The film is a remake of James Turbeck's 1978 "Melody of a Killer," but the director focuses on the relationship between Tom and his piano teacher, Miao Lin. The title of the film comes from the song "Santa's Daughter" by Jacques Dutron, which literally translates to "My Heart Stopped".
After the screenwriter Tonino Benagista and director Jacques Odial successfully collaborated on "Lip Talk", Odial asked Tonino Benagista to adapt "The Melody of the Killer" . The talented playwright immediately embraced O'Dial's suggestion, knowing that the film, about pianos and the mafia, would be loved by audiences, and that many people had made up plots that didn't even exist in the original film. He is also well aware that the film "Killer Melody" is very similar to the tail of the comet in the American independent film of the 1970s. Although the film has many wonderful points, it also has serious shortcomings, and the characteristics of that era are too distinct, the loopholes in the story are too obvious, and those things that are very suitable to be preserved are transplanted into modern France in the narrative. So, the two get together again, looking for a common goal.
"Killer Melody" is set in the New York Italian Mafia, while "My Heart Stopped" is about the dark world of the real estate industry. Jacques O'Dial said: "When I was thinking with Tonino, I immediately thought of the real estate industry, especially those small real estate developers, who often use some little-known illegal ways to make huge profits. Moreover, I think there's one thing in common between bad guys taking people's lives and unscrupulous businessmen taking their lands, and that's that they're both taking what's inalienable." The two decided to focus their story on this closed and free realm. . Another difference: In James Tubeck's film, the character Harvey Kerdell is a drug addict, the logic of an addict's thinking has strayed from the normality of normal people, such a story It's too simplistic, and O'Dial hopes that the film can directly enter the emotional world of the protagonist, so that people can empathize with Tom's feelings. The two collaborators hide the protagonist's mother, leaving her to live only in the memory of their son. Juliette Villevin, who edited all of O'Dial's film, said: "This film is not just a story of the relationship between father and son, for Tom the piano can mutate him and keep him away from him. Juliette continued: "In the original script, there was a scene of Tom playing the piano in a nightclub, maybe a second or third scene, after a long discussion. In the end, it was decided to delete the scene. You can see from this set of shots that although Tom continues to do evil with his accomplices, he is very different from them, and he has stepped into the ranks of the artist."
When choosing the actor to play Tom, O'Dial wanted a face that was both very young and believable, not only like a businessman but also like an artist who has been watching Romain Duris for more than ten years Now, since he starred in "Yellow Peril", when he was only 20 years old, O'Dial watched him come along, mature with each passing day, and now he has become a big-name actor with superb acting skills. O'Dial decided that the film would revolve around him. Pan Lindan, who plays Miao Lin, was discovered in Reggie Vanier's "Indochina" (1993 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film), in which Pan Lindan played Gatlina Deno Fu's adopted daughter. Although the film was a huge success, Pan Lindan entered a period of confusion, and she didn't know where to go in her life. She said: "After 'Indochina', I never knew what I was supposed to do. I went to business school in Paris, then went back to Asia and worked for a while in Singapore and Vietnam. I still haven't made up my mind to put in In my acting career, I always wanted to be a good actor, but I didn't have the courage to tell others and tell my family. However, I was very distressed, I felt that I couldn't go on like this. So, I put everything aside , went to New York, the United States to enter the actor training center of Leigh Strasbourg." Screenwriter Tonino Benagista does not think "My Heart Stopped" is a black violent film, even if the film contains violence, Shooting, underworld, etc., but those pictures did not interest him, the film just described the mental journey of a man before and after his arrival. "Odial and I have never been interested in genre films." Playwright Benagista believes that in this film, Jacques Odial should show the sublimation of a person. For the first time in his life, Tom asked himself how he could get out of his misery and be a new man. From the moment someone suggested that he go to a piano audition gig, the transformation started... One of the ways to watch Tom change is to start accepting women in his world, the way he sees them, the way they look when they talk. He crossed a threshold. The film's cinematographer Stephen Fontena said: "Most of the film was shot with a shoulder camera. The reason is very simple. Everything is from Tom's point of view. Otherwise, it will change immediately. It becomes a first-person film. The camera is on his shoulders, carefully following him, shot group by shot group, and it becomes an organic part of the character, feeling the same thing as the character, experiencing the same events, keep the same distance from the characters, feel the same closeness.” Juliette added: “Tom is everywhere, we It is found that everything is advancing according to his perspective, and it seems that the film excludes everything that is not in the eyes of the protagonist. "
Jacques O'Dial believes that Nils Alestrapp's portrayal of Tom's father is very successful, "he is a man-eating devil, who although masculine in appearance and domineering, he There should be a soft female voice, and that's what Nils Alestrap's voice is, it's sharp and hissing, like some women, it's the devil's voice. That father's face can make People have to understand the relationship between father and son. To be precise, at this moment, the father becomes the son of his own son. Although the relationship between father and son is very tense, one cannot doubt that Tom and his father also have kinship. The father is domineering and controlling. He was holding his son and using him as his gun, but at the same time he begged him to help him. Tom was always protecting him, the father-son relationship was reversed, the father was getting weaker and started to back down because he needed his son's help and protection. "
The music Tom constantly listens to throughout the film is an essential part of Jacques O'Dial's fourth feature film, as the title of the film already suggests. The director's request to the film's composer, Alexandre Despora, was quite specific: the music should be able to flow between Fountain and Bach. After carefully studying the character of Tom, the music tailored for him by the composer changes with Tom's psychological and emotional changes. The music has been with him from beginning to end. I don't know if there is a word "psychological music", but the meaning should be almost. Tom was preparing for the piano audition, and O'Dial kept the Bach toccata in E minor, which he used in "The Killer's Melody." Toccata is a kind of geometric music, there is no romanticism at all, and if Tom played Schubert, he would be full of passion and he could be heard.
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