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The Best Music in Film
Jonathan Kaplan
(The Accused, ER)
- S&S: What is your favourite film soundtrack music and why do you like it so much?
- "To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) for three reasons: melody, melody, melody."
- S&S: What is the most effective sequence of music in your own films?
- "When we were auditioning for the role of Sarah Tobias in The Accused (1988), every actress that read asked how the gang rape would be shot. Everyone, that is, except Jodie Foster. She wasn't worried about the graphically written scene. What concerned her was the action that led up to it: “Do I really have to dance?” I told her that she did, and that she could pick any recent hit she liked. She chose Prince's 'Kiss', and in the fall of 1987 we shot the gruelling sequence for five days with that song ringing in our ears. Ten months later as we were about to start the final mix producer Stanley Jaffe received word that “his Purpleness” refused to allow his minimalist masterpiece to be used to underscore a rape scene. It was at this moment that composer Brad Fiedel unveiled a song he had secretly written for this eventuality: “I had this in my hip pocket just in case”. And thus what had been two distinct pieces of music, Prince's song overlaid by a cue from Brad's score, became one cohesive piece of movie music. The seamless transition from original pop tune to orchestral underscore - from objective jukebox source to subjective musical statement - slowly shifts the point of view within the sequence so that what starts as a seemingly harmless bar room flirtation ends as a brutal assault. When it's over, you're hard pressed to remember the precise moment when it all changed. When did playful rowdiness become vicious cruelty? It happened right before your eyes...and ears."