11. Krzysztof Komeda‎Le Départ

This is the soundtrack to the 60s film Le Départ. In some instances I think the best soundtracks may be better than the film they are from. I must be honest, I have only ever seen Le Départ in French but with Japanese sub-titles. I do speak a bit of French but the pace of the dialogue was too much in places. It’s simple story; Jean-Pierre Léaud is in it and is one of my favourite actors of the 1960s. He has this car and enters a race and it is a very typical film of its time. It has a Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski who made some great films.   So, I like the film but the music is just incredible. Krzysztof Komeda’s most famous scores were for Rosemary’s Baby and Cul-De-Sac. He was a Polish composer who died really young, which is really sad as I am sure he had so much great work ahead of him. I would consider him the equal of Ennio Morricone – he is just so fabulous. His jazz is really gorgeous and understated. It’s like I was saying about Miles Davis – that sense of understatement, of people leaving things out just so your imagination can move into the places in between.