The music maketh the film?
Friday, June 27th, 2008I’ve always liked film soundtracks - they do afterall, combine two of my very favourite things together. I have a mental list of favourite soundtrack moments which has been pretty fixed for quite some time. It isn’t very original and contains all the predictable films you might expect:
- Mean Streets
- Saturday Night Fever
- Trainspotting
- Vertigo
- Scorpio Rising
- Manhattan
- Shadows
- Reservoir Dogs
- The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
etc. etc. etc.
However, just this past week I’ve been taken by surprise at the cinema and have been forced to add two more to the list:
Lift to the Scaffold /Ascenseur pour l’échafaud
(Louise Malle, 1958)
An excellent and stylish B&W 50s thriller best known for low-key naturalistic lighting and a make-up less Jeanne Moreau moodily wandering the wet Parisian streets. This was pretty good admittedly, but I was most pleased by Louis Malles decision to fully embrace 50s cool with an improvised Miles Davis score. Not that any of the reviews I’ve been able to find have bothered to mention this.
Killer of Sheep
(Charles Burnett, 1977)
Tagged the ‘greatest unknown film’ this brilliant depiction of ordinary Black American life from the 70s was in film purgatory for 30 years because the director never cleared the music rights. And it’s the music which makes this film for me - Dinah Washington, Earth Wind and Fire, Scott Joplin, Paul Robeson, Etta James and Rachmaninoff really lift those beautifully composed images off the screen. Typically, not one review I’ve read of the film has discussed the impact of the soundtrack.
Don’t any film critics listen to the music?



