For immediate release:

PERFUME:  THE STORY OF A MURDERER

 

ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK FROM EMI CLASSICS, AVAILABLE IN U.S. ON TUESDAY, DECEMBER 5, FEATURES SEDUCTIVE PERFORMANCES BY SIR SIMON RATTLE AND BERLIN PHILHARMONIC

 

BASED ON ENORMOUSLY POPULAR BOOK, FILM VERSION IS ALREADY HUGE HIT IN EUROPE AND SLATED FOR U.S. RELEASE ON DECEMBER 27

 

DreamWorks Pictures has partnered with Germany’s Constantin Film to acquire the U.S. distribution rights to the new thriller Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, based on the bestselling novel by Patrick Süskind.  Slated for U.S. release on December 27, the 65-million-dollar budget film is the biggest English language movie ever produced in Germany. The film stars Dustin Hoffman, Alan Rickman, and Corinna Harfouch, and is directed by Tom Tykwer.  EMI Classics will release the film’s soundtrack, featuring richly atmospheric performances by Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, on Tuesday, December 5, 2006.

 

Patrick Süskind’s novel was released in 1985 and has sold more than 15 million copies worldwide, making it, among other things, the biggest selling novel in post-war Germany. Süskind waited for nearly two decades to sell the film rights, as he believed that only two potential directors could do justice to the story.  Neither of those directors could be signed on, but Süskind eventually came together with director Tom Tykwer of Run Lola Run fame.  The two men are credited, along with Süskind’s producer friend Bernd Eichinger, with writing the film’s script.

 

The multi-talented Tykwer, along with long-time colleagues Reinhold Heil (ex founding member of Nina Hagen’s band) and Johnny Klimek (The Other Ones), also composed the score and based the entire pace of the film on the music. As there is no way to convey smell in the medium of film, Tykwer replaced this sense with music, evoking the moods and sensations that are created by the smells, making the music the key element of the movie.

 

Intent on providing the best musical support, Tykwer turned to Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic to record the soundtrack. It is highly unusual that the Berlin Philharmonic, one of the world’s most acclaimed orchestras, to record an original film score. Simon Rattle conducted Patrick Doyle’s rousing score for Henry V with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in 1989.

 

Set in 18th-century France, the terrifying story of murder and obsession centers around a man who, strangely lacking any scent of his own, has a unique talent for identifying smells, which he uses to create the world’s finest perfumes. His gift leads to obsession when he turns to murdering young women on the verge of womanhood in order to capture their aroma.

 

A fascinating story about the genesis of the film appeared under the headline “Capturing a Whiff of a Repellant Hero” in the Sunday, November 26 edition of the New York Times.  That story can be found at the following link:

 

 

The New York Times also recently published a detailed plot description, credited to Jason Buchanan of the All Movie Guide, which can be found below.

 

For detailed information about the soundtrack visit: www.perfumethesoundtrack.com

 

Select openings for Perfume: The Story of a Murderer 
New York, NY:   Angelika (12/27)
Houston, TX:  Angelika (1/5)
Dallas, TX:  Angelika Dallas (1/5)
Plano, TX: Angelika (1/5)

 

PERFUME:  THE STORY OF A MURDERER – PLOT DESCRIPTION
An obsessive French perfumer with a highly developed olfactory sense and an all-consuming drive to capture the essence of love eventually resorts to murder in his unrepentant quest to find the key ingredient for his recipe in director Tom Tykwer's adaptation of author Patrick Suskind's best-selling 1985 novel. Born in a fetid fish market and raised in a dilapidated orphanage, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Ben Whishaw) toiled his childhood away in a rank tannery run by the thuggish Grimal (Sam Douglas). Subsequently obsessed by smell, Grenouille's keen olfactory sense becomes so finely tuned that it eventually overpowers such human qualities as love and compassion.

 

Though he has indeed discovered the unmistakable scent of a woman, Grenouille finds it impossible to connect with the fairer sex on any sort of meaningful level. Roaming the streets of Paris late one night, Grenouille catches the scent of a young girl selling plums and impulsively strangles her, later sniffing her nude corpse in a twisted attempt to preserve the distinctive scent in his memory. After persuading legendary perfumer Giuseppe Baldini (Dustin Hoffman) to take him on as an apprentice, Grenouille travels to the town of Grasse in Southern France in order to learn the art of enfleurage at a firm run by the highly respected Mme. Arnulfi (Corinna Harfouch). It is there that Grenouille becomes dangerously drawn to the vestal aroma of the young and beautiful Laura (Rachel Hurd-Wood), the daughter of widower merchant Antione Richis (Alan Rickman). Soon driven to madness by such a pure scent, the spellbound Grenouille continues to claim the lives of the numerous young girls in a tragic attempt to bottle the impossibly elusive smell of virginal womanhood.

 

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