Philippe Arthuys

Philippe Arthuys is a French musician and director born in Paris on November 22 1928 and died on January 6 2010 in Toulouse He is the son of the politician and resistance fighter Jacques Arthuys and father of the actress Sophie Arthuys the director Bertrand Arthuys and the composer Christophe Arthuys It was within the GRMC with Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry that Philippe Arthuys became familiar with musique concrete The basic principle of musique concrete consists of working the sound material directly on the recording medium from diligent listening to the recorded elements in accordance with the idea which Schaeffer formulated in 1948 that there exists another path than notation to access music At this period musique concrete seems essentially intended to renew dramatic music Arthuys temperament adapts well to this tendency he especially seeks the relationship of music with poetry or image in works illustrating texts by Kipling The Crab Who Played With The Sea 1955 or Apollinaire Le Voyeur for a film by Henri Gruel 1956 The liberation of spirit and technique thus found influenced the film scores he composed for Jacques Rivette Paris nous belongs 1961 and JeanLuc Godard Les Carabiniers 1963 The collaboration between Maurice Béjart and Pierre Henry intensified and Philippe Arthuys specialized in composing film scores which exasperated Pierre Schaeffer Noting that they devoted themselves more to composition than to research he ended up forcing them to resign from the Group It will be the end of the avantgarde of musique concrete and the birth of GRM that we still know today Philippe Arthuys defends the idea that musical treatment must be understood beyond its function of reinforcing the story According to him the musical must remain outside the film The new procedures claim a higher degree of abstraction a greater complexity In reaction in struggle with the images its action aiming to exhibit even to determine the filmic structure the musical enters into its relationship of heterogeneity with the visual discourse He then wrote numerous film scores among others Les Camisards 1970 and Rude Journee Pour La Reine 1973 by René Allio Le Vent Des Aurès 1966 Chronique Des Années De Draise Palme dor at the Festival from Cannes in 1975 Wind of Sand 1982 and the Last Image 1986 by Mohammed LakhdarHamina Arthuys will also compose music for theater circus and dance In particular he wrote the music for Voilà LHomme 1956 a ballet by Maurice Béjart based on an argument by Jacques Prévert Alongside his career as a composer he is moving towards directing He worked as an assistant director on Vanina Vanini by Roberto Rossellini then directed numerous films notably directing Françoise Prévost in La Cage De Verre codirector JeanLouis LeviAlvarès 1965 about the Jewish holocaust Jean Vilar in Des Christs Par Milliers 1969 on the violence of the world Jean Négroni in Noces De Sève 1979 antinuclear parable