Composer Alexandre Desplat plays “Happy Birthday to You” on his keyboard — but with a twist: the final note on “you” is higher than in the traditional melody.
It’s Igor Stravinsky’s “Greeting Prelude,” a serial variation of the familiar tune composed in 1955 for the 80th birthday of French conductor Pierre Monteux. This inventive transformation by the Russian composer inspired Desplat to, as he puts it, “bend” a piece from Stravinsky’s ballet “The Firebird” for the score of Wes Anderson’s “The Phoenician Scheme,” now playing in theaters.
“The seed of the score comes from a piece by Stravinsky, and there’s this little, short melody that I’ve used, and twisted and expanded,” Desplat tells Variety over Zoom. “When I started playing with that, I thought about what Stravinsky had done, and tried to stay in Stravinsky’s world.”
Desplat taps out a brief melody on his keyboard — a leitmotif destined to become the musical anchor of Anderson’s latest film. The story follows business magnate Zsa-zsa Korda (Benicio Del Toro) as he embarks on an ambitious venture with his estranged daughter — a nun named Liesl (Mia Threapleton) — and her entomology tutor, Bjorn (Michael Cera).
Variations of that leitmotif — derived from “The Firebird” — play over the transition cards, showcasing the destinations the trio travel to as they scramble to cover a funding gap for Korda’s sprawling infrastructure project.
“It should be called ‘The Russian Scheme,’” Desplat jokes.
Benicio Del Toro as Zsa-Zsa Korda, Michael Cera as Bjorn and Mia Threapleton as Liesl in ‘The Phoenician Scheme.’
Courtesy of TPS Productions/Focu
Stravinsky’s influence resonates beyond the score. “The Phoenician Scheme” features several pieces of the Russian composer’s works, including the “Apotheosis” from his ballet “Apollo” during the opening credits. Music by fellow classical giants Bach and Beethoven can also be heard, alongside jazz arrangements by Gene Krupa, Gerry Mulligan and Glenn Miller.
Desplat aimed to “slalom around” those classical and jazz pieces when writing the score.
“There are too many things happening, and I just can’t musically link them,” he explains. “So I have to avoid them and let them play, and then find a flourish of mine — and another. These songs, these pieces, keep going along, and I just jump around.”
This musical maneuvering is especially noticeable, Desplat points out, because the only music the characters hear comes directly from tracks by the other artists — played through radios, bands and turntables visible on screen.
“In this very early shot, this turntable is playing ‘The Firebird,’ and so it created what we call diegetic music, which is in the film, and non-diegetic music — which is the score — to be completely connected,” Desplat says. “[The music] goes in and out of the image.”
Despite the film’s eclectic cast — from Cera’s quirky Norwegian insect specialist to Korda’s devious, bushy-browed half-brother, Uncle Nubar (Benedict Cumberbatch) — Desplat chose not to compose distinct themes for individual characters. Instead, he focused on crafting melodies that enrich the film’s overall atmosphere.
“It would be a Rubik’s Cube to give colors to every character,” he admits.
Michael Cera as Bjorn and Mia Threapleton as Liesl in ‘The Phoenician Scheme.’
Courtesy of TPS Productions/Focu
Desplat has been a longtime collaborator of Anderson’s, first working with the visionary auteur on the 2009 stop-motion comedy “Fantastic Mr. Fox.” Since then, he’s contributed to “Moonrise Kingdom” (2012), “The Grand Budapest Hotel” (2014), “Isle of Dogs” (2018), “The French Dispatch” (2021) and “Asteroid City” (2023).
“Since ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox,’ we have this kind of little toolbox that we keep nearby. The glockenspiel, the choir, the mandolin, the banjo, recorders — and they’re there sitting, and we try to find something new,” Desplat says. “But at times, we pick one tool from the box that belongs to the previous movies, and we inject it into the scope.” (In the case of “The Phoenician Scheme,” they pulled drums and piano from the toolbox.)
When asked how he would define the “Wes Anderson sound,” Desplat describes it as “accessible, simple but not simplistic, unashamedly melodic, obsessively repetitive” and an “extravaganza of sounds.”
That sensibility carries through in “The Phoenician Scheme,” which retains the signature whimsy and eccentric charm of Desplat’s earlier collaborations with Anderson. Yet to the composer, this score stands apart in one notable way: “Stravinsky became the core.”
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