The Best Music in Film

John McNaughton

S&S: What is your favourite film soundtrack music and why do you like it so much?
"My choice for favourite film soundtrack music is Ennio Morricone's score for Sergio Leone's Once upon a time in America (1983). It has stayed with me since I first saw the film by which I mean the so-called long version and not the cut down studio version, which was unfortunately the first version to be released. The movie is about a man, David "Noodles" Aaronson, haunted by the past, who returns to his old neighbourhood after a thirty-five year exile. The story is told in flashback and is sometimes difficult to follow but Morricone's use of thematic and harmonic repetition functions to connect the narrative and make emotionally clear that which may be intellectually confusing. As "Noodles" is haunted by the past so are we haunted by Morricone's music, which so beautifully evokes the past. Of special note is the cue, "Cockeye's song," played on the Pan Flute by Gheorghe Zamfir. The beautiful melody conveyed by the unique tonal quality of the Pan Flute transports us into "Noodles'" heart, so haunted by memory and loss."
S&S: In what ways does music best enhance a film?
"Music best enhances a film by focusing emotion. It can enhance in other more mechanical ways such as setting pace or creating tension but it is the emotional quality of music which best enhances a film. Music can reach an audience emotionally beyond the ability of picture and sound. As an example I think of Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976). A yellow cab drives down a street in Times Square; we see the driver, people on the street. Now add the jazz melody composed by Bernard Herrmann and played by Tom Scott on the alto saxophone and the scene is transformed. The music gives the scene emotional focus, it tells us what to feel."
S&S: What is the most effective sequence of music in your own films?
"I think the most effective sequence of music in my films is George S. Clinton's main title music for Wild Things (1998). Pictorially the sequence starts in the swamp. An alligator rises to the surface, frightened birds take wing and we follow them out of the swamp to the first signs of civilization then beyond through the sub-divisions on to the skyscrapers of Miami and finally to the green playing fields of Blue Bay High School where our story begins. The intellectual conceit of the sequence is that we are tracing the path of life from the primeval swamp onto land and ultimately to modern civilized humans. The hook being that the humans in our story are operating from the reptile portion of their brains. We can't know this yet since we have yet to meet our characters, but the music sets it up emotionally. George's music is swampy, it seems to slither us along on our journey, never letting us forget where we came from, neither literally nor metaphorically. It speaks to us emotionally, letting us know by the time we arrive on the ground at Blue Bay High that we're still very much connected to our distant relatives in the swamp where each creature preys upon another."
Last Updated: 29 Sep 2008