Don’t Shoot the Composer

Don’t Shoot the Composer

  • Overview
  • Cast
  • Crew

Status

Released

Release Date

Jan 9, 1966

Runtime

0h 51m

Genres

Documentary, TV Movie

Original Title

Don’t Shoot the Composer

Production Companies

BBC

Director

Ken Russell

Description

DON’T SHOOT THE COMPOSER is far from an ordinary profile of Georges Delerue. It also serves as a calling card for Ken Russell, whose work would define the 1970s as Delerue’s did in the 1960s. It begins with a sly work of pastiche, parodying the conventions of French noir. It goes onto encompass slapstick, verité scenes of the Delerue family and a harrowing montage of the Vietnam War. This eclectic approach gives us a sense of the different facets of Delerue’s life- his love of cinema, his home life, his work ethic. It also prefigures Russell’s feature length biopics of Mahler and Liszt, though in a more modest- and lucid- fashion.