Music renders a good film into a great one?

[Naphtali]

Excluding musicals, can music be so intertwined with screenplay that without its music, a great motion picture becomes mediocre? Or a mediocre-to-good motion picture becomes a great one because of its music?

Among motion pictures of this type, the three that come to my mind are:

1. Casablanca (1942) Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman.

2. The Third Man (1949) Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles.

3. Tom Jones (1963) Albert Finney, Susannah York, Hugh Griffith.

I'm confident there are others.

 

[byronic]

I think John Barry has turned many an average flick into a better than average one. It was he who was called in at the eleventh hour to rearrange Monty Normans score for the first Bond movie 'Dr No'. The story goes that the director, Terence Young heard Normans original score and said 'Oh lord, it's mining disaster music.' Barry rearranged, amongst other things, the main James Bond theme using elements of an earlier jazz tune of his called 'Bea's Knees', both the film and the theme went on to become smash hits, and the rest, as they say, is history.

 

[The Captain]

MAX STEINER

Max Steiner's scores for Casablanca, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, etc., are - to me - a perfect example of "Good to Great". Check out his bio; it's amazing!

 

[WH1]

Jaws is a classic example of music making the movie. It would have been a run of the mill shock movie without the music.

 

[Naphtali]

Jaws is a classic example of music making the movie. It would have been a run of the mill shock movie without the music.

Absolutely accurate. I have read the novel -- dull.

 

[dr greg]

2001

Say no more

 

[p51]

Dances with Wolves. A pretty good film made into an experience with the incredible music...

 

[Mike in Seattle]

And on the other side of the coin, there are movies that are completely ruined by an inappropriate soundtrack, or by the songs used. It can be the wrong songs, or it can be it's too loud and intrusive. It should highlight but not overshadow.

So few films these days are really scored - they just grab whatever song / singer is considered hot at the time and cram their latest song in, whether or not they fit the story or mood of the film.

 

[Sefton]

I don't think that a truely mediocre film can be saved by decent music. Many times I will only really remember the music and completely forget the images (or try to!) On the other hand a great film should be able to stand on its own without excessive or heavy-handed scoring (John Williams comes to mind).

A couple of films that come to mind for minimal use of music:

The WWII prison escape film by Robert Bresson titled "A Man Escaped". I believe that the only music is Mozart which is heard during the begining titles and then again over the final shot of the film. The ending of the film maintains a terrific tension without relying on any of the usual musical themes that we hear in typical prison escape films. Another wonderful film with minimal music is Andrei Tarkovsky's "Nostalgia". The music is small sections of Bach and I believe, female bulgarian sheperdess songs. Also there is the sounds of nature and lastly a bit of Beethoven's 9th (The Ode to Joy) thrown into the mix.

As for films where the music is an almost equal partner with the images I'd say any of the Fellini films scored by the great Nino Rota. I can't imagine a "La Dolce Vita" or "8 1/2" without the Rota music.

Still, I do enjoy a lot of old Hollywood films, even when the soundtrack insists on relentlessly reminding me how I'm to react to the images (John Ford westerns, Hitchcock thrillers, and of course the Universal horrors of the 1940s)

 

[byronic]

Good point- 'One of our aircraft is missing' has NO music soundtrack, yet it's still a rattling good movie.

 

[Naphtali]

Here are head scratchers. The 1950 Academy Awards for best musical scoring in non-musical went to "Sunset Boulevard." The award for best song went to "Mona Lisa" from "Captain Carey, U.S.A."

What wasn't nominated for awards in either category was Anton Karas' work in "The Third Man." Can anyone remember any music from "Sunset Boulevard?" While I enjoy Nat Cole's rendition of "Mona Lisa," Karas' "Harry Lime" theme sold 40 million copies to metamorphose a Viennese Rathskeller musician into a millionaire.

 

[Starius]

While not a vintage example by any means, I have always felt that the musical score by Basil Pouldouris for the Conan movies made those films far more watchable than they would have been without his score. I wrote many a paper in college while listening to those soundtracks in particular, as if the hand of Crom himself was helping me write about Buddhist Sherpas in Nepal for my cultural anthropology class.

On a more retro note, I think the musical score for the 1956 film The Forbidden Planet was a very unique soundtrack and surely the film wouldn't have nearly had such a mysterious otherworldly quality if they had gone with more traditional adventure-esque music.

 

[Sefton]

Basil Pouldouris music for the film Conan is wonderful. I love the spoken word intro on the album. That is definitely one film that benefited from the music.

 

[nola89]

I am obsessed with the timbres used to push the storyline of The Shining. The use of Béla Bartók's Music For Strings, Percussion and Celesta is perfect.

The thing that is most unique is that certain sounds created during scenes mimic that of the score, such as the rolling of Danny's tricycle on the wood floor and then rolling on the carpet. The contrast in sound between the wood and the carpet in such intervals evokes the sounds of the swelling contrabass in Bartók's composition.

Brilliant.

The Dark Knight also is a good example. The main theme is one melodic minor 3rd. Sometimes simplicity is everything.

 

[lenj]

Movie Music

For me Nino Rota - did the music for all those Fellini films and of course the Godfather.

lenj

 

[Doh!]

Psycho and Sweet Smell of Success would probably still be very good movies, but their scores push them over the top into classics.

 

[Laura Chase]

I think that Night of the Hunter is one of those movies where the music at the very centre of the plot, it's essential for making the movie what it is, namely an extraordinary piece of ciema.

It's simply haunting. Robert Mitchum has an amazing voice, he sounds so much like Johnny Cash. Lillian Gish is in it also.

Two clips demonstrating my point:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N9LnkKQfuc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7B7A_dawI8

 

[Naphtali]

Shouldn't omit Korngold's score for "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1938, Errol Flynn, Olivia DeHaviland).

 

[Nighthawk]

To name a few:

The Great Escape (1963). Music by Elmer Bernstein.

The Graduate (1967). Music by Simon and Garfunkel.

Planet of the Apes (1968). Music by Jerry Goldsmith.

 

[Hondo]

Director David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia and The Bridge on the River Kwai, good if not great sound track.