Interview: Jean-Marc Vallée Talks Shooting 'Wild,' Making Playlists, And The One Song He Really Wants For A Film

After seeing his eight features and speaking to him only briefly, one gets the sense that if director Jean-Marc Vallée gathered $100 million for a tentpole project, $90 million of it would go toward getting the most extravagant soundtrack in history. The filmmaker traffics his character-driven narratives in fluid ideas of music and memory, but none so expertly and audaciously than in his latest film "Wild," which stars Reese Witherspoon as an American woman who seeks spiritual relief by hiking the Pacific Crest Trail.

Dipping in and out of Cheryl’s divorce from her husband, her past with addiction, and the ordeal of her carefree mother’s (Laura Dern) cancer battle, Vallée still keeps the soundtrack — which includes Leonard Cohen, Lucinda Williams, and Portishead — from doing all the heavy lifting. As seen with “Dallas Buyers Club” (which earned Oscars for both Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto), he’s targeted a unique, stripped-down shooting style that...