Victoire de la vie and L’Espagne vivra by Henri Cartier-Bresson: Two Different Musical Strategies at the Service of Republican Propaganda

Abstract

From 1936 to 1939, the Spanish Civil War gave several film directors the opportunity to stand side by side with Republican soldiers by filming them in combat. Henri Cartier-Bresson first movie Victoire de la vie (Victory of Life, 1937), then, one year later, as the nationalist side was gaining ground, L’Espagne vivra (Spain shall live, 1938). The music for Cartier Bressons’s two films follows two contrasting strategies: for Victoire de la vie, French composer Charles Kœchlin composed an original soundtrack in a relatively homogeneous style, whereas in L’Espagne vivra, Louis Saguer made use of a compilation of pre-existing symphonic pieces. This article intends to analyse how these two musical approaches align themselves with the contrasting but complementary analyses of the Spanish Civil War provided by Cartier-Bresson's two films.