Claude Lelouch on Working With ‘A Man and a Woman’ Composer Francis Lai – Venice

French director Claude Lelouch first gained international fame with the 1966 romance “A Man and a Woman,” featuring Anouk Aimee and Jean-Louis Trintignant. The film tells the story of a widow and widower struggling to start a new relationship while haunted by past tragedies.

Almost 60 years later, the film’s soundtrack by the late composer Francis Lai, including the memorable title track often referred to as ‘Chabadabada,’ remains iconic. The soundtrack is as well-known, if not more so, than the film itself, which won both an Oscar and the Cannes Palme d’Or.

This movie marked the beginning of a 52-year partnership and 35-film collaboration between Lelouch and Lai. Lelouch spoke about this collaboration during a masterclass at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday.

Lelouch attended the festival to receive the Cartier Glory To The Filmmaker Award and to premiere his new work, “Finalement.” The new film stars an ensemble cast led by Kad Merad, along with Elsa Zylberstain, Michel Boujenah, Sandrine Bonnaire, Barbara Pravi, and Françoise Gillard.

Lelouch first met Lai in 1965, having already established connections in the music world through directing music videos for prominent artists like Sylvie Vartan, Françoise Hardy, and Dionne Warwick. He directed Warwick’s performance of ‘Walk On By’ against the Paris skyline in 1964.

“He spent two hours playing me melodies on his accordion, and these melodies spoke to me, to my heart,” Lelouch recalled. “He was completely self-taught, and there was great freedom in his playing, in his harmonies and tonalities.”

Lai’s compositions became central to Lelouch’s filmmaking process. The director often had Lai write soundtracks based on his ideas during the development stage of his films.

“I recorded the music for all my films before shooting because I wanted the actors to listen to the soundtrack, and I needed to listen to it too,” Lelouch explained.

This method even led to two separate films arising from Lai’s two musical interpretations of the same concept: “Love Is A Funny Thing” (1969) and “One Plus One” (2015).

Lelouch detailed an example from the set of “Love Is A Funny Thing,” which starred Jean-Paul Belmondo and Annie Girardot as a French composer and actress in Los Angeles.

“In the final scene, Annie Girardot’s character is waiting for Belmondo’s character at the airport. She didn’t know whether he would come down from the plane or not. The camera is on her, and she is listening to the film’s music in her ear,” he elaborated.

“What’s interesting is that she genuinely didn’t know if he would come. She wasn’t acting. If she had known, she would still have played the scene well, but in real life, we don’t act.”

While Lelouch did not work exclusively with Lai, collaborating with other composers like Michel Legrand, he did bring their talents together on “Bolero,” a 1981 saga following three generations of musicians and dancers across Russia, Germany, France, and the U.S.

The director noted that this variety kept their creative relationship fresh.

“It’s true I did cheat on him from time to time,” Lelouch joked. “But Francis Lai was always delighted to see me come back, like a wife happy to see her husband return.”

“This allowed us not to get too used to one another, and also gave him the freedom to work with other directors. When we reconnected, we wanted to seduce each other once again.”