The Importance of Soundtrack
 

Recently, I rewatched Guardians of the Galaxy. Great movie, but it raised some questions in me, one of them being just how important is a great soundtrack to a movie? In my opinion, it is one of the most important parts of a film, the backbone of it all. What would Jaws be without the iconic theme? Or Star Wars? I'm sure they would be fine movies. The Kill Bill battle against the 88 would have been just as entertaining without the catchy pop track in the background, correct? So many instances where I picture myself watching my favorite scenes without brilliant ambience such as Dark Knight highway chase and amazing Zimmer composition, or even hilarious songs such as Bump and Grind in Without a Paddle. Pulp Fiction would be a fun story without the amazing soundtrack, right? 500 Days of Summer? I honestly do not think so. Maybe I am the only one who thinks so, but I think the soundtrack is one of my favorite parts of any movie. Ever. What are some of your favorite scenes where the soundtrack enhanced the experience for you? One of mine was in James Gunn's Super after a brief encounter with trouble when the two "heroes" have a spur of the moment intense romp and you see just how desperate they both were to be wanted and a song titled "Let Your Body Decide" is playing on her CD player and it is just a perfect scene in my opinion, but wouldn't be much without that perfect song. By itself, the song is borderline awful, but in that space and time, it was perfection. I would like to know some of your favorite scenes. It may help me find more instances where I lose myself in a movie like you yourself have after hearing musical bliss. Thanks for reading!

Re: The Importance of Soundtrack
 

Halloween is the best example for the importance of a soundtrack for one of the best horror movie of all-time. This theme still give me nightmares.

I can count on one hand the number of films where the soundtrack was a standout element. Max Steiner and John Williams head up the gold standard for this underrated art IMO, but they are a lot of great scores out there...Henry Mancini struck gold with The Pink Panther and I love the music in The Road to Perdition, Driving Miss Daisy, and Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005).

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I didn't realize I doubled posted about this in another movie music thread...:eek:

The music and score in Drive is the "most well suited to my ears" work I have heard to this day. Nothing else comes to mind except T:2.

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Some of the best music scores are the ones that you don't hear.

A lot of my all-time favourite films have amazing soundtracks and I'm not even trying to deny they partake in these films' greatness. The scenes just wouldn't be the same without the score. Can you imagine Valuska's monologue NOT summed up by Mihaly Vig's tender piano notes. Can you think of introduction scene to Aguirre without Popol Vuh's soundtrack? NO Karaindrou in Angelopoulos, NO Badalamenti in Lynch, NO Artemyev in Tarkovsky, NO Nyman in Greenaway, NO Morricone in Leone, NO Mansell in Aronofsky, NO Goblin in Argento, NO DRAGON SOUND IN MIAMI CONNECTION?!

One of the reasons why while loving both music and films, I always put movies above music is that the latter can have both music and images and combine them to achieve much more than the sole audio form of music.

As of horrors... I still think that the scariest soundtrack is silence, because sounds, any sounds, suggest there's something out there. Scary, or not, friendly, or not. There IS something. Silence, on the other hand... Just think of Space Odyssey. It unfolds the ultimate horror of space. Strauss is cool, too. And I think that a horror movie with a happy life-affirming soundtrack juxtaposed to sinister and dark themes would only enrich these themes and make the overall experience only more horrific. Summing up, happiness and then silence... Come to think of it, John Cage's 4'33'' is the best soundtrack to the horors of life.

The great composers of film don't get anywhere close to the amount of recognition they deserve. A lot of times, the music just changes everything. There are many movies where one of my favorite parts is the soundtrack, while there are others that are made unwatchable by poor placement of music.
I do often wonder why soundtracks aren't appreciated more. They bring so much life to a film, but are never recognized the way writers and directors are.

Just wanted to say that I love this. Especially in horror movies, less is more. The tracks that really get under my skin are the one that are just a few repeated plucks on a string instrument, or that constant buzzing sound in Eraserhead.

I can imagine these directors' works without these artists, but just the thought terrifies me. Maybe it's because we're used to it now, other artists could probably have replaced them, who knows (or maybe they couldn't). I think it's safe to say though that what these musicians did was they complemented the visions of these directors extremely well, which is why the scores are so iconic now

Can you imagine, on the other hand, someone doing a score for a Tarantino film? This is why it's so great when a director has full control and they know what they're doing.

Morricone would make a kick-ass soundtrack to a Tarantino flick.

For something like Basterds or Django he could have, but then again he already used loads of Morricone in those :D

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There's definitely some iconic uses of songs in film. Singin' In The Rain as heard in A Clockwork Orange. Jessica Rabbit singing 'Why Don't You Do Right'. The Simon and Garfunkel soundtrack to The Graduate.

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Can't imagine Star Wars having any other soundtrack.....

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I probably like the soundtrack more than the musical score in most movies.

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"Mulholland Drive" and "Pan's Labyrinth" would be nothing without amazing soundtracks.

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Star Wars and Indiana Jones are nothing without their amazing Williams scores

When I think of the sounds of Star Wars I believe that it's the sound design that makes it for me. The sound of the light sabers, Darth Vader and the Tie Fighters etc. etc...
I remember seing some outtakes from the original Star Wars on youtube and it was completely silent. It really felt like a B-movie.
The soundtrack is obviously amazing too of course, but the sound design for me is the really innovative and groundbreaking part of it's sound.
I saw some interview with the sound designer and he said that the tie fighter sound is a mix of an elephant roar and a car, then played backwards and then distorted. Pretty cool...:cool:

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Suspiria would have been nowhere near as successful as it has been without its soundtrack. To a lesser extent, the same applies to Deep Red! :)

Yeah, it's vital. Locations are sometimes described as like another character in the film; the score is like that too. One of my favourite films, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, has a score that to me is integral to the film's success (not financially:p). That's why I was – to be frank – disgusted that on the special edition Michael Kamen's work only received a cursory mention. It's one of the most perfect film scores I can think of, and I think my favourite sequence rather than scene is the flashback to the Sultan's palace. Unbelievable in the cinema I can tell you.

Another film score that comes to mind is Howard Shore's for Crash. I think it's brilliant because it captures exactly the mental illness that's going on.

I think sound is the most important part of any film because it has a huge influence on what impact a movie leaves on you. If you had comedy music during Psycho, for example, it would create a more ironic 'black comedy' tone as opposed to its more thriller roots. Or if Monsters Inc was replaced with a horror soundtrack it would no longer be that all-ages family movie but a scary animated one.

Re: The Importance of Soundtrack
 

Unless it's a musical, I strongly disagree. Music is supplemental, not the "backbone" of the movie.

Honestly, the idea kind of disgusts me. Music can be very influential, but I have an awful suspicion that a lot of garbage is excused because of the backing music.

Like Beyond The Black Rainbow. The freaking awesome music just made me hate it more because the rest of that utter tripe didn't deserve it.

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You could argue the opposite just as easily if not more. They're not called "movies" for their sound.

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Soundtrack and musical editing for "Mad Max: Fury Road" goes a long way to make action scenes more impressive.

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Definitely.

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I'm a personal fan of John Williams, particularly Star Wars, Harry Potter, Schindler's List, and Saving Private Ryan. I also like the work of Jerry Goldsmith and Thomas Newman, among others.

Here's another interesting example. Murray Gold has been criticised for his TV scores – in the case of Vanity Fair that his music was cacophonous and intrusive (I remember his creative explanation for it was feasible but as a viewer it was still hard to take); and later that some of his scores for Doctor Who were too loud. Whether the latter is down to how they've been mixed in to the production is arguable, and this problem definitely crops up on a regular basis with BBC dramas.

In the film Beautiful Creatures Gold's music is similar to Vanity Fair: brash and in your face but somehow it works for the film really well.

I liked Thomas Newman's score for Skyfall – parts of it reminded me of Vangelis. Much as I like David Arnold a change was long overdue – I saw some of Quantum of Solace recently and his music really sounded tired and as if the ideas were depleated. When I found out that Arnold had created his version of the Doctor Who theme in an afternoon I thought two things: "you can hear that he did" and "it's still so fantastic what would he have done with time and money?":).

X-Men: First Class would be one of those for me. It was very funny to hear Henry Jackman recall the exchange with Matthew Vaughn about how to take some of the John Barry out of it, even though Barry and the Bond films were a massive influence. The fact that Magneto's theme was used on trailers for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy proves it's one of the best contemporary pieces in film.

Without music you would have a very different film though. Even with silent films, the music is extremely important in setting the right tone and feel.

You can have great image, writing, performances and directing but if the music and sound isn't right, then it's not going to work.

My point is you could any other single element on the same pedestal.

If the actors aren't right, the whole movie fails.

If the editing isn't on point, the whole movie will be dead in the water.

If the story is riddled so many plotholes it may as well be swiss cheese, the movie will collapse in itself.

Any one of these things can have a tremendous effect on the end product after everything is said and done. It's why you hear so much criticism about found footage movies, if that one element isn't done well it's going to severely impact the experience.

That's why I think movies should be judged as the sum of their parts considering the angle the movie's going for.

If it's a musical, the music will be most important.

If it's a comedy, the jokes will be most important.

If it's a drama, the characters will be the most important.

It's an action, the action will be most important, and so on.

Most movies don't entirely pigeonhole themselves into these categories though, there's far more to the movie than just those things.

Sound arguably has a bigger impact on the tone a film or TV show seems to take on though. You could have bad acting but it's not going to affect the tone (unless it's very extreme - hammed up or toned down), you could have bad editing but it won't affect the tone, you could have a bad story but it won't affect the tone (even if it's laughable, it doesn't make it a comedy unless it is a comedy)....

Whereas with sound, if the sound is comedic it can turn a serious film into a comedy.

Not a good comedy. Besides, tone isn't everything and a lot of great movies have very understated backing tracks.

You might as well make the argument that "Music is the most important part of any movie because the tone can change if the music is nothing but an ear-splitting jackhammer throughout the whole thing".

Re: The Importance of Soundtrack
 

Music is extremely important element of movies. Most highly regarded movies have great soundtracks.

Soundtrack is very important... Most of the time. I recently watched Dual (1971) and there's no soundtrack. And it works just fine for that movie - the isolated mood is what they were going for.

I love the soundtrack of Ghost (1990). Even the song "I'm Henry the 8th I am" fits beautifully with the story: it's about a widow and even "Willie" and "Sam" are mentioned (two of the movie's characters).

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/pZxIAN6don4/hqdefault.jpg

I also enjoy in Rocky (1976) how the music swells right after Rocky and Adrian reunite in the ring and declare their love for each other.

https://nofilmschool.com/media-libra...744&quality=90

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I almost never pay attention to the soundtrack. I know it's important but I don't focus on it, but 'feel it' instead.

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Movie music puts movies over somewhat into opera territory. Like opera, a movie could be recitation of lines of dialog or it can be a rousing emotional experience. The music is the emotional barometer. You could be having a nice day at the beach, kids frolicking in the water, but it's that deep, menacing musical theme that alerts you to the approach of Jaws.

That's something that's been recognized all the way back to the silent movie era. They piano player, organist or theater orchestra prefigures emotional content and "tells" you how to feel, alerts you to something about to happen, tells the guy that his girlfriend is there, tells you that someone has died, or whatever.

Back when I was doing clinical psychology I recall this as a thing. There is emotional content and intellectual content and that applies to real life and movies. In the case of the movie, the music, if it's well done, goes right past your thinking brain and right to the emotional brain. The music makes the difference between a nice day at the beach and the yet unseen, approaching shark.

Color does something very similar, but since movies are mainly either all color or all monochrome, music does the job in most movies. This is why movie composers are such a distinct genre from people who write music for non-visual purposes. Most movie music isn't much to listen to by itself, but a theme, e.g., Lara's Theme in Dr Zhivago non-verbally tells you that he's thinking about Lara as he trudges across the Siberian taiga.

Exactly. The music tells you how to feel, whether you're actively listening or not. You don't want a subtitle that says, "feel happy now", but that's what the music does. Otherwise, a movie is just pictures. Even back in the silent era, film presenters knew this.

Like opera, it's the difference between a clown story and Pagliacci with its soaring emotionalism. This is what movies aim for, even though audiences in our era are too cynical to believe in this level of emotion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWDBOQ0jPMo

Not all film scores are about telling you how you should feel

I would argue that they're ALL about that, unless it's a sterile documentary or a plumbing lesson. A great film score is one that does it even though you are not listening actively. Pagliacci is obviously too emotive for a movie, but the same principle applies...it tells you how to feel. Generally the music doesn't whack people on the head; it gives them a nudge in the right direction, prefigures something or brings back a recollection. If you miss that element in a movie, it's a big loss.

Guess you've never noticed music in movies being used for thematic reasons

Of course....the theme is part of the story. That's exactly what I'm getting at. It doesn't have to be the sad clown, but it narrates, non-verbally, the pleasant day on the beach until the shark arrives, most importantly, before YOU see the shark. You'd need a lot of pictures and words to do that, but music hits it in an instant. Often the best movie music is something you hardly hear.

Quite the contrary, you've just proved you have no idea how thematic development works in a movie.

Nice try, tho.

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This seems needlessly contentious, let's dial it back please.

As a neutral reader, it seems pretty obvious to me that there's not a lot of daylight, if any, between "thematic reasons" and "make you feel something." They're definitely not mutually exclusive.

What I was getting at is that film scoring isn't exclusively about emotions, but also about expressing certain ideas. Metaphorically speaking, the music doesn't always appeal exclusively to the heart, sometimes it can have a message for the mind (i.e., an idea that doesn't necessarily convey any emotion)

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I agree, and that's what I took from it. But I think you guys were probably talking past each other a bit. Or at least jumping to an assumed disagreement that may not (or may!) exist. Might as well clarify and ask first and only fight if it's necessary. ;)

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I wonder if people even mean the same thing by the word "soundtrack." When I think of thematic soundtrack, I think primarily of the use of preexisting music (like pop music), usually with a touch of irony. But I can easily imagine someone using "soundtrack" to mean just preexisting music, just original score, or both.

I do not know if this was a case of a disagreement or not, but I am pretty certain the other person in the discussion didn't seem to know what I was talking about.... which is something that, in my experience, can happen quite a bit in discussions about the arts - the old Siskel & Ebert show was a great display of how strongly and vehemently people can disagree with each other while remaining fundamentally civil and even having some fondness for each other.

Back to my earlier point, a leitmotif in a movie score can be used to summon an emotion, but it can also be a reference to specific themes or ideas that don't necessarily conjure an emotion.

The filmmakers I tend to admire most are those whose films are primarily cerebral, rather than emotional, movies that engage the mind without necessarily trying to summon an emotional response. And of course there are filmmakers who are quite good at making movies that are both cerebral and emotionally appealing.

Exactly


Using music as an ironic counterpoint is just one of many and obvious ways music isnt used to make audiences feel a specific way.


And even when it is used as an emotional cue, it is frequently not so simple to just say 'this music makes the scene happy' or 'this makes the scene ominous'. What exactly is Leone's Good Bad and Ugly theme meant to convey? Or the use of Wagner in Apocalypse Now? It's not always so simple as reducing a soundtrack to holding the audience's hand so they know exactly how to respond.

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I think Dune Part 2 Main Theme (Original Movie Soundtrack) enhances the story:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJvdeVRXXGs

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly gave each of the characters their own theme that somehow fit each one. When they appeared on screen, you just instinctively hum to it because it’s so memorable and not in an emotional way, but rather in visual cues. Morricone was great at that. His music captured a scene, or a person, and often, when it played during certain scenes, you knew it was cue that sh*t was about to go down.

Yes, that is one element of it. And it also evokes the films landscapes, and the feeling of myth, and it can feel vaguely threatening.


It's a nest of emotional and thematic cues. It's not simply to clarify to the audience what emotional response is suppose to happen.

It also should be noted that even in more obvious cases of using music to communicate specific things to the audience (let's use the example of Jaws, since it has already been mentioned), that Spielberg is already doing an awful lot of the emotional heavy lifting both with his camera movements, shot compositions and editing to signify danger. He's not relying on the Williams score for this, but instead using it to heighten what is already there. A good director doesnt need any score at all to express the intended emotions. It can be read in the film itself.

One of the greatest scores ever for enhancing the internal emotions of a film is Einhorns Voices of Light, for The Passion of Joan of Arc. Few pieces of music so perfectly line up with a movies visuals that for me it is almost unthinkable watching it without this soundtrack.


But that said, even without any music at all, Dreyer's film is already dripping with Falconetti's tears. It doesn't need anything else to tell the viewer how to feel. The music only makes it that much more emotionally dynamic.

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I'll bring up this one. Not many movies have overtures anymore. This one is from that heavyweight biblical epic of the late '50's, Ben Hur. Assuming that you went to the drive-in to see the biggest movie in the world, if you knew nothing going in, the first image and 7 notes should inform you that you have been clocked back 2000 years and that it's going to be heavy, so use the rest of this overture to get your snacks and get back to the car. The remainder of the 7 minutes gives you a musical introduction to the plot line and characters. Be sure to hit the rest room because this movie is 3 1/2 hours and will cover a lot of biblical turf. The quick, opening 7 note salvo tells you exactly where and when you are.

It's a bit like those opening words in the first Star Wars movie....Long ago in a galaxy far away.....in the sense that it uses something very quick and compact to substitute for what could be a lot of narrative.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dApIMjrn2Vg

I was thinking about the subject while watching Bertrand Bonello's latest, La Bête. It is an interesting movie to watch from this point of view, because imho the movie is not at all about trying to make viewers feel anything - it's much more cerebral than that, questioning even the appearance of reality. As such, it makes you think much more than it makes you feel anything (I don't think I felt any emotion throughout the whole 2-1/2 hour movie).

Obviously, there is music in the movie, but I don't think anything about it is supposed to be about "feeling" anything at all.

I find it highly unlikely that drive-ins would have played the roadshow versions of the kind of movies that would have had an overture to begin with. I'm not saying it absolutely never happened, but it is definitely very unlikely.

The roadshow version of movies was given a "special" kind of treatment to set them apart from the regular movies, and often commanded premium prices as a result:

Roadshow releases were very much supposed to feel like an event, not just another night at the movies.

Uhhhh. I was there. I actually saw it that way. As a kid, I was highly impressed since an overture made it seem important.