Vladimir Cosma (born April 13, 1940 in Bucharest) is a Romanian-born French composer, conductor and violinist.
He is one of the most renowned and prolific composers in the history of French cinema, having worked on up to twelve soundtracks per year in his heyday. His body of work could easily rival those of John Williams and Ennio Morricone in sheer size.
A large part of the most memorable soundtracks for French films (usually comedies) from the mid-1960s up to the 2000s are due to him (and he's still active).
Notable soundtracks he composed:
Film:
- The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe (1972)
- The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob (1973)
- The Wing or the Thigh (1976)
- The Umbrella Coup (1980)
- Inspector Blunder (1980)
- La Boum (1980)
- La Boum 2 (1982)
- Ace of Aces (1982)
- Santa Claus Is a Stinker (1982)
- Les Compères (1983)
- Le Bal (1983)
- 1980s Asterix animated films:
- Asterix Versus Caesar (1985)
- Asterix in Britain (1986)
- Les Fugitifs (1986)
- Lévy and Goliath (1987)
- Snow and Fire (1991)
- Le Jaguar (1996)
- The Dinner Game (1998)
Television:
- Kidnapped (based on Robert Stevenson's novel) (1978)
- Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea (1985)
- Arsène Lupin (1989-1996)
Tropes related to this composer and his work:
- Associated Composer: He's worked multiple times with directors such as Gérard Oury, Yves Robert, Édouard Molinaro, Claude Zidi, Claude Pinoteau, Francis Veber and Jean-Pierre Mocky.
- Inspiration for the Work:
- His native Romania's traditional music, as best seen with the cymbalum & pan flute main theme of The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe (performed by Romanian musician Gheorghe Zamfir), which he titled "Sîrba" after a Romanian folk music/dance style.
- Jewish klezmer music too as heard in The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob, Ace of Aces and Lévy and Goliath.
- Keep Circulating the Tapes: Some of his albums are prohibitively expensive to get on CD, if you can even find a copy for sale to begin with. Arguably the worst offender is Spartakus (if you settle for compressed digital download the price is very fair).
- Musical Pastiche: For the sequel to The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe, he arranged the main theme
James Bond style. - Non-Indicative Name: Celtic Mysteries, an album from 2002 (re-released on iTunes in 2012) is actually the soundtrack (well, most of it) to the 1978 British TV show Kidnapped. This is not mentioned on the case at all.
- Production Posse: He's composed music for a number of films often directed by Francis Veber and starring Gérard Depardieu and Pierre Richard.
- Recycled Soundtrack: Sometimes he'll reuse compositions of his from previous films, for he always thinks he can improve on previous compositions. It was the case with the two Asterix animated films he scored, which reused music from The Wing or the Thigh and Ace of Aces.
