The Painted Veil

Soft ..

This music is good for meditation!!
Whenever I listened to this music, I feel like at the movie.
I really enjoyed the edward norton's acting.
November 19, 2008

Beautiful music

This CD has very beautiful music. I remember thinking while watching the movie, that I must remember to buy the soundtrack. My sons (who are in their twenties) asked what it was when they were over to dinner one evening. It is just splendid. July 6, 2008

Nice Music

This is a nice, soft score. It makes for good background music. I can't say how it helps or hurts the movie, since I've not seen it. The music itself, though, is quite beautiful. March 21, 2008

Beautiful music from a beautiful film!

Alexandre Desplat's music is gorgeous, dazzling, sensuous, and exciting, and Lang Lang's pianistic abilities are on full display. The music perfectly matches the film. See the movie, then enjoy the music over and over again. March 3, 2008

another immediately enjoyable desplat score

i was lucky enough to hear desplat's score for 'the luzhin defence' about five years ago when a friend lent me her copy. i was immediately taken by the beauty of his work and i count myself among his ever-growing list of followers.

i'm hardly qualified to discuss the score's technical merits, but i am qualified to tell you how the score hit me emotionally. what i like about desplat's scores, and particularly 'the painted veil,' is its understatedness. desplat understands, perhaps better than anyone else, that the listener doesn't need to hit over the head with a score for it to be effective and emotional [take note, hollywood composers]. it's probably relatively easy, i imagine, to write bombastic or syrupy scores that queue the listener what to feel and when to feel it. desplat's scores, on the other hand, embellish the films instead of trying to dictate them. and in a character-driven movie like 'the painted veil,' the score *should* be understated and restrained as to not take away from, but rather subtley enhance, what are arguably two of the finest acting performances i've ever seen [watts and norton, respectively]. so i tip my hat to him. well done! i don't know who approached desplat about scoring the film, but it was coup and i hope that person won a prize or two.

'the painted veil' was one of my favorite films from last year. if you've not seen it, see it. if you've not heard the score, buy it. alexandre desplat, for my money, is the simply the best composer out there right now, film scores or otherwise.

as a side note, the title track's melody is almost note for note identical to the synth line on new order's 'touched by the hand of god.' funny, that. January 8, 2008

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