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Film-Age: The Perfect Combination of Music and Visuals

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Forgot one:

starwars70.jpg


(wanted the shot of two suns, but this will have to do)
 
Dark City
John Murdoch is injected by Dr Schreber (Keifer Sutherland), who reveals himself and his intentions to John in the ensuing vision. The Dr has placed himself into all of Murdoch's memories as they flash before his eyes. Murdoch breaks free and the fight begins. Awesome scene, awesome awesome awesome music.

Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith
Haters, say what you will about the scripts and the acting, John Williams is as good as ever. The score to the Order 66 scene is heartbreaking.

Conan the Barbarian
The opening of the movie. The Riddle of Steel. This you can trust!

The Highlander
Michael Kamen's soundtrack is amazing. The training montage with Ramirez is a particular favourite of mine.

Hana Bi
I can't remember which song it is off this that I really love. But again, it was another heartbreaking movie moment for me.

I'm sure I'll think of more...
 
radioheadrule83 said:
Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith
Haters, say what you will about the scripts and the acting, John Williams is as good as ever. The score to the Order 66 scene is heartbreaking.
Click to expand...

To that I will add the scene with the song "Padme's Ruminations". That scene was straight out of Blade Runner.
 
Just back from seeing Sunshine, and the music fit 100% perfect when
he set the bomb countdown and blasted the ship door open to get over to it
 
Terminator 2 - When the Terminator walks out of the bar to Bad to the Bone.

Munich
Two times:
- When we hear John William's 'Bonding' theme only and see them all just chatting and laughing with one another around the dinner table they first meet at. The music is the only thing we hear.

- His score when they're going after any hit, very ****ing tense.

Spider-Man 2 - 'The beautiful Ms. Mary Jane Watson has just agreed to marry me', then we get that sombre Spidy theme as it zooms in on Peter. **** that hit me hard, poor bastard just kept getting shat on, but you felt that as the straw that broke it.

V for Vendetta - When Evey leaves V after he changes her and 'I Found a Reason' by Cat Power is playing on the Jukebox. Also the 'Dominoes Fall' build up.

The Beach - Moby's 'Porcelain' when they first see the beach. Awesome.

Lethal Weapon 3 - 'It's Probably Me' by Eric Clapton, opening fire credits of the film.

Also, I can't believe nobody mentioned this...

ROCKY - The first training montage! Are you guys ****ing kidding me it hasn't been mentioned yet? I'll probably read back through and realise somebody did post it.
 
Dr. Strangelove said:
Richard Einhorn's "Voices of Light" is a perfect complement to The Passion of Joan of Arc.
Click to expand...

The first thing that came to my mind. Zbigniew Preisner's work on the Double Life of Veronique is another that simply clicks for me like almost nothing else. Additionally:

Mysterious Skin - The wash of Slowdive's "Golden Hair" over the opening credits and images of candy-colored cereal raining down on Neil.

Paris, Texas - The Ry Cooder piece that plays over Travis watching old Super-8 home movies with his brother's family is most striking in a film filled with wonderful sound/image pairings.

Happy Together - Not a specific scene, but the way Wong uses the repetition of Zappa and Astor Piazolla is unreal. This brings me to...

Talk to Her - The astonishing shot of Marco crying while "Cucurrucucu Paloma" comes onto the soundtrack. This song was also featured early in Happy Together, but is cemented in my mind along side Almodovar's movie. Iglesias' scores for Almodovar are all-around brilliant, as well.

Birth - Alexandre Desplat's score is entirely spectacular, and I absolutely love hearing the first strains of it at the beginning as we see Sean jogging in the snow.

And it's worth noting that I am a complete sucker for Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings" in pretty much anything, even though it's sort of a cliche piece of music.
 
American History X - The flashback scene with Edward Norton and Furlong as kids in the beach while he was in the shower.

Terminator 2 - All of it.

Gladiator - The last 10 minutes were just spellbinding.
 
The Royal Tenembaums suicide scene with Elliot Smith.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pyBB7y8fDU


Also Fight Club, not just the ending but that was the best part. I think The Matrix deserves some recognition since it was pretty cool before that theme started showing up everywhere.


And many many scenes from Martin Scorcese films. The flow of cash in Casino, the secret entry in Goodfellas.
 
My personal favorites: All Blade Runner and Pulp Fiction. More importantly: the whole Comedy short-film, which you can watch here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJ3nVLyjZ_M, really awesome stuff.

Live-Action: The climax in The Fountain and last scene in Fight Club.

Animated: FLCL's Mamimi first sees Canti, Oshii's GitS' the Mayor ominously watches the nothingness in the city from the river and MindGame's bossa-nova climax.
 
The Godfather - The assassination of the five Dons / Christening montage

In the Mood for Love - The entire movie

Terminator 2 - T1000's theme... is this even music? Its the one of the most menacing combinations of music and visuals I can remember seeing.
 
Children of Men
The scene where Jasper gives Quietus to his wife and dog and this really effective cover of Ruby Tuesday plays.
 
The Departed.
Pretty much everything, but the opening and the sex part with "Comfortably Numb" were great.
 
Oh man...I'm surprised that absolutely no one mentioned any of Wong Kar Wai's film. Especially Fa Yeung Nin Wa, aka IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE.

427px-In_the_Mood_for_Love_movie.jpg

We're talking about a director who's film is the definition of music and visuals. I'm ashamed of you GAF.
 
Actually, the thread about T-Rex bones has made me remember: the music in Jurassic Park when they fly to the island and see the Brachoriosaurus for the first time is ****ing awesome. Man, when I was a kid this song was stuck in my head 24/7.
 
Raguel said:
Oh man...I'm surprised that absolutely no one mentioned any of Wong Kar Wai's film. Especially Fa Yeung Nin Wa, aka IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE.

427px-In_the_Mood_for_Love_movie.jpg

We're talking about a director who's film is the definition of music and visuals. I'm ashamed of you GAF.
Click to expand...

Yeah his In the Mood for Love deserved to be in a list, and it actually was. Other amazing Asian movies with amazing synthesis of visuals and music are Hero and All About Lily Chou-Chou.
 
Raguel said:
Oh man...I'm surprised that absolutely no one mentioned any of Wong Kar Wai's film. Especially Fa Yeung Nin Wa, aka IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE.

We're talking about a director who's film is the definition of music and visuals. I'm ashamed of you GAF.
Click to expand...

Well, Hotarubi mentioned WKW with Happy Together. And my choice for WKW would be Chungking Express, especially for California Dreamin'. I love his use of pop and kitsch. It's not just for the mood or period in Chungking, when the song adds so much to the character and I could never listen to California Dreamin' again without thinking of Faye Wong dancing around. Faye's cover of Cranberries' Dream song at the end credits was also one of the most uplifting moments for me in the cinema.

Also, the 'airplane' scene:
chungking_express1.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krYuVgBQnGo&mode=related&search=
 
That scene in Leon shortly before Matilda's family is brutally shot dead. Where Stansfield's henchman make their way to the apartment one by one and then finally him. Its an expertly choreographed movement of people to music building in intensity perfectly.
 
James Horner's score for A Beautiful Mind really stands out to me. There are a couple songs in there that really add a lot to the scenes where Crowe
is spiraling downward in his illness
.
 
You fools! You forget the most heart-renching scene in the Lord of the Rigns movies!–

Film: Fellowship of the Ring
Scene: Frodo is standing on the shores of the river near the end of the movie. He's contemplating his trip ahead, deciding to go alone. The ring is in his hand, and he remembers Gandalf's words to him: "So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us." Frodo then closes his hand and that starts...
Song: The Road Goes Ever On..

Seriously. best ****ing use of music I've ever heard. It's so emotional and so moving.
 
Everyone posting Star Wars is forgetting Williams' masterpiece:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQc645heEh0

Spielberg already knew who he wanted to compose the musical "voice" of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial: his already longtime collaborator John Williams. "I always felt that Johnny was my musical re-write artist," Spielberg comments. "He'd come in, see my movie and re-write the whole damn thing musically and make it much better than I did. He can take a moment and just uplift it, like he can take a tear that's just forming in your eye and cause it to drip."

For Williams, it was a formidable task to write music for scenes he was not yet able to view. "The first time I saw E.T., the bicycle over the moon wasn't there because the visual effects shot wasn't ready yet, so the composer doesn't always have the benefit of all the beautiful visuals. What we have to do is to use our imagination and stretch the musical grammar.

"When you get that feeling," continued Williams, "you feel it with your heart. For the flying sequence, I took a deep breath and felt the freedom and affirmation of the vision that you can fly with a creature not of our own spcies but of our own spiritual oneness. And we can go over the moon, a fantastic idea that needs great sweep in the music and a great feeling of freedom. We lose gravity, we're in space and finally free. And what's what the orchestra and composer has to give us for a scene like that."

"When John saw E.T., he was really happy with the film," Spielberg recalled, "and I can tell when John's happy because we don't have a lot of musical discussions. He already has themes running through his mind. So I just left him alone to do his work, and one day he called and asked if I could come over to his office...that he wanted to play me some of the music on the piano.

"It was more than I could ever hope for," continued Spielberg. "I had tears rolling down my eyes, sitting at John's piano and sobbing. I was embarrassing myself in front of him. I loved it, and told him not to change a note. I could not wait for the day when he scored the film." Williams' music for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial has become one of the highly honored composer's most beloved and sensitive scores, outstanding out for its many moments of sheer musical virtuosity, whether in moments of rapture, quieter, more reflective passages, or moments of suspense or menace.
Click to expand...
 
Raguel said:
Oh man...I'm surprised that absolutely no one mentioned any of Wong Kar Wai's film. Especially Fa Yeung Nin Wa, aka IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE.

We're talking about a director who's film is the definition of music and visuals. I'm ashamed of you GAF.
Click to expand...

Well, I woulda chose Ashes of Time (favorite movie ever), but ITMFL is good stuff too.
 
i love the last two minutes of magnolia set to aimee mann's "save me."
all you hear is the music, and john c. reilly's back is to the camera so you can't hear exactly what he's saying... and just as the bridge to the song kicks in, the girl who hasn't genuinely smiled once in the whole movie does, the credits roll, and you can just feel everything changing.

it's a beautiful song, and a beautiful end to a beautiful film.

lots of other great stuff in the thread, of course--particularly loved the choice from star wars: a new hope with the two suns.
 
The mentioned sequences in 2001 are great and all, but Kubrick's use of classical music in ACO (toy Jesus montage, slow-mo docks fight, etc.) and Barry Lyndon (anytime those Handel or Schubert pieces are playing) is what ****ing destroys me. And it's a testament to Wendy Carlos that her original theme for the former is the highlight in that film, beating out it's classical peers in it's sheer ability to move. It's probably superficial to be so partial to the background music when judging film, but no piece of cinema is as orgasmic to me then when Kubrick puts GORGEOUS music to one of his already GORGEOUS scenes.

Park Chanwook is the only director I know of who equals Stanley in this regard. The whole of Lady Vengeance, the opening to Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, and (ESPECIALLY) the two original waltz compositions for Oldboy are all simply wonderful. Who knew
stabbing a guy to death with a broken CD
could be so beautiful?

Timbuktu said:
And my choice for WKW would be Chungking Express, especially for California Dreamin'. I love his use of pop and kitsch. It's not just for the mood or period in Chungking, when the song adds so much to the character and I could never listen to California Dreamin' again without thinking of Faye Wong dancing around.
Click to expand...
Same. I already loved the song, but didn't know just how much until seeing it used so well in this movie. It's the only film of his that I've seen, but I can't wait to see more (just got Happy Together via Netflix for tonight).

beelzebozo said:
i love the last two minutes of magnolia set to aimee mann's "save me."
all you hear is the music, and john c. reilly's back is to the camera so you can't hear exactly what he's saying... and just as the bridge to the song kicks in, the girl who hasn't genuinely smiled once in the whole movie does, the credits roll, and you can just feel everything changing.
Click to expand...
That really touched me, too.
 
There are several in Chanwook Park's films, now that you mention him, Ford.

- the opening sequence (totally badass, by the way), the training montage, the hallway fight, the teeth pulling (to Vivaldi, no less!), the flashback scene, and the final scene in Oldboy.
- theres a ton in Lady Vengeance too, but I find the two that stick out for me are when Geum-Ja knocks the cake out of the preacher's hand, and the final scene.

Hell, you could dot this same topic on CWP alone. The classical pieces he choses aside, whoever the composer is on CWP films is brilliant. Oldboy has my favorite score in years.
 
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