The Best Music in Film

D. A. Pennebaker

(Don't Look Back, Monterey Pop, The War Room)

S&S: What is your favourite film soundtrack music and why do you like it so much?
"These are a few of my favourite tracks: (to be sung by Julie Andrews) I guess my favourite track for a proper movie was The Band Wagon (1953), with Fred Astaire, which I never get tired of, that and Michael Power's I Know Where I'm Going! (1945) But you know there was a radio show I once heard back in the mid sixties when everyone listened to WBAI. It was called 'Miss Macintosh My Darling' and it had an incredible track by Charles Ruas that was done entirely on a veraphone. I hope that's spelled right. You lined up a bunch of drinking glasses and filled them with different amounts of water then you ran your finger around the tops and out came a kind of haunting sound, which Ruas was able to make into a sound track. It was incredible. And then to get a little drama into the show every once in a while he would toss one of the glasses on the floor and, well you would have to hear it to really like it. I wish I had a copy now."
S&S: In what ways does music best enhance a film?
"When the music is right, really right for a film, or anything that's performed it gets you about two feet off the floor and the whole time you watch is like a spell cast on you by an angel, or a witch. Maybe a witchangel."
S&S: Which film either has music that you wished you'd written or is one you would like to rescore and why?
"When I listen to films I've worked on, Monterey Pop (1968), Down From the Mountain (2001), Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars (1982), and the recently released, Only the Strong Survive (2002), I don't think I'm hearing a sound track really. It' always just the music coming straight from the musician's soul, or wherever musicians get their music from."
Last Updated: 29 Sep 2008