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The Best Music in Film

Ronald Neame

(The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, The Horse's Mouth, The Poseidon Adventure)

S&S: What is your favourite film soundtrack music and why do you like it so much?

"After seventy-five years in film, it is difficult for me to narrow my favourite musical soundtrack down to one production. But since this is mandatory my choice is Peter Shafer's Amadeus (1984), directed by Milos Forman. It is a perfect combination, and the magical music from Mozart."

S&S: In what ways does music best enhance a film?

"Used correctly, music will enhance a film. It is a fourth dimension. It can add to the drama, the comedy, the story and the characters, but used badly it can be destructive. There is nothing worse than the wall to wall music, popular at one time in almost all Hollywood movies. If over used music becomes dull and ineffective. And let us not forget sometimes, just one instrument is more exciting than a large symphony orchestra. The perfect example, the zither in Carol Reed's The Third Man (1949). There are times when a film is remembered by a song, 'Raindrops keep falling on my head', from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), comes to mind, or 'Mrs Robinson' , from The Graduate (1967), and from a film I very much admire, Midnight Cowboy (1969), 'Every body's Talking At Me'."

S&S: What is the most effective sequence of music in your own films?

"One of my favourite films as a director was and still is The Horse's Mouth (1958), with Alec Guinness. Alec plays a talented eccentric artist, who is difficult, conniving, uncouth and disreputable. But he has a jauntiness that somehow endears you to him. The Horse's Mouth is a comedy and I wanted the music to reflect both Alec's character and that jauntiness. I made what may seem to be an odd choice. Instead of using a contemporary composer, I chose Sergei Prokofiev's 'Lieutenant Kije'. It works beautifully and if you ever see the new DVD of that film, I think you will agree. I feel it is the most effective sequence of music in any of my films."