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The Best Music in Film
Alan Parker
(Birdy, Evita)
- S&S: What is your favourite film soundtrack music and why do you like it so much?
- "In recent times I liked Clint Mansell's score for Requiem for a Dream (2000), which still hangs in my head. It's haunting and powerful as it subliminally tweaks at your nerve-ends - viscerally ratcheting up the emotional stakes from bar to bar and shot to shot."
- S&S: In what ways does music best enhance a film?
- "When music and images gel they can take the audience's brains to another plane emotionally and dramatically. Bad film music intrudes without complimenting the action. A great score gets under your skin, triggers your subconscious, enhances the drama and helps drive the emotional power train of the movie."
- S&S: What is the most effective sequence of music in your own films?
- "I always think that the greatest compliment to the music from your film is when they use it in another film's trailer. (As with Clint Mansell's music above, for instance, which was borrowed to flog Lord of the Rings, even though they had hours of their own music.) There is a Randy Edelman cue in my film Come See the Paradise (1990) called 'Fire in Brooklyn Theatre' that has been used for the trailers of at least a dozen other movies at last count. I even have to listen to it every weekend because it's also been pinched for the theme music of the Premiership Plus matches on Sky. My favourite music from my own films is Peter Gabriel's score for Birdy (1984) — still very modern and sampled all over the place."