From Radiohead to Metallica

DAY

Filmmaker Francis Leclerc had fun choosing the songs that punctuate his new feature film, The Diver . From Radiohead and Metallica to Iron Maiden and Neil Young, the film's musical score brings together some of rock's biggest stars.

No less than 25 songs from here and elsewhere are found on the soundtrack of this highly anticipated adaptation of Stéphane Larue's novel. You can hear Radiohead, Neil Young and Ben Harper, among others. Several metal groups (including Iron Maiden and Metallica) are also in the spotlight since the main character of the film – a 19-year-old student who is hired as a dishwasher in a restaurant in the early 2000s – often plays in his headphones.

It's quite rare to see a Quebec production bet on such an ambitious musical score. This has already happened in particular with C.R.A.Z.Y., by the late Jean-Marc Vallée, whose rights to the songs had eaten up $600,000 of the total production budget at the time.

< p>In an interview, Francis Leclerc prefers not to disclose the amount of the budget that was allocated to the soundtrack of Plongeur. However, he says he set aside a certain amount from the start for the acquisition of the rights to the songs. 

“ The producer of the film, Marie-Claude Poulin, worked on C.R.A.Z.Y.at the time, so she knew what it cost, a soundtrack like that,” says the filmmaker who called on music supervisor Joss Dumas to negotiate the copyrights of the songs.

Francis Leclerc was pleasantly surprised by the quick – and enthusiastic – responses from some big names in international music. 

“The response rate has been extraordinary,” he says. When Neil Young says yes to you in two days the same week he decided to leave Spotify, you think: wow! »

« It was super fast too with Thom Yorke by Radiohead. He made sure that it was a small independent film, he wanted to know my approach, to know why we wanted this song at that time in the film. I wrote to him that the character in the movie was addicted to gambling and that their song [Like Spinning Plates] would play at a time when he was returning to play slots. Forty-eight hours later, I received a response telling me that he had spoken to the group and that everyone was in agreement. It's great when it happens like that. »

Chansons québécoises

In an interview with Sophie Durocher on QUB radio in December , Xavier Dolan said he had to give up a dozen Quebec songs for his series The night where Laurier Gaudreault woke up because a record company did not answer his calls.

Francis Leclerc says he had similar problems “because of the same record companies”.

“What helped me is that many of the Quebec artists we hear in the film, like Dumas and Stefie Shock, I know them well, he underlines. So we fought together to get the rights to their songs released. But it's ridiculous to have to negotiate so hard to obtain the rights to Quebec songs.”

The film The Diver< /strong>hits theaters February 24.