Ascenseur Pour L´echafaut

Music by Miles Davis

 

 

 

 

 

 

Perfect example of the 50´s cool spirit, the soundtrack of Ascenseur Pour L'échafaud (1957) is a true icon of an era. The essencial dramatic feeling of the film and its progression of fatal errors fits so perfectly to cool atmosphere of Miles Davis music that is easy to consider the result as one of the greatest moments of union between music and image in cinema. 

In contemplative mood, the soundtrack is perfect as "night music”. Cool suspense, as heard on careful and almost silent track Julien Dans L'Ascenseur. The equivalence between music and image is of rare perfection: Jeanne Moreau wandering the avenues (Florence Sur Champs Elysees), Julien stuck in the elevator (Julien Dans L'Ascenseur), the distancing camera in the opening dialogue on phone (Generique), all are great examples of a soundtrack giving extra meaning to the images. More ambitious experiments (something usual to cool jazz), are heard in Generique, filled of mystery and expectation, while Evasion Julien and Visit Du Vigile create suspense in bass lines. Au Bar Du Petit Bac is almost the recipe for a new musical format with its dialog of saxophone and trumpet. In addition to the 26 minutes of the finished recording, the CD features 46 minutes of outtakes and rehersal sessions. The sequencing of tracks (rehersal + final cut) makes possible to follow the development of the work. Listen to them is like traveling back in time and witness the story before it is written. Ascenseur Pour L'échafaud has multiple values: remarkable as climate music, as a jazz album, as era landmark and still keeps its historical importance in the insertion of jazz idiom as music for films. 

Ascenseur Pour L´echafaud 1957

Miles Davis

74 min.

Fontana/Polygram