Here’s a thread about silver screen musical epiphanies: pieces of music or artists that we have discovered thanks to their appearance on TV or cinema soundtracks. Discoveries which have then perhaps led to fruitful foraging into the back catalogues of the artists or composers involved. Or explorations of unexpected rabbit holes.(You know me! “More rabbit than Sainsbury’s”).
All music styles welcome! From a Scottish folk song to a Wagnerian aria. From a 1960s reggae single by the Congos to a string quartet by Hayden. From a rare cut by Tom Jobim to one of Hildegard von Bingen’s B sides. All songs considered.
I’m going to kick off with a song from a film that many of you have probably seen: Living. We finally watched it yesterday evening thanks to Netflix. Warmly recommended. Bill Nighy is superb as is the screenplay by Nobel Laureate, Kazuo Ishiguro.
A beautiful, haunting Scottish ballad, The Rowan Tree, plays an important role in the story. There’s a splendid version of it during the credits. I Googled. That was sung by the wonderful Lisa Knapp.
But my googling then hit gold. An interview with Ishiguro from the Sunday Post (see comments) where he talks about his long relationship with the song, His wife is Scottish and they used to play it together when they first met. Kazuo had heard Nighy sing Wild Mountain Thyme in another superb film, Their Finest, which gave him the idea to use a folk song in this film.
The article also reveals that the great novelist was once, briefly a grousebeater at Abergeldie Castle!
Please share some of your soundtrack discoveries with us!
Pedro Almodóvar, Sofia Coppolla, Edgar Wright, Andrea Arnold, Martin Scorsese: there are certainly a lot of directors with magnificent record collections.
Here’s that excellent Sunday Post article.
https://www.sundaypost.com/fp/ishiguros-rowan-tree/
And Lisa Knapp singing The Rowan Tree.
What a fine singer she is!
Ishiguro has written lyrics, with music by her husband Jim Tomlinson, for UK-based American jazz singer Stacey Kent. From earlier this year there’s “The Summer We Crossed Europe In The Rain (The Kazuo Ishiguro / Jim Tomlinson Songbook)”.
This is a song of theirs that I like from a previous album “Songs From Other Places”.
Excellent choice, @Mike_H. Stacey is a superb singer (in both French and English.)
Not heard that song before. Jim has done a great job with the music for the very witty lyrics
I’d say that music as important to Ishiguro as it is to Nick Hornby!
One major inspiration for this came from @Diffugere_neves.
Do you remember back in August when @gary owned the Afterword thanks to his “Euphoric moments in Rock”. What a thread that was!
Anyway, Díffugere posted a wonderful scene from The Shawshank Redemption which featured the Canzonetta sull’aria” from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Le nozze di Figaro”.
Anyway, that got me thinking about the use of unexpected or anachronistic pieces of music in films and TV programmes.
What an exquisite composition! I’ll spare you all those unwashed, grubby, Shawshanks convicts.¨
Here are the fragrant Dame Kiri and the gorgeous Mirella Freni.
What a performance!
There’s a great YT comment: “I don’t think there has ever been a more shallow conversation expressed more beautifully than this. I weep at his perfection”.
My several daughters discovered the Queen of the Night’s famous aria, from The Magic Flute, via Barbie: Mermaidia in which it was sung to great effect by Bibble, a small furry thing. For them, the early Barbie films were a rich repository of classical tunes: Barbie: Rapunzel featured Dvorak’s New World Symphony; there were a couple which explicitly lifted Tchaikovsky ballet music (Swan Lake, Nutcracker). The latter, Barbie: Nutcracker, featured all the major dance tunes, but also (to me) unknown some unknown gems, one of which is the passage entitled The Forest of Fir Trees in Winter:
As with much romantic orchestral music, it gets a bit much (in my view) and outstays its welcome, but the opening melody is sublime. Always made me stop what I was doing and go watch the film for a moment.
The shallow conversation: the Countess and Susanna hatching a plot to catch out the Count in his infidelity “meet me in the wood…”, etc. in the film, Red muses how he’d like to think it was something so lofty and ethereal it couldn’t be put into words. Of course, in terms of plots to catch out a bigwig, that was a large part of Dufrayn’s life in prison.
I had dismissed Sonic Youth as absolute tools and faux arty trust fund tuneless guitar molesters based on everything I’d seen or read of them. Truth was that I had skilfully avoided their music based on the above prejudices. As a result I had no idea who this was when I saw it in the cinema. I was a fan of Hal Hartley’s films that, according to my girlfriend at the time just had people who dressed like me, talked like me, featured my kind of music and this one even featured a leading character called Bill (my real name). This song opened my eyes to the possibility that there was “good”, Sonic Youth to be discovered. The dance routine is kookily entertaining too.
Superb start to the thread, @Bamber. That’s a cracking dance routine.
It makes me think of this classic scene ( much loved by several denizens of the AW)
And because it’s late on Friday evening, and because I can, I’m going wildly off-piste.
Here are Jungle!
Can’t help but think of Uma Thurman and John Travolta after watching that dance!
I had to check what John and Uma were dancing to, @Diffugere_Neves
You never can tell by Chuck Berry .
Jean Luc Godard was a major influence on Quentin Tarantino. That scene was directly influenced by the Madison dance scene. Well spotted Diffugere.
Back in the days before TOTP and MTV, many would discover new favourite artists at their local fleapit.
Fritz Lang’s film, The Blue Gardenia, featured this cameo by Nat King Cole who was in fine form.
The song then provides an important clue in a murder investigation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Gardenia
And when Bond visited a bar in Dr No, the audience were treated to a rousing version of Jump up by Byron Lee and the Dragonaires.
Foolishly dismissed by some as aa “hotel band”, Byron Lee and the Dragonnaires were a hotel band, but in Jamaica playing regularly to wealthy tourists was a great gig for a jobbing musician. They were able to recruit the best.
Here’e their version of the the title track From Russia With Love.
That’s a smooth, smoochy beauty @Alias.
Throughout the years those Jamaicans did a surprising number of 007 cover versions.
This list certainly surprised me:
Joe Boyd’s excellent new book And the Roots of Rhythm Remain has a soundtrack related story about the sound-systems in Jamaica: “When Duke Reid asked Alton Ellis for a novelty dance song, Ellis responded with ‘Let’s Do the Rock Steady’, inspired, as sound-system regulars knew, by how ‘Busby’ and his gang, always on guard against ratchet-knife attacks by rivals, would sway to the music without lifting their feet. Busby enjoyed his notoriety; he asked Derrick Morgan to make a song about him, and Morgan complied with Rudie Don’t Fear’. Youths in the crowd would shout and smash bottles when the song reached the line ‘strong like lion, we are iron’, and Busby liked it so much he would make he DJ drop he needle on that line again and again. Others were not so happy; Busby was killed soon after the record’s release. Into the gangster vacuum came ‘Johnny Buzz’ (in homage to the departed Busby)’ who inspired The Slickers rocksteady classic ‘Johnny Too Bad’ immortalised on the soundtrack of ‘The Harder They Come’.”
Thanks @Alias. That is a pretty remarkable story.
The tale of Busby led me to this wonderfully detailed article about the rock steady scene.
https://trackingangle.com/features/starting-a-jamaican-music-collection-part-2a-rock-steady-the-singers
That will keep me busy all day.
The Harder they Come is probably the greatest ever reggae film soundtrack.
I can’t think of any others.
Film maker Don Letts could…
https://dmy.co/10-best/the-10-best-reggae-film-soundtracks-according-to-don-letts
Have any of you got suggestions for the best reggae OSTs?
I have to bow to Don Letts’ superior knowledge. I have only seen four of those, and those four would be my list! The Harder They Come is definitely numder one.
Chris Blackwell attempted to repeat what THTC did for reggae for Washington DC GoGo musicwith the film Go To Go. He was unsuccessful, but it did have a great soundtrack.
Babylon O.S.T.
Aswad – Warrior Charge
Thanks @Mike_H. Excellent choice!
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080406/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_8_tt_8_nm_0_in_0_q_babylon
Here are the BFI’s favourite reggae films.
https://www.bfi.org.uk/lists/10-great-reggae-films
The Harder they Come was the first major feature film to be produced in Jamaica, It also did a great deal to spread the popularity of reggae,
Coincidentally, I got an email today from the Bertha Doc House cinema in London. They will be screening a new film about UK reggae band Cimarons. I’m not sure that I will be able to make it, so I hope BFI will screen it.
Details of the film and nationwide screenings here:
https://www.harderthantherock.com
I’ll keep my eye open for that one @Alias.
Thanks for the tip.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt29301222/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_3_nm_3_in_0_q_harder%2520tahn%2520the%2520rock
I can well imagine that it’s the kind of film that might do well on the festival circuit.
And then hopefully a local distributor will take a chance on the film. Local audiences react positively. The word spreads on the social media grapevine. And suddenly a new film is a hit
And as I’m rather partial to some go go, I’m delighted to see that the soundtrack album is on Spotify, @Alias.
Chrís Blackwell had something of a Midas touch so it’s surprising that he came so very unstuck with this movie.
Could the casting have something to do with it?
It would have been a mistake to cast Samuel L Jackson in Watership Down. In the same way, when you’re making a film about a very raw, vital, streetwise, funky music scene, Art Garfunkel is not the most promising of choices as one of the lead characters.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091138/fullcredits/?ref_=tt_cl_sm
The concert scenes look amazing,
What a party band! Almost too big for the Tiny Dask!
Definitely a band best seen live with an enthusiastic audience.
The soundtrack to 1980s noir The Big Easy was also released on Island. It contains a great mix of R’n’B, soul, funk, gospel, cajun and zydeco. Beausoleil’s Zydeco Gris Gris is one of the many outstanding tracks:
Damn right @Alias. It’s a humdinger of a soundtrack and an extremely enjoyable movie.
Several NOLA luminaries such as the Neville Brothers make an appearance. Here they are performing a fine song from the movie written by Dennis Quaid.
The chemistry between Ellen Barkin and Dennis Quaid is scorchio.
In some cases the release of the soundtrack LP or EP for a film was as big an event as the film itself. American Graffiti comes to mind. The double album was a splendid introduction to cruising music of the 1950s. Sometimes the music outlived the film; Magical Mystery Tour and Pink Floyd’s Obscured by Clouds.
I began to wonder who had released the first soundtrack album. The Beatles? Sinatra?
According to the wiki entry it was much earlier:
“A soundtrack album is any album that incorporates music directly recorded from the soundtrack of a particular feature film or television show.[1] The first such album to be commercially released was Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the soundtrack to the film of the same name, in 1938.[2] The first soundtrack album of a film’s orchestral score was that for Alexander Korda’s 1942 film Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book, composed by Miklós Rózsa.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundtrack_album#:~:text=A%20soundtrack%20album%20is%20any,the%20same%20name%2C%20in%201938.
This is interesting too:
“In 1908, Camille Saint-Saëns composed the first music specifically for use in a motion picture (L’assasinat du duc de Guise), and releasing recordings of songs used in films became prevalent in the 1930s. Henry Mancini, who won an Emmy Award and two Grammys for his soundtrack to Peter Gunn, was the first composer to have a widespread hit with a song from a soundtrack.”
Here’s an excellent, enjoyable list of the 40 Greatest Soundtracks from The Independent,
complete with some illuminating comments. I didn’t know Sufjan Stevens had written songs for Call me by your name.
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/best-movie-soundtracks-midnight-cowboy-goodfellas-b2620784.html
Most of these films had mega budgets for the music. James Gunn won’t say which songs it was, but I know that the director of the Guardians of the Galaxy, paid some serious money for permission to use some of the songs in the film. What a fantastic job he did for all three films.
So many new discoveries. Like The Raspberries!
And now in context. He only used a snippet.
But now, what about the poor indie director who can afford only one song? Which is it to be?
Can less be more?
At least now you can look up on the Internet for the music used in a film, before you had to sit through the whole credits ( accountants, catering, etc) for the film before you got to the music credits.
Very annoying as often the music is integral to the feel of the film. Saw ‘Lee’ on Thursday and having sat through the credits (shedloads) I was pleased to see the musicians listed too.
Always vexing when one sat through the credits to find a piece of music which was, ultimately, not credited.
It’s always annoyed me that the music credits come right at the end. After even whoever was in charge of the catering.
I finally got round to looking up Lee on IMDB, @hubert rawlinson.
The music was composed by Frenchman, Alexandre Desplat who has a very impressive track record.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0006035/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cr
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0006035/bio/?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm
He has won many awards, not least for
The Grand Budapest Hotel’
and The Shape of Water.
Several friends who’ve seen it praised Lee warmly. I missed because I chose Beetlejuice Beetlejuice that Sunday. And very wonderful it was too.
Here’s a vey memorable soundtrack moment from the first film.
The use of Macarthur Park in the new film is magnificent.
I did notice that the pianist was one David Arch who must be Dave Arch from strictly, trading under his Sunday name.
I wanted to use Jump in the Line for our wedding ceremony, my wife would walk down the stairs to some Mozart and when she reached the floor it would change to Jump in the Line. I thought it a great idea alas my wife wouldn’t go for it.
Being something of a forgetful old Hector these days, there are only a few occasions I can immediately call to mind when I thought “Oooh, what is that piece of music?”. In no especial order…
The first was watching the 1940 version of A Picture of Dorian Gray (in Paris, feeling cool and with it) when we see our (anti)hero playing a Chopin prelude. Thing is, I knew it was a Chopin prelude, just couldn’t recall which one: 24 in D minor, it seems.
Then there was an arty French movie (whose title escapes me) which was screened on BBC2 on a Friday night (when one could watch slightly risqué films … possibility of some glimpse of naked flesh… oh, the corruption! … ) which featured Granados’s Danza Española #2, entitled Oriental. It’s a piano piece, but one of my favourite versions is an arrangement for two guitars (or, perhaps, it’s a guitar duet which was arranged for piano…):
Thirdly, the use of the slow second movement of Beethoven’s 5th Piano Concerto in Picnic at Hanging Rock. The film is rich in music (Peter Weir obviously something of a music fan: loads of tunes in this one and of course he basically introduced the entire world to the catchy tune by Boccherini used at the end of Master and Commander). Anyway, for a certain limpid stillness you need to hand it to LvB…
Finally, the use of J.S. Bach’s aria Erbarme Dich (from the St. Matthew Passion) accompanying the opening credits (and final scene with the little lad, the tree and the sparkling water) for Andrei Tarkovsky’s film The Sacrifice. Background artwork by an up-and-coming talent, Leonardo da Vinci (Adoration of the Magi). Everyone emotionally jangled before the show started…
That guitar duet is wonderful. Thanks for posting.
Could this be the Friday night, French movie you mentioned, Diffugere Neves??
You flatter me… I’m thinking back to the early/mid 1980s!
My starting point for this thread was pieces of music from films that we remember vividly.
I’d now like to mention a film that I remember very vividly where I don’t remember much at all about the music; Celine Sciamma’s magnificent Portrait de la jeune fille en feu. (Portrait of a lady on fire.)
I soon found out why. There was very little music in the film..
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_a_Lady_on_Fire#:~:text=Portrait%20of%20a%20Lady%20on%20Fire%20(French%3A%20Portrait%20de%20la,No%C3%A9mie%20Merlant%20and%20Ad%C3%A8le%20Haenel.
But when there was, you certainly noticed it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1ujQY2vvwA
A classic example of a low-budgt film showing how less can be more..
This stupendous Indian rock and roll tune, Jaan Pehechan Ho, appears in the opening credits of the film Ghost World. Not a song you would forget in a hurry.
Aimee Mann’s stupendous song of the same name was, like the film, inspired by the Daniel Clowes graphic novel.
But does not, I now realise, appear in the film.
To paraphrase Rod Stewart: Every soundtrack tells a story, don’t it?
Last week, our film club at Bio Reflexen screened Goodbye Julia from Sudan. It’s the only Sudanese film that’s ever been invited to Cannes and very good it is too.
Set in Khartoun in 2010, the plot deals with the friendship that develops between Muna, a middle class, Moslem housewife who was once a famous singer, and Julia, the young Christian woman from South Sudan who she employs as a home help.
In one scene, they visit Julia’s church together. Muna has never been in a church before and is rather moved. The pastor recognises her and asks her if she would like to sing a song with the choir.
Eiman Yousif who plays Muna has a beautiful voice and it’s a wonderful scene.
But It was not easy to find on YTube. It involved all kinds of shenanigans such as copying and pasting text in Arabic! Well worth it!
Here is Eiman again. She exudes such joy in her singing.
After the film was completed, the political situation in Sudan became very turbulent and Eiman and her family had to flee the country and now live as refugees in Cairo. There are one million Sudanese refugees in Egypt!
Due to her refugee status, she cannot leave the country and attend all the many international film festivals she has been invited to.
You’ll notice that all the comments are in Arabic. Fascinating to press the Translate button and enter a different world.
If you go onto Spotify, you will easily find the soundtracks of the big Hollywood blockbusters.
But for smaller, independent films, you will often find that somebody has created a home-made playlist. There’s short one for Julia Goodbye.
I was quite delighted to discover that.
This beautiful song ends the film. There are subtitles . It’s written by Mazin Hamid who was the musical director for the film.
I was already an Aimee Mann fan when this came out, but this sent me down a very enjoyable Harry Nilsson rabbit hole. It contains elements from three Harry songs, fact fans…
Excellent choice @TrypF. I am also a fan of Ms Mann.
I see that the track first appeared on a Nilsson tribute album
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_the_Love_of_Harry:_Everybody_Sings_Nilsson
Several indie bands have done some very decent soundtrack work. Often for movies that very few of us have ever seen.
Like Tindersticks OST for Nenette et Boni.
And Obscured by Clouds by the Floyd.
And then Stuart Murdoch from Belle and Sebastian who made a film Got help the Girl. Not seen that either!
Oddly enough I have two of those CDs; the Tindersticks and the Belle and Sebastian, both picked up for a Euro each in the local charity shop. The Tindersticks is almost all instrumental and has a bonus disc of extra material called Mark’s Moods. All of it is lovely late night mood music to stick on in the background. There’s obviously a hipster art house cinema fan in the neighbourhood.
Have you seen “Strange Darling” yet? It’s terrific, but you’re better seeing it without any prior knowledge of the story, so I’ll leave it there.
The soundtrack is by someone I’d never heard of before called Z Berg, and there isn’t a weak track on it. My favourite though is probably this – haunting and beautiful on it’s own, doubly so in the context of the movie:
Smashing tune: Maybe a little Twin Peaksy?
I haven’t see the film yet. But thanks for the tip about not knowing anything beforehand,
@KDH. It all sounds very promising.
These days, there is for more scope for the DIY creators of film music.
The great master in this field is John Carpenter who has produced such wonderfully memorable scores.
Deleted comment.
French film director, Claire Denis, was so pleased about the Nenette and Boni soundtrack album @Bamber that she got Tindersticks to do the scores for six more of her films.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tindersticks
“As well as their thirteen regular studio albums, the band has composed and recorded the music for seven films by the French director Claire Denis: Nénette et Boni, Trouble Every Day, The Intruder, 35 Shots of Rum, White Material, Les Salauds, High Life and Stars at Noon.”
Dickon Hinchcliffe went on to have quite a career in film music.
“Dickon Hinchliffe has composed film music since 2002, and has been active as a full-time composer in this field since his departure from Tindersticks. Among his work are the soundtracks to Niall Johnson’s Keeping Mum (2005), Joel Hopkins’ Last Chance Harvey (2008), Sophie Barthes’ Cold Souls (2009), James Marsh’s Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1980 (2009), Project Nim (2011), and Shadow Dancer; and Debra Granik’s Oscar-nominated film Winter’s Bone (2010), Lennon Naked (2010), Passion Play (2011), The Fields (2011), Rampart (2011), and Hit & Miss (2012), and more recently Locke (2013), Out of the Furnace (2013), series 3 of Peaky Blinders (2016), and Leave No Trace (2018).”
Leave no trace! Now there’s a very fine film.
I did a search on Spotify for “French soundtrack music” and they instantly knocked together a playlist for me.
Incroyable!
Almost too easy.!
Recently Bio Reflexen screened a stunning French children’s film: Sirocco and the Kingdom of the Winds. Imagine a breathtaking cross between Yellow Submarine and Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle. It was a treat for the eyes.
A treat for the ears too. Music features prominently in the story, not least because one of the central characters is a mysterious, charismatic opera singer, Selma, who lives lives in an airship up in the clouds, which has its own opera house where she gives performances.
Jazz singer, Celia Kameni, provides Selma’s singing voice and very charismatic she is too.
I can’t find a Sirocco clip but here’s Celia in fine form.
She’s an adventurous singer!
Here’s the OST of the film.
But don’t trust me! Go and see it with your kids or grandkids. I went by myself and pretended I was working!
And while we’re talking about French animated films, here’s a track from the OST of the wonderful Une Vie de Chat.
And the trailer. A wonderfully enjoyable movie which you really ought to see.
Tindersticks have done seven soundtracks for her but I know almost nothing about Claire Denis. Has anyone here seen one of her films?
She’s an interesting director who has had a long and very varied career.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claire_Denis
And was the first female director to be awarded the Stockholm Film Festival Lifetime Award.
https://mb.cision.com/Main/2444/9478587/169048.pdf
Here’s an interview with her. Sacre bleu! She is “formidable”!
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/jun/09/claire-denis-france-film-director-stars-at-noon-interview
An all time classic soundtrack Henri Mancini’s Pink Panther has unsurprisingly been covered many times. A couple of my favourites are Brazilian Waltel Blanco funky version:
and Colombia’s La33 with a brilliant mambo:
Two magnificent cover versions there @Alias. i suspect Mancini would have been very proud
No Space Age Bachelor Pad is complete without that Waltel Banco album!
And the La33 version is a revelation.
That gets me thinking, What are-the most successful Latin soundtrack albums?.
This short list is a good starting point.
https://tigresounds.com/culture/get-your-shazam-ready-five-of-our-favourite-latin-american-movie-soundtracks/
Who would not be fascinated by an hilarious cartoon about vampires in Havana?
Vampiros en la Habana!
La Buena Sangre Social Club!
The list also includes Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma which deserves all the praise it has received.
Here’s a piece about the work on the soundtrack.
https://www.billboard.com/music/latin/roma-music-supervisor-lynn-fainchtein-soundtrack-8490968/
It might be cheating, but my latin soundtrack is Our Latin Thing (Nuestra Cosa Latina). It’s a documentary about the Fania All Stars and Latinos in NYC. Fania All Stars are on top form and the good news is that the full movie is on YouTube.
Xmas came early this year! Thanks a lot for this @Alias.
I look forward to watching the whole thing.
And listening too.
I presume that you know that NPR’s Tiny Desk went latin for a whole month recently.
I discovered that when I stumbled across this very talented lass from Spain.
Here’s another one for your Christmas list, Tropicalia. No explanation needed really.
https://www.docnrollfestival.com/docn-roll-tv/tropicalia/
It’s worth looking through the rest of the Doc ‘n’ Roll Festival’s programme. There are films about Sun Ra, Miriam Makeba, Afro Cuba, Syl Johnson and many more. All available to rent and stream, certainly in the UK, hopefully in Sweden too.
Yes indeed, @Alias. That Tropicalia film is definitely on my Xmas list.
I browsed through their catalogue and was very impressed by the range of music styles they cover. and by all the events and special screenings they organise all over the country. It’s very inspiring.
Maybe I’ll write to them and see if they’d be interested in coming to present a couple of their films at Bio Reflexen! Definitely worth making contact with them!
This may be the same film, it is difficult to tell, but this is a great Tropicalia documentary.
Yes @Alias. I checked the name of the director: Marcelo Machado.
It’s the same film.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1497880/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_7_nm_1_in_0_q_Tropicalia
But here we get the whole thig free on YT. So I’m very glad you mentioned it!
NPR have excellent coverage of Latin music and culture. There have been several superb Tiny Desk sessions featuring artists from Colombia, Brazil, Spain etc.
Seu Jorge from Brazil, for example. You may know him from the soundtrack to The Life Aquatic.
And NPR also know their Latin cinema. Here is a list of favourite soundtracks.
https://www.npr.org/sections/altlatino/2015/11/05/454873154/de-pel-cula-the-best-latin-film-soundtracks-ever
You probably all know Black Orpheus.
But has anyone heard of the Argentinian scifi film, The Man Facing Southwards from 1986?
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091214/?
ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_3_nm_0_in_0_q_hombre%2520mirando%2520
The suggestive music by Pedro Aznar is excellent. It reminds me of the Floyd or Sigur Ros.
This.
Belleville Rendezvous.
Completely agree @Mike_H. A wonderful film.
The music is by Benoit Charest, a new name for me. The title song was nominated for an Oscar for best song. Here it is performed by French pop star M.
The director was Sylvain Chomet. He also directed the gloriously bittersweet The Illusionist which I can warmly recommend.
Another film by Chomet. I’ve not seen or even heard about this one but it looks rather promising
Two of my favourite movie soundtracks.
Jerry Goldsmith – Chinatown
.
Ennio Morricone – Once Upon A Time In The West
Miles Davis’ soundtrack to “ascenseur pour l’échafaud”.
.
Elmer Bernstein’s soundtrack to “the man with the golden arm”
Mojo did a film score coverdisc long ago.
On it:
Brother On The Run (Opening) – Johnny Pate & Adam Wade
God’s Children – The Kinks
Something’s Cookin’ – Quincy Jones
Dark Days – DJ Shadow
Get Carter – Roy Budd
Frankie Machine – Elmer Bernstein
You Cut Up The Clothes – Mrs Washington & Co
Time Is Tight – Booker T & The MG’s
Midnight Cowboy – John Barry
Bedazzled – Peter Cook & Dudley Moore
Arabesque – Henry Mancini
Watermelon Man – Mongo Santamaria
Linus And Lucy – Vince Guaraldi
The Taking Of Pelham 123 – David Shire
Truck Turner – Isaac Hayes
Death Line – Will Malone
A Fistful Of Dollars – Ennio Morricone
Johnny Too Bad – The Slickers
God Moving Over The Face Of The Water – Moby
Let It Be – Nick Cave
Not sure what movies half of these are from and can’t be arsed to hunt out the CD to find out.
Thanks for this wonderfully varied list @Mike_H. All kinds of goodies from a large variety of different films. I spent a very enjoyable hour researching all the tunes and the movies that they came from.
Somebody else had previously done a very thorough and interesting job:
https://www.discogs.com/release/979016-Various-The-Score
But I enjoyed browsing on IMDB to find out when the films had been released, who had directed them etc.
This was Mojo at its eclectic best!
Here’s my breakdown of the films that the tracks came from:
Brother On The Run (Opening) – Johnny Pate & Adam Wade
Brother on the Run (1973) – IMDb
God’s Children – The Kinks
Percy (1970)
God’s Children (The Kinks song) – Wikipedia
Percy (1971) – IMDb
Something’s Cookin’ – Quincy Jones
The Italian Job (1969) – IMDb
Dark Days – DJ Shadow
Dark Days (2000) – IMDb
Get Carter – Roy Budd
Get Carter (1971) – IMDb
Frankie Machine – Elmer Bernstein
The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) – IMDb
You Cut Up The Clothes – Mrs Washington & Co
Don’t Play Us Cheap (1972) – IMDb
Time Is Tight – Booker T & The MG’s
Not sure
Midnight Cowboy – John Barry
Midnight Cowboy (1969) – IMDb
Bedazzled – Peter Cook & Dudley Moore
Bedazzled (1967) – IMDb
Arabesque – Henry Mancini
Arabesque (1966) – IMDb
Watermelon Man – Mongo Santamaria
A tune with a fascinating genesis.
Watermelon Man (composition) – Wikipedia
Linus And Lucy – Vince Guaraldi
A Charlie Brown Christmas (TV Movie 1965) – IMDb
The Taking Of Pelham 123 – David Shire
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) – IMDb
Truck Turner – Isaac Hayes
Truck Turner (1974) – IMDb
Death Line – Will Malone
Death Line (1972) – IMDb
A Fistful Of Dollars – Ennio Morricone
A Fistful of Dollars (1964) – IMDb
Johnny Too Bad – The Slickers
The Harder They Come (1972) – IMDb
God Moving Over The Face Of The Water – Moby
Heat (1995) – IMDb
God Moving Over the Face of the Waters, Moby (laphil.com)
Let It Be – Nick Cave
I Am Sam (2001) – IMDb
Any playlist that combines Vince Guaraldi, Isaac Hayes, Roy Budd, Henry Mancini and Drimble Wedge and the Vegetation gets my vote!
I confess! I’m bedazzled!
Time is Tight is the title music for 1968 American film”Uptight”, directed by Jules Dassin. Soundtrack by Booker T Jones.
I’ve never seen it. The movie soundtrack version is longer than the single re-recording.
Thanks @Mike_H, I wasn’t quite certain,
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063748/?ref_=nm_flmg_job_1_cred_t_5
That Brother on the Run track is superb.
It led me eventually to this stupendous playlist of 70s funk.
So many fab tracks.
The Voices of East Harlem – Wanted Dead or Alive
Tina Turner sings Led Zep!
Once you start digging around the “home-made” playlists on Spotify, you can really hit gold.
Great Blaxploitation soundtracks is an extensive thread on its own!
Sounds good to me! If you kick it off, @Alias, I will be very happy to contribute.
An enthusiast in 2024 on Spotify can produce compilations that their predecessors who were compiling LPs for release could only dream of. No need to negotiate the the rights for each track. We can use whatever we like if it’s on Spotify.
Curtis Mayfield’s “Superfly” soundtrack.
Another solid gold soundtrack. Thanks @Mike_H.
Curtis Mayfield, Isaac Hayes, Roy Ayers, Bobby Womack, Johnny Pate….there were some formidable composers producing soundtracks back i the golden days of “Blaxploitation”.
This site mentions many of them:
https://theshfl.com/guide/Blaxploitation-Soundtracks
And now here’s a whole site devoted to Blaxploitation.
https://blaxploitation.com/st-intro.html
It’s a topic that definitely deserves its own thread.
That Blaxploitation site has a superb catalogue of vintage soundtracks in many different genres.
https://blaxploitation.com/allstrax.html
Seeing Pam Grier in those articles reminded me that she starred in Tarrantino’s blaxploitation homage Jackie Brown. It’s a Tarrantino movie, so you know it will have a cracking soundtrack. I avoided the Wolf Of Wall Street because the subject matter held no interest for me, until I saw a copy of the CD and discovered it had Jimmy Castor, Ahmad Jamal and Bo Diddley amongst other greats. The main song in Jackie Brown passed me by if I had ever heard it. It is another Thom Bell produced Philly soul classic.
The Delfonics – Didn’t I blow your Mind This Time.
That’s a great song.
First heard by me as Millie Jackson’s great live version, played by the great Alexis Korner (I think) on his BBC radio show, a long time ago.
This from ‘In The Mood for Love” suits my current passion for viola/violin playing
This article is an enjoyable dive into the significance of the tune for the film
https://takeonecinema.net/2019/a-deeper-understanding-in-the-mood-for-love-and-yumejis-theme/
All you contributors to this thread are really spoiling us all rotten.
This was a wonderful choice @salwarpe, not least because it was the end of spring term film for our film club a few months ago. I’d never seen it before and it is most certainly a film to see in a cinema with a big screen and a good sound system.
Seductive and overwhelming.
I’ve no idea what it all meant but I was spell-bound.
Thanks for the article
I am having great fun compiling a playlist from the music mentioned on this thread, so please keep your suggestions coming.
There’s a wonderful variety of different styles and a broad historical range. Hope you enjoy it!