Jean-Michel Bernard
Sound
Biography
Jean-Michel Bernard (born 23 November 1961) is a French pianist, composer, educator, orchestrator, and music producer. He is well known for regularly writing, performing, and scoring for films, such as The Science of Sleep, Hugo, Paris-Manhattan, Ca$h, and Be Kind Rewind. Bernard began playing the piano at the age of two. When he was 14, he was awarded first place at the Bordeaux Conservatory and later graduated from the École Normale de Musique de Paris. At 19, he recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London, whilst pursuing a career as a jazz musician and performing with prominent jazz artists including Wild Bill Davis, Jimmy Woode (Duke Ellington's bassist) and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis. From 1987 to 1991 he worked as musical director and conductor of the successful radio show L’Oreille en Coin on National Public Radio France Inter. Between 2000 and 2003, he performed with the Ray Charles Quartet on the European and Australian tours as organist and conductor, "this guy is a genius" Ray used to say concerning Bernard. He also scored many documentaries and commercials during the 1990s. His career as a composer began with animated films, followed by collaborations with masters such as Lalo Schifrin and Ennio Morricone. He frequently works with director Michel Gondry and has composed songs for films including Human Nature and he scored The Science of Sleep, which screened at the Sundance Film Festival and Berlin Film Festival. He was nominated for the World Soundtrack Awards in 2007 as Discovery of the Year and won the France Musique/UCMF award at the Cannes Film Festival the same year for this movie. In 2003, Bernard wrote the music for TF1's À prendre ou à laisser, the French version of Deal or No Deal. In 2008 he scored the music for Gondry's Be Kind Rewind, Cash by Eric Besnard, and A Pain in the Ass by Francis Veber. The same day Be Kind Rewind was shown at the Sundance Festival, Bernard performed alongside rapper/singer Mos Def and Gondry, an avid drummer. The following year, the Cannes Film Festival invited him to represent France in the film music concert program. He also received an award for his achievement outside of his native country from the European Union of Film Music Composers (UCMF) and was appointed as sound designer for both HBO's channel and website. He has collaborated with French actress and director Fanny Ardant on two of her films, Chimères Absentes and Cadences Obstinées starring Gérard Depardieu and worked on Academy Award-winning Hugo by Martin Scorsese. He scored the music of Love Punch by Joel Hopkins starring Pierce Brosnan and Emma Thompson, Love at First Child by Anne Giafferi and Money by Georgian director Gela Babluani. Bernard has conducted master classes at the Cannes Film Festival as well as in Montreal, Angers, La Rochelle, Kraków, Cologne and in Aubagne, where he performed a live version of Jazz For Dogs, an album co-created with Kimiko Ono and featuring a number of prestigious guests including Fanny Ardant, Francis Lai and Laurent Korcia. ... Source: Article "Jean-Michel Bernard" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Known For
A successful photographer gives up everything to devote himself to writing and discovers poverty.
At Work
A man whose brain becomes magnetized unintentionally destroys every tape in his friend's video store. In order to satisfy the store's most loyal renter, an aging woman with signs of dementia, the two men set out to remake the lost films.
Be Kind Rewind
A man entranced by his dreams and imagination is lovestruck with a French woman and feels he can show her his world.
The Science of Sleep
À prendre ou à laisser is the French version of Deal or No Deal. The 22 boxes represent the 22 régions of France, with each contestant coming from that region. The prizes range from €0.01 to €500,000; and include three "joke" prizes and a "joker", containing an amount determined by the number of contestants who answer the "selection-question" correctly. The "joker" is €10,000 multiplied by the number of correct answers.
Deal or No Deal France
In 19th-century France, doctor's wife Emma Bovary seeks to escape her dull provincial life through various extramarital affairs and extravagant spending, leading to tragic consequences.
Madame Bovary
Retirement at last! Middle-aged and divorced, company owner Richard Jones is looking forward to a worry-free existence as he arrives at his office on his last day of work. Much to his dismay, he discovers that the management buyout of his company was fraudulent. The company is now bankrupt and the employee pension fund — including his own — has been embezzled. Enlisting the help of his ex-wife Kate, Richard sets out to track down the shady businessman behind the fraud.
The Love Punch
A man meets up with two "good guys" to recover what is unlawfully his, taking them on his whirlwind ride, doing things they never would have imagined, just to survive.
Ca$h
Alice, an obsessed Woody Allen fan, meets Pierre in a night-club and falls in love with him. But when Pierre sees Alice's sister Hélène, things start to get complicated.
Paris-Manhattan
No description available.
Michel Strogoff
Expatriate Henry Miller indulges in a variety of sexual escapades while struggling to establish himself as a serious writer in Paris.
Quiet Days in Clichy
Conrad Lang, a handyman in a rich family - he has been raised like a brother with Thomas, who has the same age -, accidentally puts fire to the big holiday house he keeps. He returns to the town he grew up in, to the family home, where Philippe, Thomas's son, and Simone are getting married. Conrad's frequent memory loss and behavioural problems rapidly reveal a neurological disease (Alzheimer's is suggested by doctor Cohen when he examens Elvira) which leads Elvira, Thomas's stepmother, to install Conrad in a guesthouse on the property, with the help of a nurse. When Conrad looses more and more his landmarks in present and past, memories of his youth come back to surface. They intrigue Simone, since these memories do not entirely fit together with the official family history...
Small World
The first days of WWI. Adrien, a young and handsome lieutenant, is wounded by a piece of shrapnel. He will spend the entire wartime at the Val-de-Grâce Hospital, in Paris. Five long years, and his life will change forever...
The Officers' Ward
Maya and her dad, Michel Gondry, live in two different countries. In order to stay in touch, her dad asks her every evening, “Maya, give me a title”. Based on her answer, he creates a short animated reply in which Maya is the hero. Michel Gondry brings to life a poetic and amusing journey that will have the little ones dreaming... and the grown-ups smiling.
Maya, Give Me a Title
Three couples and a single guy, from different social and career backgrounds, and of various ages, struggle with finding happiness in their lives.
My Place in the Sun
Isabelle, HR of a large cruise company, made the mistake of choosing her boss as a lover. Before embarking on the maiden voyage of the new flagship of the fleet, though, he decided to disembark from their relationship! Some women take their revenge by poison, firearm, or slander. Isabelle chooses Remy a flamboyant, unemployed ne'er-do-well who flunked out in life on land, but after all is said and done, might have better luck at sea... She recruits him as leader of her plot and on this Palace of the Seas, Remy will first prove to be the worst nightmare of the CEO and Richard, the Cruise Director...then, little by little, he will change his life and that of all those who cross his path...
Welcome Aboard
Gabriell is a single mother, her 17-year-old daughter Claire is pregnant, however the child's father Simon has no desire to be involved with his future baby. When Gabrielle takes matters into her own hands and asks Simon's father Ange for help, an unexpected relationship begins.
Love at First Child
An unlikely friendship develops between a hitman and a suicidal guy who have both checked into the same hotel for different reasons.
A Pain in the Ass
On the night of New Year's Eve, a small group penetrates into the room of an old hotel in ruins. Carmine, the oldest of the group, poses a challenge to one of the men, Furio: he has 4 months to restore the hotel and inaugurate it with great pomp. Aware of the difficulties but anxious to prove the point, Furio accepts encouraged by his wife Margo who believes that this assignment will allow the couple to rediscover the lost momentum.
Obsessive Rhythms
Diagnosed with an incurable illness, Charles, a rugby tycoon who has made a fortune in New Zealand prints an ad in his hometown looking for his sister that he's not seen in fifty years. A notary clerk, believing that Charles has a terminal illness responds to Charles' search for heirs claiming to be his sister. Charles finds that he was misdiagnosed and returns to France to meet his long lost sister.
Uncle Charles
Jean-Michel Bernard's piano tribute concert to cinema.