Talk:Zbigniew Preisner

Discussion header

What's the source for the date of the Three Colours: Red César as being 1994? http://www.ecrannoir.fr/evenements/prix/cesar/1995.htm says it was 1995, and it looks pretty comprehensive to me. Also [1] and [2], for example, say 95. Could be wrong of course. --Camembert

Van den Budenmayer

His music for Kieslowski, which is his best known work, is sometimes credited to a Dutch composer by the name of Van den Budenmayer. This is a pseudonym for Preisner himself, however.

This is a little unclear, in my opinion, so I rewrote it to how it stands below:

Preisner is best known for his work on Kieslowski's movies. Some of those movies make reference to a fictitious Dutch composer by the name of Van den Budenmayer, and Preisner writes the music which in the plot of the movie is said to be by Budenmayer.

I hope this is clearer to everyone. At the very least I'm sure it's clear to those who've watched Kieslowski's movies, such Bleu, Rouge, La Double Vie de Veronique and Dekalog 10. Robert Happelberg 19:11, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

- Not to be terribly pedantic (okay, yes, to be terribly pedantic), but it's actually Dekalog 9 which makes reference to Van den Budenmayer. Dekalog 10 is the one with the brothers and the stamp collection and the guard dogs. In case anyone thought they'd missed a reference!

-To be a little more pedantic, there is a reference to Van den Budenmayer in "Rouge", where Valentine tries to buy an album of his and finds that it is out of stock.

- In 'La Double Vie de Veronique', in the teacher character of the French Veronique, Irene Jacob tells her class about 'Van den Budenmayer'.

• I came across more about Van den Budenmayer on one of the DVD extras for Trois Couleurs: Blanc, and transcribed the discussion. It's entirely too long for a reference, but I've left it there for discussion. Here's a copy of the transcription, complete with its {{cite video}} wrapper:

Krzysztof Kieślowski (2003). "A Discussion on Working with Kieślowski". Trois Couleurs: Blanc (DVD extra). Burbank CA: Miramax. Event occurs at 15:12–17:32. ISBN 0-7888-4146-7. They had this private joke about – well it wasn't that private because they put it into the films – about a composer, Van Budenmayer. [sic] (Geoff Andrew) It was like a red little thread, as we say in French, you know, that we – a little something we can see in many films. (Irène Jacob) It was for Decalogue number nine, where the secondary character of Ola, a beautiful young woman who is about to have elective heart surgery tells the doctor that she sings the music of Van den Budenmayer. And in the next scene, you see the doctor listening to the album of this music, which, by the way, in the screenplay, was not Van den Budenmayer at all. It was Mahler, or something. In other words, this was after the script was written that they started to have fun with the fictive Van den Budenmayer, a Dutch composer. Well, after that they started getting letters of people asking, 'Who is Van den Budenmayer? How can I buy his music? Does it exist on cassette?' So what did they do? They brought him back in The Double Life of Véronique. (Annette Insdorf) I really like this piece. It's by a very interesting composer. He was discovered only recently...although he lived in Holland over two centuries ago. (film excerpt subtitles) And then he's mentioned in Blue; the character of Julie says to Olivier that she has this memento that was supposed to invoke Van den Budenmayer. (Insdorf) He told me: 'It's a memento.' Try weaving it back in. Van den Budenmayer? (film excerpt subtitles) White is the only one where Van den Budenmayer doesn't make a direct appearance, but he comes back forcefully in Red in a number of ways. (Insdorf) I'd like number 432. Van den Budenmayer. Did I pronounce it right? Yes. This one? (film excerpt subtitles) We even see a picture of him. Of course he didn't exist. It was just this little joke they had between them. (Andrew) At the New York Film Festival press conference, um, Kieślowski had a great time telling the story – and I was translating – of how he's now gotten letters from an encyclopedia, I think it is, telling him that he must cease and desist from using the music of Van den Budenmayer without paying royalties to the estate, or else they might be sued. He thinks this is utterly hilarious because there is no Van den Budenmayer, but they've been way too persuasive in suggesting that there is one. (Insdorf)

Any suggestions about how to trim that down so that it supports the text, without overwhelming the references section?

(The above confirms that the films that make reference to Van den Budenmayer are Dekalog IX, La Double Vie de Véronique, Bleu, and Rouge.)

Also, if I ever make a film, I think I'll make a point of mentioning Van den Budenmayer in it too.

—Steve98052 (talk) 08:59, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

'Le concert'

I've deleted the short section headed 'Nomenclature' in the main article; this is what it said:

"The Song for the Unification of Europe (1993) heard in Blue is incorrectly called a "concerto" in some English translations of the screenplay. A concerto is an instrumental piece; Preisner's Song, very obviously, incorporates singers."

I think we can delete this for the following reasons: (1) it's minor and picky; (2) It isn't just in the English translations, it's in the French dialogue - the journalist who visits her in hospital refers to it as 'Le concert' (=concerto, in French); (3) It's not true that you can't have a voice or voices in a concerto. On this last point, there are at least two kinds of concerto that might use voices - (a), orchestral concertos which incorporate voices at some point. Examples: Busoni's Piano Concerto (male chorus in finale); Leonard Bernstein's Concerto for Orchestra (male soloist in finale); Alan Ridout's Cello Concerto No.2 (scored for solo cello and an orchestra made up of wordless voices). (b) There is a tradition of 'sacred concertos' largely or exclusively for voices, especially strong in Russian music - eg the choral concertos of Bortniansky (this tradition has been revived by Alfred Schnittke in his Choir Concerto). When watching 3 Colours: Blue I understand the Song for the Unification of Europe to be a modern example of this sacred concerto tradition. Cenedi (talk) 12:39, 5 November 2008 (UTC)