Music and movies have always been inexplicably linked. The symbiotic relationship that the two mediums have cannot
be underestimated, with film able to give a song new meaning, and vice versa.
In short, if you want to make a hit film, you better have a damn good
soundtrack.
Take The Breakfast
Club for example. Could you imagine it without the inclusion of ‘Don’t You Forget About Me’? Didn’t think so. What about the ending of Fight Club? What other band could have
sound tracked it better than ‘The Pixies’? Guarantee you’d be hard pushed to
find the answer.
In more recent memory
you could look to films such as Nicholas Winding Refn’s Drive if you wanted a glimpse at a perfect soundtrack, as every
song perfectly encapsulates the neon-drenched Los Angeles, and the seedy
night-time world that Ryan Goslings’ unnamed character inhabits. Without some
phenomenal scoring from band like Kavinsky, there is no doubt in my mind that
the film would not have been as successful. This is another film which has its
closing track cemented in the minds of its viewers, with the dreamy synths and
sugary vocals of ‘A Real Hero’, by College, creating the most bittersweet of
endings, sparing the film from becoming "just another action film".
A good soundtrack is the key to any film, whether it be the
perfect compilation of existing songs or a masterful composition, music in film
is potentially just as important as the on-screen visuals. We go to the cinema
to be entertained; shocked, scared, sad, enthralled; and without an apt
soundtrack, our emotional involvement in movies is next to zero.
JACK O'MALLEY
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