Top 5 Perfect Film Scores

Many film scores can easily be thought of as emotional signposts, pushing and prodding the audience from one feeling to another. This effect should not be understated, and almost always achieves the desired effect; a sad piece of music during a sad scene is, unsurprisingly, guaranteed to draw tears from its viewers. All film soundtracks perform this role, of course, but there will always seem something too brazen and obvious about scores that don’t reach beyond this. Nothing is left to the imagination, and it’s hard to think of each song being irreplaceable by another of the same vein. In the case of these scores, the audience is never unsure of how to feel because they are never given the possibility.

An example will make the point clearer, and my mind is drawn instantly to British romantic comedy Love Actually: ‘God Only Knows’ as the characters find the love they were looking for; ‘Jump’ as the prime minister dances around 10 Downing Street; Joni Mitchell’s melancholy ‘Both Sides Now’ behind a scene of adultery. It’s not that these songs are inappropriate or even terrible songs, but a score of this type seems to lack imagination. It fits inoffensively and serves its purpose, heightening the tone of a scene without provoking anything new. If these are soundtracks are to be appreciated, it is at best as a grouping of separate songs, not as a part of a film.

It is the trait of the perfect film score, however, that doesn’t merely herd its audience towards an inevitable emotion response, but plays as much as a role in creating this feeling as the action itself. These scores don’t merely serve as an emphasis of the tone of each scene, as crude signals for a certain reaction; they go beyond the screenplay, as if competing for attention with the actors. Each song in the perfect soundtrack is so considered and precise that no other song will suffice in its place, and the score is remembered not merely as a list of great songs, but as intrinsic a part of the film as any other.

Here then, are my top 5 perfect film soundtracks:

5) The Pianist

Roman Polanski’s holocaust drama about pianist Władysław Szpilman features a soundtrack largely consisting of Chopin ballades and nocturnes, and includes a piece by Szpilman himself. In general a score will seldom suffer from some of the most beautiful piano music ever written, but it is the score’s pairing with harrowing scenes of Jewish deportation, abuse and murder that made this soundtrack so memorable.

Highlight

Ballad No.1 In G Minor – Chopin

Adrian Brody’s Szpilman, starved and frozen, plays to the Nazi soldier for his survival.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkUVb1AJbSM

4) Psycho

As has been said countless times, Alfred Hitchcock is simply masterful at creating suspense. His use of dramatic irony, voyeurism, situational restrictions and various other techniques all contribute to a fascination with suspense, rather than surprise. In ‘Psycho’, Bernard Herrmann’s string score became another tool for creating excruciating tension. The use of short staccato stabs, contrasted with long drawn-out notes generate anticipation and expectancy, which are emphasized by the frequent key-changes.

Highlight

Murder, 2nd Movement – Bernard Herrmann

Perhaps the most well known piece of music in film history, the shower scene is famous for the sharp, stabbing strings that accompany the knives movements into its victim, before falling quiet to the sound of the running shower; in short, the scene is one of the most terrifying ever because of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoQ6Jc9PyCI

3) A Clockwork Orange

The Oscar winning and iconic score for ‘2001: A Space odyssey’ showcased Stanley Kubrick’s ability to transform and mould any scene, and indeed create and develop themes by use of music alone, and A Clockwork Orange cemented this 3 years later. Alex’s dystopic homeland is sound tracked perfectly by Wendy Carlos’ synth-electronic arrangements and re-workings of classical pieces, creating an unsettling and often comic edge to the accompanying scenes of youthful violence. Of course music itself is an important narrative theme, and the score gains strength from this; our anti-hero’s adoration of Beethoven’s ninth, for example, becomes symbolic of both his own violence and the cruelty inflicted onto him.

Highlights

Title Music – Wendy Carlos

The loud, futuristic and unsettling electronic piece introduces us to the dark and dreadful world of A Clockwork Orange, as the camera slowly draws in and the voice begins: “There was me, that is Alex…”

Singin’ In the Rain – Gene Kelly

The contrast of horrific imagery and subdued, comic music continues throughout the film, emphasizing themes of absurdity and fantasy. It was this scene that would eventually lead to the copy-cat attacks and the film’s twenty seven year withdrawal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuMrOWtQKNI

2) Trainspotting

In trainspotting Danny Boyle created one of the finest British films of the nineties, its gritty realism owing largely to the soundtrack. The score is perhaps a perfect example of music going beyond the action; Boyle combines the edgier side of Britpop (Blur, Pulp, Elastica), 90s dance and older indie tracks from Iggy Pop, Lou Reed and New Order to capture the escapism and euphoria of addiction, while scenes of desperation and despair are noticeable not for their being bedded by songs of a similar tone, but for their stark silence.

Highlights

Deep Blue Day – Brian Eno

How a scene of such shocking desperation is turned into a beautiful moment of escape is all down to the music that beds the infamous toilet scene.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XrvpEIiC1w

Perfect Day – Lou Reed

As Renton overdoses, the irony of Reed’s ode to romance perfectly reveals the loneliness and emptiness of heroin addiction.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCfd24-QED4

1) There Will Be Blood

Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood’s soundtrack failed to qualify for an Oscar nomination due to some of the score being burrowed from his solo album, but there’s little doubt that it would have been strong competition for the eventual winner from Atonement. Greenwood’s compositions of unsettlingly offbeat percussion, haunting strings and beautiful orchestral arrangements work flawlessly alongside a story of anger, betrayal and greed, and are perfectly crafted to the barren landscapes of the American desserts and Daniel Day-Lewis’ tyrannical oil man. The soundtrack is admittedly not easy listening when parted from the screen (and tragically lacks the three best songs of the score), but this only emphasizes its strength; as Day-Lewis commented in an interview, “I believe that music had grown with us…in the telling of that story. I was astonished by it.”

Highlights

Convergence – Jonny Greenwood

The build up of erratic percussion provides an eerie sense of urgency and tension to one of the best scenes of the film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxJ3jfT3ypc

Fratres for Cello and Piano - Arvo Part

The sharp, frantic cello in the first minute of this piece carries the film through various montages, maintaining a tone of expectancy and anxiety throughout.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vO92REraUo

Violin Concerto in D Major (III) – Julian Brahms

One of the greatest endings in film history is made all the more emphatic with this triumphant piece, ultimately leaving the audience contemplating the cost of success in its unease with the tone of the closing scene.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSjgGLK8_fs (SPOILER)

This week... Tom has felt endlessly annoyed at the BBC's coverage of Wimbledon, from its over hype of Andy Murray, to its embarrassing camera shots of the celebrities in the crowds every few minutes.