Fight Club has a beautiful sequence at the end where a slow-motion disaster takes place to the music of Pixies “Where is my Mind.” The first time I saw that movie, I literally got chills.
The Crow uses a great combination with Brandon Lee running atop the rooftops to the music of “After the Flesh” by My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult.
The remake of Dawn of the Dead used Johnny Cash singing “When the man comes around” over the opening credits, and I was oddly moved.
So, what combinations of music and visuals have impressed you?
I thought the use of Layla in Goodfellas was absolutely perfect. I’ve never particularly been a fan of the song, but that scene is now burned in my memory.
One other one I forgot. The Sister Christian scene in Boogie Nights. When I saw that in the theater for the first time, I was absolutely transfixed. I was literally sweating with the tension.
Various bits of Run Lola Run, particularly the end of the first run-through. Also I thought the very end of Magnolia was nice.
If you count TV, The West Wing has several examples, like Noel, Two Cathedrals, and the one about the homeless Korean War veteran, the name of which I can’t remember.
The scene in Fellowship of the Ring, when Gandalf falls and the party emerges from the mines of Moria. Background music is predominant, and other sounds are muted – you can just imagine how the sounds suddenly become distant in the ears of Aragorn, for instance, as he watches the events with shock and disbelief.
I love everything about the soundtrack to Last of the Mohicans. Particularly good use of the music in the last action scene where the main guys are chasing down and confronting Magua’s band of Huron.
Kill Bill (both parts) has some great use of music in its scenes, throughout.
One of my favorites is in Miller’s Crossing – the attempted hit on Leo, with “Danny Boy” playing loudly over the machine gun fire.
Let us also not forget the opening sequence in Ed Wood. The creepy horror music overlaid on the funky 50s bongos was a perfect match to the horror movie images.
If we’re talking about a non-original score, then the scene in The US vs Larry Flint where the camera pans upstairs where Larry is watching a video of dead Althea bragging that she’ll never grow old–with the music by Mahler–is way powerful.
Wow, that was an awkward sentence.
And then there’s the scene in 2001 where we see the ship and here the cello solo. So lonely…
Koyaanisqatsi is what I thought of first. My first exposure to Philip Glass, and one of the most riveting examples of time-lapse photography since Disney’s The Living Desert.
I dont’ think original scores should count because those are written explicitly to marry the music with the image. A film score isn’t worth its salt if it doesn’t do that. So, for the use of previously recorded music, I’d have to include:[ul]
[]The entire classical repertory in 2001: A Space Odyssey, from J.Strauss to R.Strauss to Ligeti.[]Nina Simone’s Sinnerman for the final heist in The Thomas Crown Affair (Brosnan/Russo version)[]Connie Stevens’ Sixteen Reasons and that beautiful Naomi Watts reaction shot in Mulholland Dr.[]Boccherini’s La Musica Notturna delle Strade di Madrid over the final moments of Master and Commander.[]Too many pop songs to itemize in Scorsese’s Mean Streets[]The tremendously poignant use of Sinatra’s It Was a Very Good Year in Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever.[]The assorted Bach pieces in Pasolini’s The Gospel According to St. Matthew.[]The brilliant sequence for Ravel’s Bolero in Allegro non Troppo.[]Aimee Mann’s Wise Up in Magnolia[]The Platters’ The Great Pretender in Fassbinder’s The Bitter Tears of Petra van Kant.[]The beautiful single closing shot, performing The Sun Whose Rays Are All Ablaze in Topsy-Turvy.[]The entirety of the wonderful Pennies from Heaven, but particularly the title tune and Love is Good for Anything that Ails You.[]Ray Charles’ What I Say in Bruce Conner’s unforgettable Cosmic Ray.[]The Il Trovatore excerpts in A Night at the Opera.[/ul]
This was the haunting Adagio from Khachaturian’s Gayaneh Suite–perhaps the best use of music in the film (despite my leaving Aram out of my previous post). And while we’re on Gayaneh, I’m obliged to mention the rollicking use of Sabre Dance in Billy Wilder’s One Two Three.
I just saw Metropolis yesterday, and I thought the use of music throughout the movie was really good. My favorite though, was when the entire city is pretty much falling apart, and there’s a love song playing. It worked rather well.
The at the end of “Love Actually”, the scene where people are meeting their loved ones at the airport, with the Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows”, completely made that movie for me.
In “The Aviator”, I liked the way Scorcese used Bach’s “Toccatta and Fugue in D Minor” with the dogfight scenes from “Hell’s Angels”.