Musical Scores that Fit or Don't Fit the movie.

This is a discussion that began a while back (with Citizen Rules) on a different site.

I saw a report on a guy who's actually making new musical scores for various old films (which is controversial depending on if you liked the film as it was or think a new soundtrack could improve it).

The one film that immediately came to mind for me was Forbidden Planet - a classic science fiction film whose special effects were ahead of its time.
But there was one thing always made this film hard for me to watch, and that was the soundtrack. It doesn't have a musical score, just synthesizer sound effects that become increasingly annoying after a while and do little as far as enhancing or altering the "mood" as the story progresses.

I'd love to see the original Forbidden Planet with a John Williams-type symphonic score added, with music that fits the scenes instead of the weird electronic background noises.

The first answer I thought of was Gravity without music. At all. That's not supposed to be a dig against the actual score, but I remember reading somewhere that the score was an after-thought. Even though it's probable that this was made-up, that has made me wonder how much more effective a journey about the danger and loneliness of outer space would be without the somewhat reassuring presence of music.

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A friend told me about the 2013 version of The Great Gatsby (I didn't see it).
They said the movie was ruined by the insertion of Rap & Hip-Hop music that in no way communicated or related to the time period of the film.

Baz Luhrmann did use rap and hip hop, but the idea that it "ruined" anything is subjective. I felt the music fit the tone of the film quite well, actually, even though it didn't fit the period.

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The musical score of The Great Gatsby is not the main problem. Everything else is though.

Luhrmann took a huge sh*t on one of my favorite books. .

I enjoyed it.

Nailed it. It's funny because the movie tells you how there's no sound in space right at the start, only to have very loud music and score accompanying each scene. It's really terrible. I think it's not a tense/exciting movie precisely because of its use of music.

Goes to show how important music in film really is, can easily make or break a movie

I think most everything stated on this site is subjective. After all, we are discussing a specific art form.

Case in point: I've read several people's opinions who feel that Forbidden Planet's sound track makes the movie for them, and they wouldn't ever want to view the film without it. Yet, to me, as wonderful as the visuals are, the synthesizer sounds start to feel like the Chinese water torture. So to me, the continuous use of the sounds kind of "ruin" the movie - used sparingly they could have added a unique touch, but used as the sole instrument to set the mood - they just become repetitive and annoying.

Kind of like the jazz drums in Birdman. They would've added a mood if used in a few scenes, but when used throughout almost the entire movie, it just became a headache inducing annoyance which helped the entire film seem annoying. Subjectively speaking, of course.

The 2013 version of The Great Gatsby was the first movie that I thought of when I read the title of this thread. I liked the movie, but I hated the music. I'll probably never watch the movie again just because of the music. It didn't fit with the "feel" of the movie at all.

On the other hand, the first movie that I thought of whose music fit the movie perfectly was Ghost. I can listen to the soundtrack and be instantly transported into the right part of the movie in my mind.

Totally off-topic, but kind of synchronisitc... I recently watched the Phil Spector movie (starring Al Pacino) and in it Spector says he lied about the run time of the Righteous Brothers "Unchained Melody" because a song that long (however long it is) would never sell or make it to the Top 10 (or some such...). So the song became a hit because Spector lied about it's actual length - which would have disqualified it from even being played if he'd told the truth. I have no idea if any of that is true, but it's said by Pacino as Spector in the film.

"Unchained Melody" is, of course, the song in Ghost.

I don't know if that's true or not, but there have been some very long songs that have been big hits. The first one that comes to mind is Don McLean's "American Pie", which is about 8-1/2 minutes long.

Perhaps at the time Unchained Melody was made (Righteous Bros version: 1965) maybe record labels wouldn't produce songs that long (3:36 minutes) or maybe radio stations wouldn't play them?
Don't remember if it was explained in the Phil Spector movie beyond his mentioning how he lied about the run time, and if he hadn't, the song never would've become a hit.
But it's just a coincidence that that song was mentioned in a movie I just saw.
P.S. (American Pie came out in 1971).

Weirdly enough, I thought the combination of outer space and non-diegetic music was handled much better in Interstellar, though I thought the film in general was considerably lacking.

That's a very interesting idea. I like the music because it's of its time, but it would be a worthwhile experiment.

This reminds me of the different scores made for Nosferatu, as there's a version with a synthesized score and the more traditional one by James Bernard, the Hammer composer. The latter is great, but you could argue that a more faithful direction would be to use something more like what would have been played during the film on its release – apparently there would have been someone at the piano doing it in those days.

I'd like to hear what Henry Jackman would have done with the X-Men films post First Class, because he's brilliant.

I agree. I thought the soundtrack to Interstellar fit the film quite well.

I'm pretty sure there have been other threads on this subject, but anyway...I've never been one to take notice of a musical score in a non-musical movie, but off the top of head, these are a few movies where the musical score really stood out for me:

Love Story

Anatomy of a Murder

Sweet Smell of Success

Driving Miss Daisy

Star Wars

Superman (1978)

The Road to Perdition

The Sting

Romeo and Juliet (1968)

The Graduate

Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005)

Titanic

Goodfellas

Oh, and just about any Woody Allen film...Woody has flawless taste in music.

Same here.

On the other hand, whenever I see a film, the score stands out.

Good call on Road to Perdition which has one of my all time favorite pieces of music.

I mentioned this in the "disturbing scores" discussion: Mica Levi's work on Jackie (2016) is my favorite thing about the movie (which is beautiful, btw) and it's an odd example in that it's both unexpected and very fitting. If you were to listen to it out of context you'd imagine it's from a horror movie, but while onscreen it adds to the dream like quality. Jarring compositions that add melancholy and help to immerse oneself in the lead's mindset. You feel just as adrift as she does when her fairy tale life is suddenly gone.