Biography and filmography

Paul Misraki

Paul Misraki (28 January 1908 – 29 October 1998) was a French composer of popular music and film scores. Over the course of over 60 years, Misraki wrote the music to 130 films, scoring works by directors like Jean Renoir, Claude Chabrol, Jacques Becker, Jean-Pierre Melville, Jean-Luc Godard, Henri-Georges Clouzot, Orson Welles, Luis Buñuel and Roger Vadim.

For his work, he was made a Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur.

Born Paul Misrachi in Constantinople, Ottoman Empire (now Istanbul, Turkey) into a French Jewish family of Italian descent, Misraki showed an early aptitude for music. He went to Paris to study classical composition, and by the 1930s had become an established jazz pianist, arranger, and writer of popular songs; around this time he began composing film scores, with his first known work being for Jean Renoir's first sound film, On purge bébé (Baby's Laxative, 1931), for which he was not credited.

Like Renoir, Misraki fled France during the World War II German occupation. After a brief stay in Argentina, Misraki ended up in Hollywood, where he composed the music to all of Renoir's American films. After the war, Misraki returned to France, working busily throughout the 1950s, a period when he was routinely scoring half a dozen or more films a year. These included numerous films by Yves Allégret and Jean Boyer, as well as two films by Jacques Becker, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (Ali Baba et les 40 voleurs, 1954) and Montparnasse 19 (1958) and Orson Welles' Mr. Arkadin (1955). The 1960s saw Misraki slow down slightly, writing only 2–3 scores a year. During this period, he worked with many of the leading French directors of the period, including Jean-Luc Godard on Alphaville (1965), Jean-Pierre Melville on Le Doulos (1963) and Claude Chabrol, for whom he scored several films.

Misraki composed intermittently throughout the last two decades of his life. He composed his last score at age 85; by this point he had been working almost exclusively in television for several years. He died of natural causes at age 90 in Paris.

Misraki first found acclaim as a composer and lyricist of popular songs. His first hit was 1935's "Tout va très bien madame la marquise," and during his careers in France, America and Argentina he wrote successful songs in French, English and Spanish. In 1998, at the age of 90 years, Misraki collaborates with Singer Raquel Bitton on her American tribute to his songs in a CD entitled In a Jazzy mood. ...

Source: Article "Paul Misraki" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Photos

Movies (84)

Stress

1984 · Original Music Composer

Un si joli village...

1979 · Original Music Composer

The Toilets Were Closed from the Inside

1976 · Original Music Composer

The arrest

1975 · Music

Bloody Murder

1974 · Original Music Composer

Closed Shutters

1973 · Music

A Murder Is a Murder

1972 · Original Music Composer

The Day the Hot Line Got Hot

1968 · Original Music Composer

Attack of the Robots

1966 · Music

Alphaville

1965 · Original Music Composer

Jack and Jenny

1963 · Original Music Composer

L'assassin connaît la musique...

1963 · Original Music Composer

We Will Go to Deauville

1962 · Music

Le Doulos

1962 · Original Music Composer

Clash of Steel

1962 · Compositor

Ladies' Man

1962 · Original Music Composer

Vengeance of the Three Musketeers

1961 · Original Music Composer

The Fighting Musketeers

1961 · Music

Love and the Frenchwoman

1960 · Original Music Composer

Les Bonnes Femmes

1960 · Original Music Composer