If you want to take a look at the relationship of movies and music, there's obviously more than one angle to do so. Right off the bat, there's the fact that until the 'talkies' came along, music--played live in the theatre and then provided as a soundtrack, was the voice of movies. That first partnership then transitioned naturally into music scores that were immediately recognizable, almost as much as a character in the famous movies they were a part of (and often times named for a character) and which almost umceremoniously thrusted you into that particular world. Think the main themes to Dr. Zhivago or The Godfather or Chariots of Fire or Romeo and Juliet [60s version], for example.
Then, of course, you have the actual musical movie, whose entire storyline is aided and abetted by its lyrics and music, followed by the non-musical that relies just as much on [memorable] songs performed by the characters to act as more vibrant form of dialogue (there's really no need to mention examples for the former, unless you coming up for air from under a rock; a very well-known example of the latter is 'Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend'). Over there you have the movies that are about music or the music industry (Empire Records, High Fidelity), or musicians old and new (Immortal Beloved, The Doors), which use and are equally used by their music. Want to get really particular? You can just concentrate on movies that particularly known for their opening songs setting the mood (James Bond movies have, of course, done this for years) or look around for movies that take advantage of the end credits' music to deliver a better coda than the actual ending (think 'Paint it Black' for Devil's Advocate, and 'My Daughter' for Knocked Up--proving that you don't have to like the movie in order to appreciate this particular slant).
It's a mostly successful relationship that can offer hours and hours of satisfaction--there are some lost causes along the way, of course, but since one person's painful ear throb is another's pleasurable ear worm, there's no point into getting sucked down a very subjective black hole...
***
I mostly like it when the music is so seamlessly worked into the script that I am not really aware of how well it is integrated into the particular scene or that, in fact, it is critical to the scene or the story, and yet it infiltrates my senses and underscores I am seeing beyond just being background. I am talking about the music that is the equivalent of character actors, those wonderfully gifted but often underappreciated people who go from movie to movie and never overwhelm their role by their personality, making it seem as if anyone could have filled their shoes but who in retrospect, were the only ones who could have taken the story and run with it in exactly the right way the did. Who make their mark as surely as they have unobtrusively. That is the movie music I love best, these fine Italian hands of the soundtrack.
(Looking over the two examples below, a couple of my favorites, what immediately strikes me is that they are both British movies, with protagonists who are working class, down on their luck people. Not sure what that means, if anything.)
***
The first excerpt is from a great old movie I first saw when I was 10 or 11* and I can still remember how it impressed me,even then (good lord, I suppose something from the 1960s is to youngsters what something from the 30s was to me! Perhaps I should substitute ancient for old!). It's hard to appreciate the perfect placement of this song, if you haven't seen the entire movie up to this point because, taken out of context, a group of similarly uniformed young men singing in what looks like to be a school assembly or church, with cut aways to an arrested prisoner very likely about to be physically abused, is just that and no more. The movie is very much worth renting and watching, and you will be so engrossed you won't even remember that you did so just to get to this part, when you will finally understand the brilliance of the choice of music.
*Ironically, that first time was in Iran, on national television. It was the Friday afternoon movie--Friday is the weekend-- and subesequently shown many times. Amazingly and if memory serves me right, no key scenes were censored or altered (other than the ones at the shore), which makes the irony even more obvious. We always used to wonder if someone at the broadcasting company was taking advantage of the talking heads at the top, deftly sliding in defiant choices, so blatantly and yet so covertly! (I am sure of it; I did enough of it in high school myself. More on that later.)
(It may be tempting to say that since this one of those instances where the characters are using music to express themselves, however indirectly, since they are, afterall, doing the actual singing. It's not. What it is is one of the smoothest touch of irony I've ever seen on film.)
I must also give a nod to brilliant Tom Courtenay, the second best thing to come out of Hull in the last century.
Jerusalem (Cast; The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner)
***
Choosing a song from Billy Elliot could also be confusing, since it is a movie that is very much of and about music, an almost-musical. Certainly, every scene where there is a song--and there are many--would be a good choice. Make no mistake, though, as blatant as the music is, this is another movie with musical subtlety. It'd definitely be tempting to take the riot scene overlaid with 'London Calling' and use that but there is a sense of predictability about the marriage of that song and scene together that doesn't really lent itself to my particular music and movie affinity; it's admirable but not surprising. This one below, though, was much more in line, delivering the sense of frustration that's the common thread running through the movie far more powerfully than the other scene.
Then, of course, you have the actual musical movie, whose entire storyline is aided and abetted by its lyrics and music, followed by the non-musical that relies just as much on [memorable] songs performed by the characters to act as more vibrant form of dialogue (there's really no need to mention examples for the former, unless you coming up for air from under a rock; a very well-known example of the latter is 'Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend'). Over there you have the movies that are about music or the music industry (Empire Records, High Fidelity), or musicians old and new (Immortal Beloved, The Doors), which use and are equally used by their music. Want to get really particular? You can just concentrate on movies that particularly known for their opening songs setting the mood (James Bond movies have, of course, done this for years) or look around for movies that take advantage of the end credits' music to deliver a better coda than the actual ending (think 'Paint it Black' for Devil's Advocate, and 'My Daughter' for Knocked Up--proving that you don't have to like the movie in order to appreciate this particular slant).
It's a mostly successful relationship that can offer hours and hours of satisfaction--there are some lost causes along the way, of course, but since one person's painful ear throb is another's pleasurable ear worm, there's no point into getting sucked down a very subjective black hole...
***
I mostly like it when the music is so seamlessly worked into the script that I am not really aware of how well it is integrated into the particular scene or that, in fact, it is critical to the scene or the story, and yet it infiltrates my senses and underscores I am seeing beyond just being background. I am talking about the music that is the equivalent of character actors, those wonderfully gifted but often underappreciated people who go from movie to movie and never overwhelm their role by their personality, making it seem as if anyone could have filled their shoes but who in retrospect, were the only ones who could have taken the story and run with it in exactly the right way the did. Who make their mark as surely as they have unobtrusively. That is the movie music I love best, these fine Italian hands of the soundtrack.
(Looking over the two examples below, a couple of my favorites, what immediately strikes me is that they are both British movies, with protagonists who are working class, down on their luck people. Not sure what that means, if anything.)
***
The first excerpt is from a great old movie I first saw when I was 10 or 11* and I can still remember how it impressed me,even then (good lord, I suppose something from the 1960s is to youngsters what something from the 30s was to me! Perhaps I should substitute ancient for old!). It's hard to appreciate the perfect placement of this song, if you haven't seen the entire movie up to this point because, taken out of context, a group of similarly uniformed young men singing in what looks like to be a school assembly or church, with cut aways to an arrested prisoner very likely about to be physically abused, is just that and no more. The movie is very much worth renting and watching, and you will be so engrossed you won't even remember that you did so just to get to this part, when you will finally understand the brilliance of the choice of music.
*Ironically, that first time was in Iran, on national television. It was the Friday afternoon movie--Friday is the weekend-- and subesequently shown many times. Amazingly and if memory serves me right, no key scenes were censored or altered (other than the ones at the shore), which makes the irony even more obvious. We always used to wonder if someone at the broadcasting company was taking advantage of the talking heads at the top, deftly sliding in defiant choices, so blatantly and yet so covertly! (I am sure of it; I did enough of it in high school myself. More on that later.)
(It may be tempting to say that since this one of those instances where the characters are using music to express themselves, however indirectly, since they are, afterall, doing the actual singing. It's not. What it is is one of the smoothest touch of irony I've ever seen on film.)
I must also give a nod to brilliant Tom Courtenay, the second best thing to come out of Hull in the last century.
Jerusalem (Cast; The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner)
***
Choosing a song from Billy Elliot could also be confusing, since it is a movie that is very much of and about music, an almost-musical. Certainly, every scene where there is a song--and there are many--would be a good choice. Make no mistake, though, as blatant as the music is, this is another movie with musical subtlety. It'd definitely be tempting to take the riot scene overlaid with 'London Calling' and use that but there is a sense of predictability about the marriage of that song and scene together that doesn't really lent itself to my particular music and movie affinity; it's admirable but not surprising. This one below, though, was much more in line, delivering the sense of frustration that's the common thread running through the movie far more powerfully than the other scene.
I can't watch this movie without tearing up, by the way. If I actually watch the last scene with the grandmother, I do more than tear up, so I pretty fast forward through that bit now. You watch it, though (and if you don't feel anything, I best never know, because then I'm going to think you are an unfeeling ass and probably never talk beyond the weather with you.)
A Town Called Malice (The Jam; Billy Elliot)
