Mary Williams mwilliams@media.ucla.edu
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Film soundtracks are supposed to have songs from the films whose
names they bear. However, as we can see from soundtracks released
in the past few years, this is not often the case.
“Music From and Inspired by Spider-man” has nothing
to do with the film, except for a couple songs that actually made
it on-screen and a few pieces of Danny Elfman’s score.
“Spider-man” isn’t the only recent movie to
completely ignore the definition of a soundtrack. “Dr.
Doolittle” and “Nutty Professor” are both
soundtracks that rely on music not actually contained in the
original movie. These soundtracks are often about creating a
“Now That’s What I Call Music”-style various
artists compilation, rather than a CD that captures the music and
the mood of a film. They are pretty clearly the result of a
profit-making formula that combines a popular youth-oriented movie
with popular-at-the-moment youth-oriented bands.
“Spider-man,” for example, has songs by Sum 41, Alien
Ant Farm and The Strokes. “Nutty Professor” features
songs by Jay-Z and LL Cool J that never appeared in the actual
movie. This sucks.
First, it’s annoying that music is so often treated not as
a meaningful form of art, but instead as a profit-making tool.
These soundtracks say nothing about the music, except that it
wasn’t appropriate for the movie but might make a buck
anyway. The second, more important reason, is that music in a movie
is supposed to enhance the story and its visuals. A good soundtrack
can bring the feel of a movie into a listener’s car stereo as
adeptly as it can add weight to dialogue on-screen.
There are soundtracks out there that are both successful and
true to the film. One of the most recent is “Vanilla
Sky,” the artsy Cameron Crowe flick with the corresponding
artsy soundtrack. The album features a collection of musical
greats, including Radiohead, Sigur Ros, Jeff Buckley and Bob Dylan.
Crowe also proves his soundtrack mastery in his earlier and far
better film “Almost Famous,” which pulls together songs
(all used in the film) that represent the era in which the main
character is immersed. The CD includes Lynyrd Skynyrd, Led Zeppelin
and Cat Stevens.
“Moulin Rouge,” last year’s modern musical,
has a soundtrack that includes the actual versions of the songs
used in the film, so that listeners hear the Nicole Kidman and Ewan
MacGregor versions of hits by Elton John and The Police. This is a
soundtrack in its purest form, one that takes the frenetic
modernist spin of the film and directly translates it to the album.
Making a musical based on songs written long before the film was
made, the “Moulin Rouge,” filmmakers had the difficult
task of finding songs that could be molded to the movie’s
plot.
Some filmmakers solve the problem of finding appropriate music
for their film by asking popular music artists to compose the
entire soundtrack. This approach often wonderfully results with
music that has the right tone and message for the specific film,
and is artistically sound in its own right.
A particularly solid soundtrack, sadly wasted on a mediocre
movie, was that of “Magnolia.” Composed by Aimee Mann,
the songs are beautifully integrated into the film, and stand
independent of it as well. Another example is the upcoming
“About A Boy” soundtrack by Badly Drawn Boy. While the
movie will be released Friday, the soundtrack is already out, and
has proved to be on par with the artist’s other work (meaning
it’s really good).
Soundtracks like “Spider-man” are supposed to avoid
the trap of being second to the film by collecting songs by a group
of musicians not in the movie. However, the filmmakers who pay
attention to the music in their movies and put that music on their
soundtracks are the ones who create an album that acts as both a
supplementary and separate artistic work.