Maurice Jarre wrote "Lara's Theme" (for Doctor Zhivago) and won Academy Awards for it and for the haunting desert music of Lawrence of Arabia, another David Lean picture. The heroic march that you hear in the background of The Longest Day was his. I also admired his work for such films as Visconti's The Damned, Volker Schlondorff's The Tin Drum, and Paul Mazursky's Enemies: A Love Story. Neither Fatal Attraction nor Jacob's Ladder would have engaged the audience so viscerally without Jarre's soundtrack. (If you haven't seen Jacob's Ladder and you're a paranoia addict, you've got to see this 1990 movie about Vietnam vets who unwittingly took part in an experimental drug program.) Born in 1924 in Lyon, Jarre studied with the Swiss composer Arthur Honegger. He died in Malibu on March 30. He was 84. "My life has been one long soundtrack," he said.
-- DL
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