter, Henriette, falls in love with him. However Thomas feels impelled to see more of the action of the war.
The Mind Benders
Original Music Composer
A British scientist is discovered to have been passing information to the Communists, then kills himself. Another scientist decides that they might have brainwashed him by a sensory deprivation technique, but he doesn’t know if someone really can be convinced to act against their strongest feelings. So he agrees to be the subject in an experiment in which others will try to make him stop loving his wife.
The Burning Court
Original Music Composer
A group of people visit a weird old man who is a student of the black arts. The man lives in an ancient, cursed castle. Soon people in the group start being killed off.
The Innocents
Music
A young governess for two children becomes convinced that the house and grounds are haunted.
Les croulants se portent bien
Music
In his desirable mansion, a widower wants to marry again with a twenty-year old brunette. His children disagree and they tell him so .
Bridge to the Sun
Original Music Composer
Tells the true story of Gwen Terasaki, who falls in love with, then marries a Japanese diplomat. When war breaks out they find animosity and trouble from both sides.
Goodbye Again
Original Music Composer
Middle-aged businesswoman Paula Tessier resists the advances of Philip Van der Besh, the 24-year-old son of one of her clients. But when her longtime paramour, Roger Demarest, begins yet another casual affair with a younger woman, Paula decides that two can play that game. However, it seems that society looks differently at May-December romances when the woman is the older partner.
Le rendez-vous de minuit
Original Music Composer
A woman becomes distressed by the resemblance between the plot of a film and the reality of her own life. But what is reality: life or film?
SOS Pacific
Music
A flying boat has to ditch off an island in the Pacific. Along with the injured owner-pilot the passengers include a policeman and his smuggler prisoner, a slimey limey witness against him, a physicist, and a globe-hopping good-time girl. On the island they find a fleet of derelict ships, farm animals tethered, and cameras in a lead-lined bunker and a stark realisation soon dawns.
The Journey
Music
A Communist officer falls hard for a married woman trying to escape from Hungary.
Christine
Original Music Composer
Vienna, 1906. A passionate love story develops between Franz Lobheiner and the young Christine. Lobheiner is, however, currently seeing the married Baroness von Eggersdorf. Upon learning of his wife's infidelity, the Baron von Eggersdorf provokes a duel with Lobheiner. But the former is no longer a real threat to the Baron. Lobheiner is now passionately in love with Christine. How will this love quartet end?
Next to No Time
Music
Unassuming planning engineer David Webb finds himself on the Queen Elizabeth to New York with instructions to negotiate a high-powered loan. His lack of confidence means he is completely out of his depth, at least until he finds his personality changes every day during the hour the ship's clocks stop to make allowance for their westward passage.
The Night Heaven Fell
Original Music Composer
Ursula finishes her studies and returns to her aunt Florentine and uncle, Ribera who is the count. She falls in love with Lambert, the killer of her uncle.
Bonjour Tristesse
Original Music Composer
Cecile is a decadent young girl who lives with her rich playboy father, Raymond. When Anne, Raymond's old love interest, comes to Raymond's villa, Cecile is afraid for her way of life.
He Who Must Die
Music
Greece, in the 1920s, is occupied by the Turks. The country is in turmoil with entire villages uprooted. The site of the movie is a Greek village that conducts a passion play each year. The leading citizens of the town, under the auspices of the Patriarch, choose those that will play the parts in the Passion. A stuttering shepherd is chosen to play Jesus. The town butcher (who wanted to be Jesus) is chosen as Judas. The town prostitute is chosen as Mary Magdalene. The rest of the disciples are also chosen. As the movie unfolds, the Passion Play becomes a reality. A group of villagers, uprooted by the war and impoverished, arrive at the village led by their priest. The wealthier citizens of the town want nothing with these people and manipulate a massacre. In the context of the 1920s, each of the characters plays out their biblical role in actuality.
The Witches of Salem
Original Music Composer
Salem 1692. The young Abigail, seduced and abandoned by John Proctor, accuses John's wife of being a witch in revenge. A series of tragic trials soon befall Salem as fear and suspicion blur the lines of reality.
Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison
Original Music Composer
A Roman Catholic nun and a hard-bitten US Marine are stranded together on a Japanese-occupied island in the South Pacific during World War II. Under constant threat of discovery by a ruthless enemy, they hide in a cave and forage for food together. Their forced companionship and the struggle for survival forge a powerful emotional bond between them.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Original Music Composer
Paris, 1482. Today is the festival of the fools, taking place like each year in the square outside Cathedral Notre Dame. Among jugglers and other entertainers, Esmeralda, a sensuous gypsy, performs a bewitching dance in front of delighted spectators. From up in a tower of the cathedral, Frollo, an alchemist, gazes at her lustfully. Later in the night, Frollo orders Quasimodo, the deformed bell ringer and his faithful servant, to kidnap Esmeralda. But when the ugly freak comes close to her is touched by the young woman's beauty...
Bold Adventure
Music
Based on the book by Belgian XIX century author Charles de Coaster.
Gervaise
Original Music Composer
An adaptation of Émile Zola’s 1877 masterpiece L’assommoir, the film is an uncompromising depiction of a lowly laundress’s struggles to deal with an alcoholic husband while running her own business.
The Mystery of Picasso
Music
Using a specially designed transparent 'canvas' to provide an unobstructed view, Picasso creates as the camera rolls. He begins with simple works that take shape after only a single brush stroke. He then progresses to more complex paintings, in which he repeatedly adds and removes elements, transforming the entire scene at will, until at last the work is complete.
Lola Montès
Original Music Composer
Lola Montes, previously a great adventuress, is reduced to being the attraction of a circus after having been the lover of various important men.
The Bespoke Overcoat
Music
Fender is a lowly clerk in the warehouse of clothing manufacturers Ranting and Co. His one ambition is to have an overcoat of his own. Refused one by the cold hearted Ranting he asks a tailor friend, Morry, to make him one instead, but dies of cold before he can take delivery of it. Unwilling to give up his only desire even in death, he returns as a ghost to persuade Morry to steal him the overcoat he so coveted in life.
Rififi
Original Music Composer
Out of prison after a five-year stretch, jewel thief Tony turns down a quick job his friend Jo offers him, until he discovers that his old girlfriend Mado has become the lover of local gangster Pierre Grutter during Tony's absence. Expanding a minor smash-and-grab into a full-scale jewel heist, Tony and his crew appear to get away clean, but their actions after the job is completed threaten the lives of everyone involved.
Abdulla the Great
Music
Abdullah, absolute monarch of a wealthy Middle Eastern country, has everything a man could want. Everything, that is, until he falls for a beautiful model. She rejects his advances, however, along with his offers of riches and luxury, chosing instead an officer in the king's army as her lover. As all of this is going on, the ruler is oblivious to the growing discontent among his subjects, and the threat of revolt that is increasing with each passing day.
The Divided Heart
Original Music Composer
During World War II, a German woman, Inga, goes missing and is presumed dead. Her infant son is placed in an orphanage where, years later, he's adopted by a childless couple. The adoptive parents' happiness is shattered when Inga reappears and insists on custody of her son.
Father Brown
Original Music Composer
Works of art are disappearing, stolen by a master thief, a master of disguise. Father Brown has two goals: to catch the thief and to save his soul.
Flesh and Desire
Music
Giuseppe is accused of killing his employer Matthias who is actually in a hospital with amnesia.
The Good Die Young
Original Music Composer
An amoral, psychotic playboy incites three men who are down on their luck to commit a mail van robbery, which goes badly wrong.
The Slave
Music
A young composer is forced to work as a bar pianist. One night he gets hit by a car and is brought to a hospital. Severely injured he is injected with morphine. He becomes addicted.
Roman Holiday
Original Music Composer
Overwhelmed by her suffocating schedule, touring European princess Ann takes off for a night while in Rome. When a sedative she took from her doctor kicks in, however, she falls asleep on a park bench and is found by an American reporter, Joe Bradley, who takes her back to his apartment for safety. At work the next morning, Joe finds out Ann's regal identity and bets his editor he can get exclusive interview with her, but romance soon gets in the way.
The Wages of Fear
Music Director
In a run-down South American town, four men are paid to drive trucks loaded with nitroglycerin into the jungle through to the oil field. Friendships are tested and rivalries develop as they embark upon the perilous journey.
The Wages of Fear
Original Music Composer
In a run-down South American town, four men are paid to drive trucks loaded with nitroglycerin into the jungle through to the oil field. Friendships are tested and rivalries develop as they embark upon the perilous journey.
The Titfield Thunderbolt
Original Music Composer
When British Railways announce the closure of the Titfield to Mallingford branch line a group of local residents make a bid to run it themselves, backed by a monied member of the community who is attracted by the complete lack of licensing hours on trains. Unfortunately the local bus company starts to use methods that can hardly be seen as fair competition.
Moulin Rouge
Original Music Composer
Born into aristocracy, Toulouse-Lautrec moves to Paris to pursue his art as he hangs out at the Moulin Rouge where he feels like he fits in being a misfit among other misfits. Yet, because of the deformity of his legs from an accident, he believes he is never destined to experience the true love of a woman. But that lack of love in his life may change as he meets two women
The Respectful Prostitute
Original Music Composer
Fred, the nephew of a senator,has murdered a Black man on a train. The two only witnesses are Lizzie McKay, a prostitute from New York, and Sidney, a colored man. Fred decides to seduce Lizzie in order to make her give false evidence according to which Sidney has attempted to rape her. The uncle also puts pressure on the young woman. After much hesitation, Lizzie finally accepts but Sidney, who has nearly got lynched, takes refuge at her home...
Leathernose
Original Music Composer
After being hurt in the face, Count de Roger Tinchebraye is forced to hide his disfigured face behind a leather mask. Dispirited for a while, he decides to become a Casanova-like seductor. When he meets true love, cynical Roger does not believe in it and lets pure Judith marry an old marquis. But once Judith's husband dies, he sees Judith again, shows her his disfigured face, which does not discourage the young woman from loving him. Nevertheless, he distances himself from her forever
The Lavender Hill Mob
Music
A meek bank clerk who oversees the shipments of bullion joins with an eccentric neighbor to steal gold bars and smuggle them out of the country.
The Galloping Major
Original Music Composer
A syndicate is set up to buy a racehorse, but they end up buying the wrong one by mistake. Unfortunately the horse is useless on the flat, so they try entering him as a jumper.
Dear Caroline
Music
France, July 1782. During her birthday, the beautiful young Marchioness Caroline meets the attractive soldier Gaston. It's love at first sight but Gaston does not wish to make a commitment because a military career waits for him. Caroline marries then a politician but the French Revolution bursts and Caroline has to run away to escape the guillotine. By running away she meets Gaston again who decides to help her.
Orpheus
Original Music Composer
At the Café des Poètes in Paris, a fight breaks out between the poet Orphée and a group of resentful upstarts. A rival poet, Cègeste, is killed, and a mysterious princess insists on taking Orpheus and the body away in her Rolls-Royce. Orphée soon finds himself in the underworld, where the Princess announces that she is, in fact, Death. Orpheus escapes in the car back to the land of the living, only to become obsessed with the car radio.
The Century Is Fifty
Original Music Composer
As the title of this French documentary indicates, Ce Siecle a 50 Ans examines the 20th Century at its halfway point. Utilizing the archives of several European film reserves, director Denise Tua offers a fascinating mosaic of the people and events that shaped the years 1900 to 1950. Complementing the vintage film clips are three dramatized sketches, delineating the romantic customs of three different points in time. These sketches are inadequately performed, and can easily be ignored. Ce Siecle a 50 Ans both preserved and provided celluloid material for scores of future documentaries.
Maya
Original Music Composer
Based on a venerable Legend of the Sea, the story concerns a pliable prostitute named Bella (Romance) who is all things to all men. No matter what sort of woman her client wants, she will become that woman -- at least for the night. When a middle-aged man named Jean insists that Bella is his long-lost sweetheart, she plays along, hoping to escape her sordid lifestyle. The emotional tragedy that follows is meant to explain how Bella became "Maya," the living embodiment of Lost Souls.
The Spider and the Fly
Original Music Composer
"The Spider and the Fly is set in Paris during the cloud-cuckoo days before WW I. The storyline intertwines the destinies of three people. Guy Rolfe plays Phillipe de Ledocq, a resourceful safecracker who always manages to elude arrest. Eric Portman is cast as police-chief Maubert, who will not rest until Ledocq is behind bars. And Nadia Gray is Madeleine, the woman beloved by both Ledocq and Maubert. Just as Maubert has managed to capture his man, Ledocq is released at the behest of the government, who wants him to steal secrets from the German embassy revealing the whereabouts of the Kaiser's secret agents. And just how does Madeleine figure into all of this? Spider and the Fly is a diverting precursor to the 1960s TV series It Takes a Thief." ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Passport to Pimlico
Original Music Composer
When an unexploded WWII bomb is accidentally detonated in Pimlico, it reveals a treasure trove and documents proving that the region is in fact part of Burgundy, France and thus foreign territory. The British government attempts to regain control by setting up border controls and cutting off services to the area.
The Queen of Spades
Original Music Composer
An elderly countess strikes a bargain with the devil and exchanges her soul for the ability to always win at cards. An army officer, who is also a fanatic about cards, murders her for the secret, then finds himself haunted by the woman's spirit.
Silent Dust
Music
A wealthy blind man is determined to build a cricket pavilion as a memorial to his dead son, who was killed in battle in World War II. Not long before the dedication ceremony is to be held, the son shows up; it turns out that he wasn't killed in battle but deserted, and has become a blackmailer and a killer. He wants to get some money to "start a new life", but his blind father senses that something is wrong and sets out to find out what's going on.
The Storm Within
Original Music Composer
Young Michel is in love with the attractive Madeleine, so he decides to tell his parents of his intention to marry her. He thinks his announcement is innocent enough; his engagement, however, threatens to reveal dark secrets lurking within his family's home. Yvonne, Michel's overbearing mother, concocts an elaborate scheme to drive Madeleine away, thus keeping uncomfortable household truths from being exposed.
Another Shore
Music
A young Irishman comes up with an unusual plan to get the money to emigrate to Tahiti. One of the Ealing comedies.
The Eagle with Two Heads
Music
Political intrigue and psychological drama run parallel. The queen is in seclusion, veiling her face for the ten years since her husband's assassination, longing to join him in death. Stanislas, a poet whose pen name is Azrael, is a suicidal anarchist, his imagination haunted into hate by longing for this queen who's drawn apart. He enters her private quarters intent on killing her then himself, but they fall in love, in part because he looks like the king. Stanislas wants her to regain political power by appearing to the public, and she tries to convince him to find hope and escape. All the while, the queen's enemies plot to keep the lovers together but to thwart their plans.
Corridor of Mirrors
Original Music Composer
A man falls in love with a beautiful young woman and begins to suspect that he may have also loved her in a previous life.
The Queen's Lover
Music
Exiled from the court of Spain, Don Salluste, the chief of police, wants to take revenge on the Queen. One day he meets Ruy Blas, a young student who happens to be a lookalike of Don Cesar, his nephew. Salluste disguises Ruy Blas and presents him as Don Cesar. It doesn't take long before Ruy Blas, intelligent, virtuous and generous as he is becomes popular and the Queen, who has fallen in love with him, appoints him Prime Minister. All seems for the best in the best of worlds but Salluste has not forgotten his revenge, far from that ...
It Always Rains on Sunday
Original Music Composer
During a rainy Sunday afternoon, an escaped prisoner tries to hide out at the home of his ex-fiance.
The Chips Are Down
Music
"Les jeux sont faits," is a fantasy film based on a screenplay by French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. A society heiress and a resistance fighter are tragically killed at the same moment and meet in the afterlife. They are offered a second chance at life if they can prove their love is real or be doomed to roam the earth as ghosts.
Beauty and the Beast
Original Music Composer
The story of a gentle-hearted beast in love with a simple and beautiful girl. She is drawn to the repellent but strangely fascinating Beast, who tests her fidelity by giving her a key, telling her that if she doesn't return it to him by a specific time, he will die of grief. She is unable to return the key on time, but it is revealed that the Beast is the genuinely handsome one. A simple tale of tragic love that turns into a surreal vision of death, desire, and beauty.
Caesar and Cleopatra
Original Music Composer
The aging Caesar finds himself intrigued by the young Egyptian queen. Adapted by George Bernard Shaw from his own play.
Dead of Night
Original Music Composer
Architect Walter Craig, seeking the possibility of some work at a country farmhouse, soon finds himself once again stuck in his recurring nightmare. Dreading the end of the dream that he knows is coming, he must first listen to all the assembled guests' own bizarre tales.
The Eternal Return
Music
A retelling of Tristan and Isolde set in 1940s France.
L'assassin a peur la nuit
Original Music Composer
Having pulled off a robbery with his friend Maurice, Olivier leaves his mistress Lola and hides out in a small village in the country. He finds work, thanks to a young man named Gilbert, who introduces him to his sister, Monique. Once the robbery has been all but forgotten, Olivier intends to head back to Paris, but before he goes, he steals money from his employer. In Paris, Olivier wants to say a proper goodbye to Lola, but she is being blackmailed by Jérôme, an antique dealer who has recognized a necklace stolen by Olivier. Before returning to Monique, Olivier calls on Jérôme to recover the necklace.
Gambling Hell
Original Music Composer
In Macao, where places of pleasure and arms trafficking are concentrated, a tragedy opposes an adventurer and his daughter whom he has brought up in ignorance of his profession. She is torn from her environment and saved from tragedy by a young journalist who loves her.
La Mode rêvée
Original Music Composer
Orage
Music
The mistress of an engineer meets the man's pregnant wife and decides to give up the liaison.
The Lafarge Case
Original Music Composer
Based on true facts, a news item which was widely talked about in the nineteenth century, this is the story of a wife who might have poisoned her husband .
The Messenger
Music
Nick, a Parisian businessman, divorces his rich American wife, marries his new secretary Marie, but is prevented from success in France so travels without his wife to an African outpost. He tells his young assistant Gilbert about his wife. When Gilbert takes sick and returns to Paris, he begins to fall in love with Marie.
Mysteries of Paris
Music Director
Towards the end of the 19th century, the Duke of Gerolstein traveled to Paris. Sixteen years earlier he had a daughter who was taken from him by her mother who was chased out of the palace. After many dramatic adventures, the Duke finds his daughter in the person of Fleur de Marie, martyred throughout her childhood by the Owl and the schoolmaster.
Ladies Lake
Original Music Composer
A handsome but penniless young man takes a summer job as a swimming instructor in a picturesque Alpine lake resort. He falls in love with a young heiress who is staying there with her father, but he also grabs the attention of tomboyish Puck who lives on the other side of the lake and who saves him from drowning one foggy night. Further havoc is caused by the arrival of Eric's old sweetheart whose husband is wanted by the police.
The Blood of a Poet
Original Music Composer
Told in four episodes, an unnamed artist is transported through a mirror into another dimension, where he travels through various bizarre scenarios. This film is the first part of Cocteau's Orphic Trilogy, which consists of The Blood of a Poet (1930), Orpheus (1950) and Testament of Orpheus (1960).
À Nous la Liberté
Original Music Composer
In this classic French satire, Louis, a convict, escapes from prison and takes on legitimate work, making his way up in the business world. Eventually becoming the head of a successful factory, Louis opts to modernize his company with mechanical innovations. But when his friend Émile finally leaves jail years later and reunites with Louis, the past catches up with them. The two, worried about being apprehended by police, long to flee the confines of industry.
The Mysteries of the Chateau of Dice
Self (uncredited)
Mannequin hands hold a pair of dice. A castle is perched on a hilltop. Below it, a posh, modern villa. Meanwhile, far from Paris, two men with masked faces play dice in a bar. They decide to drive to Paris. Country roads, hills, fences. The posh "chateau" appears again: meticulous garden, fancy interior, odd sculptures. And at home? "No one, NO ONE." For the next two days, masked figures play dice, frolic by the pool, perform exercises with a ball. Two new figures arrive. Masked. They search and find the dice. They dance. Mannequin hands hold a pair of dice.
Entr'acte
A man following the hearse (uncredited)
Stop-motion photography blends with extreme slow-motion in Clair's first and most 'dada' film, composed of a series of zany, interconnected scenes. We witness a rooftop chess match between Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray, a hearse pulled by a camel (and chased by its pallbearers) and a dizzying roller coaster finale. A film of contradictions and agreements.