​FILMS

francis lai

Francis Lai is someone whose surname I share but definitely not his musical talent. He is an Oscar winning composer who has written many music scores, mainly for French movies. He has composed music for more than one hundred mainstream films and written more than 600 songs.

He is known in Hollywood for composing the music for "Love Story" for which he received an Academy Award. Some of his songs from movies like "A Man and a Woman" and "Where Do I Begin" have sold many copies and are favourites among easy listening music enthusiasts.

In the 1970s he composed the music score for some soft porn movies like "Emmanuelle 2" and "Bilitis" . Because of this some misinformed people have unfairly labelled him a porn movie musical composer. What they have failed to realise is that one of these movie soundtracks sold over one million copies in the mainstream market. Calling him a porn movie musician is akin to calling Sharon Stone, Dakota Johnson and Sylvia Kristel porn actresses because they starred in "Basic Instinct", "Fifty Shades of Grey" and "Emmanuelle" respectively.

Francis Lai has slowed down in his musical output in recent years as he is 82 years old. He has had a successful career and doesn't seem to have a salacious or questionable personal life, unlike a lot of other musicians...past, present and future.

(Written on Tuesday 21st April, 2015)