Usually soundtracks are a waste of time. Buried behind onscreen
dialogue and action, film music often consists of pop bands'
throwaways and junk-store classical clichés.
When a soundtrack is great, though, it becomes an essential,
integral part of a movie's persona. Can you think of Reservoir
Dogs without flashing on the hoodlums' black-suited
pimp roll to the throb of "Little Green Bag"? Or remember
Rushmore without the Kinks popping to mind?
Fall brings the big-ticket titles to theaters, and with
them come soundtracks of various scope, style and ambition.
Some are destined to become ultra-cool cultural artifacts,
and others are bound for the $.99 bin. Here are some
of the best and worst.
1. THE DUST
BROTHERS: FIGHT
CLUB
(Restless)
David Fincher's controversial, subversive and flat-out
dizzying Fight Club wouldn't be the same without
its soundtrack. It makes sense that Fincher chose the Dust
Brothers--John King and Mike Simpson--who have worked as
producers for Beck, the Beastie Boys and the Chemical Brothers.
Fight Club is very much a cultural film rooted in
'90s gestalt. With the exception of Steve Albini, no one
has shaped the decade's sound like the Dust Brothers. Here,
they capture the movie's dark, seedy underground tone as
well as its lighter, satirical moments in what may be the
first pure-electronica soundtrack for a major studio feature.
The Brothers usually use heavy sampling to create unpredictable
pastiches. But Fincher wanted something entirely original.
The resulting soundtrack not only sets an edgy mood on screen,
but stands alone as an engaging, confusing and abrasive
album. Fifteen atmospheric instrumental tracks touch on
buzzed-out trip-hop and hip-hop beats, paranoia-inspiring
drum and bass, lighthearted samba and Gregorian chanting.
By the time you hit the chaotic finale, "Finding the Bomb,"
you might feel as if the skin has been systematically peeled
from your skull. It's an exhausting, resonant trip worth
taking.
2. VARIOUS
ARTISTS: BRINGING OUT
THE DEAD
(Columbia)
Few directors use pop and rock music better than Martin
Scorsese. From 1973's Mean Streets--when his gutter-level
gangsters slo-mo-strutted through a bar to the pummeling
of the Rolling Stones--to 1990's Goodfellas, Scorsese
has been setting cinematic moods with carefully chosen soundtracks.
But Scorsese hit bottom this year with Bringing Out
the Dead. Not only has the film received some of the
worst reviews of his career, but many critics have also
slammed his use of music as random and intrusive. Indeed,
the hodgepodge of songs makes the film feel like a never-ending
music video. The material translates better as an album,
mostly because of Scorsese's fittingly catholic tastes.
Obscure classic-rock numbers (Van Morrison's sweaty epic
"T.B. Sheets," The Who's "Bell Boy") and punk anthems (The
Clash's "I'm So Bored with the U.S.A." and "Janie Jones,"
Johnny Thunders' "You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory")
make this a perfect companion disc for angry drives around
the city. Best of all, Scorsese mercifully left 10,000 Maniacs'
"These Are Days" off the disc.
This is a rare example of music not working in a film but
sounding wonderful on your stereo.
3. ANGELO
BADALAMENTI: THE STRAIGHT
STORY
(Windham Hill)
David Lynch is obsessed with music. The director often
listens to his scores on headphones while watching his actors
play out their scenes. For Lynch, sound and music are just
as important to a film as cinematography, set design or
acting. Since 1986's Blue Velvet, Lynch has worked
with one composer to find the emotional pitch he needs for
each film: Angelo Badalamenti. Badalamenti, most famous
for his Twin Peaks score, writes compositions of
haunting beauty, lyrical music that moves from spare bars
to soaring climaxes and can reduce you to tears instantly.
His latest score, for the 3-miles-per-hour road movie The
Straight Story, is his best since Peaks, and
perhaps his most lush and melodic ever. The film, about
a 73-year-old man who rides his lawnmower 300 miles to visit
his sick brother, takes place in Iowa and Wisconsin, and
Badalamenti authentically captures the pace and tone of
middle America (Ry Cooder's score for Paris, Texas
comes to mind). As violins swell over the gentle acoustic
guitar in "Lauren's Walking" (the predominant motif of the
film), images of endless skies, cornfields and lost highways
will fill your mind.
4. VARIOUS
ARTISTS: END
OF DAYS
(Geffen)
Here's a sad example of what soundtracks often represent:
movies as compilation vehicles. Records like this collect
lame cast-offs or regurgitate hits from the hottest acts
of the moment (i.e., bands you'll have forgotten about in
a year), despite the fact that none of the material
is actually in the film. The new Ah-nold action flick involves
him saving the world from Satan, etc. Naturally, then, we
have a ton of aggro bands trying to sound hard and spooky.
The soundtrack is filled with derivative, gloomy metal;
soulless, angry whiteboy rap (Limp Bizkit, Eminem); and
Prodigy, which falls into its very own putrid class. Sonic
Youth's "Sugar Kane" somehow turns up, but the luckless
band just had its instruments stolen and desperately needs
cash, so the sell-out is perhaps justifiable. Like "Sugar
Kane," most of this stuff has been issued before. If you
like this garbage, you probably already own it.
The only folks who need this compilation are Guns 'N Roses
completists, as it includes the band's first new release
since '93, "Oh My God." Still no idea who GNR is these days
(though Dave Navarro and Gary Sunshine are credited as additional
guitarists), but from the sound of this, Axl Rose thinks
he's in Nine Inch Nails. Join the club. The film and soundtrack
have one thing in common: Both suck.
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Willamette Week | originally
published December 1,
1999
|
