In this T-Boy article, please consider it to be an invitation to join me on a personal journey in search of the source of many of the cinema’s most popular musical soundtracks. I’ve tried to make the categories specific, where the composer worked with the director before the film was shot, or used a pre-existing composition after the movie was in the can. Categories also include the innovation of using songs in films that have not been done before. I hope this makes sense once you see the line-up of film soundtracks on the list, where you’ll also notice that there are many others not included which would make the list too long – so here’s a few below:

But first, let’s begin with a quotation by French director, François Truffaut:

“It’s very difficult for a musician to make music for a film, because he is shown a film at a stage of the assembly where the lengths are false, the rhythm is not there. It seems as it is the film, but it is far from the final result. I think you really have to know the cinema and really love it so that you can see the film at that stage and imagine its intentions and its qualities. The musician is called at a time when the director is a little demoralized. We count a lot on him. We say all the time in the editing rooms: ‘It will work out with the music!’ In short, we wait for the musician as we wait for a sort of savior.” – François Truffaut

PSYCHO

Hitchcock and Herrmann

When Alfred Hitchcock, the master of everything, wrote his screenplay for 1960’s Psycho with composer Bernard Hermann at his side, every musical note was placed on his storyboard long before the film was shot. And by the time all the sketches were finished, which also indicated the exact placements of edits, camera angles and lighting, sound effects and more, Hitchcock would become bored before his camera even rolled because all the hard work had already been done before.

So, let’s look at the chilling shower scene in Psycho, where Hitchcock drew and Hermann scored such a precise storyboard, so precise that the audience actually thought that Anthony Perkins’ character’s knife had slashed Janet Leigh’s body.

Overall, Herrmann wrote the scores for seven Hitchcock films, from The Trouble with Harry (1955) to Marnie (1964), a period that included Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959) and Psycho. He was also credited as sound consultant on The Birds (1963), as there was no actual music in the film, only electronically made bird sounds, which succeeded in making some of us have a lifetime distaste for birds. This also applied to Psycho, too, where others were actually afraid to take a shower after seeing the film. Hitchcock coined a knew film term with The Birds, where a high-angle shot looking down on the subject, is now called a Bird’s-Eye Shot. The perspective makes the subject appear short and trivial, often illustrating a fatalistic doom.

It should be noted that Hitchcock’s psychological thriller Vertigo, topped the 2012 poll of the British film magazine, Sight & Sound’s, The 50 Greatest Films of All Time.

Later, many film directors would use new musical compositions by Herrmann, along with Hitchcockian images, which included Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976) and François Truffaut’s The Bride Wore Black (1968). And also with Hitchcock emulater, Brian De Palma, in his film’s Sisters (1972) and Obsession (1976), in an attempt to capture the magic in which Herrmann and Hitchcock had created.

ALEXANDER NEVSKY

Eisenstein and Prokofiev

In 1938, composer Sergei Prokofiev and film director Sergei Eisenstein worked closely together throughout the production of the film, Alexander Nevsky. Sometimes Eisenstein would do a short episode and give it to Prokofiev to set to music and other times the composer would write a piece and Eisenstein would change the rhythm of the film’s action to suit the music. The climactic Battle on the Ice is spectacularly staged, which starts with a low rumbling of the chorus that depicts the troops riding toward each other. The Russian and Teutonic hymns are played again to represent the opposing forces. The pace quickens to a gallop and then to a cacophonous clash of cymbals, horns, and drums that conjure up the chaos of a medieval battle.

Eisenstein and Prokofiev’s matching of sound to action has made orchestral art music accessible to the general public and also established the use of compositional music as an important part of creating a masterpiece.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST

Leone and Morricone

Ennio Morricone was an Italian composer, orchestrator, conductor, trumpeter and pianist who wrote music in a wide range of styles with more than 400 scores for cinema and television

His film scores for director Sergio Leone were regarded just an important as his images. The Spaghetti Western maestro incorporated Ennio Morricone’s musical scores, not just to be background music, but to define many of his characters in his films. In Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), each of the five main characters, played by Claudia Cardinale, Charles Bronson, Henry Fonda, Jason Robards and Gabriele Ferzetti have their own theme song in the music score. After listening to one of Morricone’s film compositions, audiences felt as if they were blessed with a sense of heavenly euphoria. In fact, with Once Upon a Time in the West the choruses really did sound like angels singing.

Many important films directors also included Morricone’s film scores into their films, as did T-Boy favorites, Terence Malick in Days of Heaven (1978) and 1976’s Novecento (1900) by Bernardo Bertolucci.

Ennio Morricone also influenced many younger artists including Hans Zimmer, Metallica, Radiohead and the Dire Straits with fingerpicking guitarist virtuoso, Mark Knopfler, who was inspired to  compose and produce his own film score soundtracks, such as Scottish film director Bill Forsyth’s Local Hero (1983) and Comfort and Joy, as well as Cal (1984) and The Princes Bride (1987). And Knopfler was particularly taken by Leone and Morricone’s Once Upon a Time in the West, too, and created the Dire Straits – Once Upon A Time In The West (1979), which you can visit below.

THE THIEF OF BAGHDAD

Powell and Rozsa

Francis Ford Coppola once said that his favorite movie is the British film adaption of The Thief of Bagdad (1940) directed by Michael Powell, along with Ludwig Berger and Tim Whelan. Michael Powell’s films were profound in in their technicolor imagery, in particular when his co-director was Emeric Pressburger, but they reached unsurpassed heights with the haunting movie music by famed composer Miklos Rozsa. The Thief of Bagdad is scored for full orchestra with extensive percussion (including gong, cowbells, glockenspiel, xylophone, jingle bells, harp, celesta, piano) and both mixed and children’s chorus as well as solo singers. Later, after a frequent revisit to the film, I was surprised upon reading, “There is no real melodic focus, for it is essentially a rhythmic piece, with the vocal parts providing a stabilizing centrum, and with lyrics such as ‘sweet fruit,’ and ‘melons’ sung in syllabic fashion. Unsung words are also noted, such as ‘Oh you nasty little wretches, Oh you dirty pack of thieves.'”

The overall effect of the piece is not really that of an ensemble number in a musical, where there is usually a strong statement of the song melody with refrain by the chorus, but rather a group recitative in an opera. Miklos Rozsa is best known for his nearly one hundred film scores, but nevertheless maintained a steadfast allegiance to absolute concert music throughout his career what he referred to as his, “double life.”

I VITELLONI, LA STRADA &

LE NOTTI DI CABIRIA

Fellini and Rota

Witnessing the images of Italian Maestro, Federico Fellini, could be an enthralling, hypnotic and mesmerizing event. But what made his images work was due to the brilliance of the musical compositions of another Italian Maestro, Nino Rota. In Fellini’s early work, the films they did together, included The White Sheik (1952), I vitelloni (1953), La Strada (1954), and Le notti di Cabiria (1957). At first Rota’s Le notti di Cabiria score sounded comedic, almost a bit cumbersome, like Chaplin’s earlier Mack Sennent Keystone Kops shorts, after music was later added. But then Rota’s music would transition into the heart wrenching quest of the road for the hope of better things to come. Yes, Fellini was Rota, and Rota was Fellini. And Fellini was highly influenced by Chaplin too; in particular, during his Neo-Realist period. With La Strada, translated in English as The Road, Fellini’ wife of 50-years, the remarkably talented, Giulietta Masina, really does go on the road, and plays Chaplin’s Little Tramp.

Both La Strada and Le notti di Cabiria won Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film and were described as having been inspired by Masina’s humanity. Nino Rota scored nineteen films written by Fellini, and all of Fellini’s directorial features from 1952 to 1979, the year of Rota’s death at 67-years-old.

Rota wrote more than 150 scores for Italian and international productions at an average of three scores each year over a 46-year period. Among the films included, were Luchino Visconti’s Il Gattopardo, Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet, (in particular, the Love Theme) and Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather Trilogy, which were often better known with casual movie goers than the films he did with Fellini. But, many of us will always remember Nino Rota best for his collaborations with Federico Fellini.

CHINATOWN

Polanski and Goldsmith

Composer Jerry Goldsmith’s musical score for Chinatown (1974,) considered by many critics as one of the cinema’s greatest neo-noirs, transforms movie goers back to a time and place that had no longer existed. At first Goldsmith’s Chinatown Love Theme sounded simple, played by a lone trumpet solo, yet somehow felt lush and romantic. Apparently, director Roman Polanski insisted that Jerry Goldsmith should be a last-minute replacement for Phillip Lambro, though not necessarily due to Goldsmith as a superior composer, but because he was one of the last Hollywood composers to have grown up in the film’s period setting, and was able to capture the mood of the not-so-innocent era. And, as a last-minute replacement, Goldsmith’s contract stated he was to submit his work in ten-days. Yet, Goldsmith delivered compositions which had emotional hooks, providing Chinatown with its own identity.

But how really simple is Jerry Goldsmith’s masterful score, which features a unique ensemble which features strings, four pianos, four harps, guiro, and solo trumpet, which the composer revealed he saw in his head while watching the movie for the first time. The latter instrument went on to define the film noir aspect with its hypnotic bluesy theme for Jack Nicholson’s private eye, and love theme for the mysterious Evelyn (Faye Dunaway). But the score to Chinatown has a darker, more avant-garde heart to it, where Goldsmith presents a series of unsettling cues for the movie’s thriller and mystery elements, remaining a stark contrast to his memorable opening theme. Consider when John Huston’s Noah Cross is introduced. We hear sound from the lowest registers with bells and harp joined by guiro to create dissonance and motion, while strings and eventually a trumpet resonates on an alternate theme. The Jake and Evelyn passage introduces a more contemporary 70’s sound with a beautiful reading of his main theme; here Goldsmith captures intimacy and anticipation with tremolo strings and a delicate piano motif. Later, Chinatown producer, Robert Evans, commented that Goldsmith single handily saved the picture.

JULES AND JIM, DAY FOR NIGHT &

THE WOMAN NEXT DOOR

Truffaut and Delerue

In a span of 24-years, between 1959 and 1983, composer Georges Delerue collaborated with François Truffaut on ten films, which included Jules and Jim (1962), where Jeanne Moreau stars as Catherine, as an alluring young woman whose enigmatic smile and passionate nature lure Jules (Oskar Werner) and Jim (Henri Serre) into one of cinema’s most captivating love triangles. For many of us, it was the first time we heard the French expression, ménage à trois. In 1973, Truffaut directed Day for Night (La nuit américaine), a film that changed my life, which chronicles the troubled production of a film melodrama, and the various personal and professional challenges of the cast and crew. It stars Jacqueline Bisset, Valentina Cortese, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Dani, Alexandra Stewart and the floppy-haired actor, Jean-Pierre Léaud, often signaled out as Truffaut’s son or alter ego, due to his appearances in six films and one short of the director’s 21 films. And also for his recurring performances as Atonine Doniel, from 1959’s Les quatre cents coups (the 400 Blows), based on Truffaut’s childhood, to the lighter 1979 comedy-drama, f L’amour en fuite (Love on the Run).

Truffaut cast himself as the director within the film, in Day for Night, whose character is partially hearing impaired, due to his position in the French army’s artillery division during WW2. Truffaut was regarded to be kind and generous, and would often cast handicapped people into his films to remind audiences that they too exist, and show us and other disable people, that they have found a way to march through life as well. Dare I add, that I once sent him a spec script without ever having met him, and to my surprise, he read it and introduced me to the former Czechoslovakian film director Ivan Passer to direct. And this is one of the reasons why I write this article today, for Truffaut’s passion for cinema embodied us to love it just as much as he did, too.

The last collaboration between Truffaut and film composer, Georges Delerue, was The Woman Next Door (1981), where two ex-lovers, played by Gérard Depardieu and Fanny Ardant (Truffaut’s companion, who also appeared in his next and final film, Vivement dimanche! (Confidentially Yours). Delerue also composed film music for Jean-Luc Godard, Alain Renaiss and Bernardo Bertolucci. Truffaut/Delerue are regarded to be in the same pantheon of Fellini/Rota, Hitchcock/Hermann as well as the many pairs that T-Boy just coined in this article, above and below.

Pre-existing compositional music used in film

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY

Kubrick and Classical Music

Many of us fell out of our seats when Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) began with the bombastic opening theme from Richard Strauss’ classical tone poem, Also sprach Zarathustra. Strauss’ symphonic tone poem was popular among classical aficionados in 1968, but today its popularity has surged to such unfound heights, that it is frequently used in other films, TV shows and commercials where manufacturers sell everything from washing machines to trucks and perfume. Kubrick wanted 2001: A Space Odyssey to be a primarily nonverbal experience that did not rely on the traditional techniques of narrative cinema, where pre-existing music would play a vital role in evoking moods and emotions.

Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey continues to be profound for its innovative use of classical music taken from existing commercial recordings, in contrast to most feature films, which the images are generally accompanied by elaborate film scores or songs written specially for them by professional tunesmiths. Kubrick’s soundtrack also raised the profile of other classical composers and their compositions, which also includes, Johann Strauss II and his 1866 Blue Danube Waltz, where Kubrick made the poetry of motion with the association of the spinning motion of the satellites and the dancers of waltzes. And, there are also compositions by György Ligeti, who was almost completely unknown in 1968, with Atmosphères, which evokes a sense of timelessness where the listener is lost in a web of texture and tonality, Requiem For Soprano; Gayane Ballet Suite (Adagio), and Lux Aeterna; as well as Aram Khachaturian’s Adagio from third Gayane ballet suite.

And, who could not forget about HAL: The 9000 series computer – You know, the most reliable computer ever made. And, we are all, by any practical definition of the words, foolproof and incapable of error and No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake or distorted information.

So, let’s close with HAL’s singing the 1892 song, Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two), written by songwriter Harry Dacre, at the moment when his logic fades to simplicity, and he regresses by 40 years. Which is also notable as the first song ever performed by a computer – specifically, the IBM 704.

The song takes HAL back to its childhood, and emphasizes that Dave, play by Keir Dullea, is killing that child just as much as he is dismantling a malfunctioning computer system. Adding to the overall themes and interpretations of 2001: A Space Odyssey, HAL’s callback to an earlier system command suggests that evolution may be just as possible for computers as it is for humans, given a sufficient level of sentience.

Film critics ponder about HAL

Andrew Sarris:

Film critic and father of American Auteurism, Andrew Sarris, initially panned Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, but later changed his opinion after seeing it “under the influence,” which he later said was a contact high. Was Kubrick a visionary? Well, according to Sarris, he did tell us how boring space travel would really become.

“2001 now works for me as Kubrick’s parable of a future world toward which metaphysical dread and mordant amusement tiptoe side by side. Even on the first viewing, I admired all the stuff about HAL literally losing his mind. On second viewing, I was deeply moved by HAL as a metaphor of reason afflicted by the assaults of neurotic doubt. I have never seen the death of a mind rendered more profoundly or poetically than it is rendered by Kubrick in 2001.”

Robert Eggers:

US filmmaker and production designer, Robert Eggers, is best known for directing the horror films, The Witch (2015), The Lighthouse (2019), and the historical fiction epic, The Northman (2022). It was reported to T-Boy that Egger would direct a remake of FW Murnau’s 1922 German Expressionistic masterpiece, Nosferatu, also remade by Werner Herzog in 1978.

I had once thought that Murnau’s Nosferatu was the first horror movie, but later learned that director and magician, Georges Méliès, predated it in 1896 with Le Manoir du Diable. As Kubrick once took us on a trip to the moon in 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, Méliès did so too, but much earlier with his 1902 film, A Trip to the Moon, which took audiences on a trip into the world’s first science fiction film.

“HAL is the most human character in the film despite his perfect computing abilities. The genius of Kubrick is that he makes you sympathetic to HAL comparable to Frankenstein or The Hunchback of Notre Dame. HAL made a mistake, like all humans have done once. Yet, that mistake cost him his life. His final pleas before the Bowman character disconnects him are saddening and remorseful, connecting the viewer’s humanity to the most artificial character in the entire movie.”

A Hard Day’s Night

Lester and The Beatles

Director Richard Lesters’ A Hard Day’s Night is a 1964 musical comedy film starring the Liverpublian rock band, which many of us refer to as The Beatles. The narrative is written by Alan Owen which covers two typical madcap days in the life of the Beatles, where the Fab Four struggle to keep themselves and Paul McCartney’s mischievous grandfather in check while preparing for a live TV performance. The songs featured are written by Lennon and McCartney, which include the title song, taken for a nonsensical Ringoism. Also in the film is I Should Have Known Better, played in a railway storage car where Harrison met future bride, model and muse, Patti Boyd; If I Fell with Lennon at lead vocals in an attempt to heal Ringo’s hurt feelings; and McCartney’s vocal lament about his girlfriend and female actor, Jane Asher, famous for her performance in Jerzy Skolimowski’s stunning 1970 psychological masterpiece, Deep End. Jane’s brother is Peter, the other half of the duo, Peter and Gordon, famous as well for their hit single recording, A World Without Love, penned by McCartney, natch’.

I’m Happy Just to Dance with You is often mistaken as a composition by George Harrison due his taking the lead vocals. But he had a lot of help with John and Paul’s lyrics and harmonies. The film closes with abbreviated versions of Tell Me Why and She Loves You, where the lads conquer the TV stage, complete with screaming fans in the audience. Among the many highpoints is in the middle of the film when the Fab Four break out of the restrictive studio building and charge down the fire escape’s stairs to an open field where they would swing, jump and dance to the explosive, Can’t Buy Me Love. Did this sequence by Richard Lester, who was already famous for his The Running, Jumping & Standing Still (1959) short film, he made with Spike Millidan and Peter Sellers, give birth to MTV? All I can say is, let’s see it again.

It should be noted that in this film, Lester and Owen defined the persona of the four Beatles that many of us use today: John as witty, Paul as cute and choir boyish, George quiet, and Ringo sad and lonely. In The Beatles’ final song release, Now and Then, many us were surprised to see Lennon cutting-it-up, twisting the night away, playing the clown. But when we look at past footage, John really does play the clown, and loves being one.

Did someone really say that A Hard Day’s Night is best to be enjoyed when you’re young and a committed Beatlephile. Let’s remember that film critic, Andrew Sarris, once proclaimed, A Hard Day’s Night to be one of the four greatest musical films of all time.

Richard Lester followed up with the 1965 Beatle musical Help! As can be expected the songs were remarkable and often served as soundtracks in our own lives, but some found it to be bizarre when Lennon was asked to compose the title song for a musical-comedy-adventure, and he delivered a plea for others to Help me! during a rough passage in his life. The narrative of Help! played almost like a James Bond spoof, which didn’t work with moviegoers about an eastern cult and a pair of mad scientists, who are obsessed with obtaining a sacrificial ring sent to Ringo by a fan. Nevertheless, the soundtrack was released as the band’s fifth studio album, and proved to be another Beatle smashing success.

And let’s see what T-Boy’s own Emperor of Oldies has to say about it: My favorite Beatles album is “Help!” (the Capitol version) but that may be because I was slightly too young to experience “A Hard Day’s Night” in real time like I did with the “Help”! LP. One thing I noticed about the song performances in the “A Hard Day’s Night” film… they appear to have taken the audio from the LP tracks and slowed them down drastically…. always wondered why? It’s a great album however, with one clunker in my view… “When I Get Home.”

THE LAST PICTURE SHOW

Bogdanovich and Country Western Music

Set in 1950-51, Peter Bogdanovich’s 1971 film, The Last Picture Show (1971) is about people who live in a small, dying north central Texas town that never really should have existed. It is a sad story where most of the students at the local high school will probably go nowhere in their lives and are aware of it. Bogdanovich’s images of the tired landscape of this piece of Texas tell us what we already know. But the music Bogdanovich uses in the soundtrack is profound, so profound that it was never done before. It consists as a compilation of popular Country & Western music, heard throughout the film from real sources in real time; music in car radios; on records in homes and on TV; in diners, pool halls and jukeboxes; and at dances and parties, perfectly setting the time period, and most importantly hearing what the characters hear, and, in a sense, defining who they are and who they’ll always be.

The movie begins with Hank Williams’ Country and Western song, Why Don’t You Love Me (Like You Used to Do) and follows with nine other Hank Williams’ songs, and also songs performed by Tony Bennett, Eddy Arnold, Frankie Laine, Pee Wee King, Hank Snow, Jo Stafford, Webb Pierce, Tony Bennett, Johnnie Ray, Lefty Frizzell, Eddie Fisher and Kay Starr.

As noted above, the soundtrack of The Last Picture Show is all source music from the early 1950s. At the time of the film’s release there were only two soundtrack LPs available, one from MGM records that included Hank Williams songs and one from Columbia with the selections from their catalog including Tony Bennett and Johnny Ray songs. The CD release from El Records is the first to collect all 28 cues from the movie. Several of these cuts are rare and difficult to find. So, kudos to El/Cherry Red Records in the UK for putting this collection together.

MARIE ANTOINETTE

(Sofia) Coppola and Teenage Angst

Sofia Coppola’s historical drama, Marie Antoinette (2006), is filmed in a stylistic display of sweeping monarchical images, while the movie’s soundtrack consists of punk and indie rock songs. Recently, there has been much discussion regarding the dialectical collision of sound and images, primarily due to Jonathon Glazer’s The Zone of Interest. Sofia Coppola does this as well, creating a unique film experience with eye candy for your eyes and something a little bit more darker for your ears.

The narrative of Marie Antoinette takes us on a journey into a world of despair about a 15-year-old Austrian Hapsburg archduchess, Maria Antonia, who is far too young to be the dauphine and then the queen of France. Her struggle is reflected in the 1970s and ’80’s contemporary music by the Gang of Four, the Strokes and New Order.

We first see Kirsten Dunst in the title role, wearing a decadent feathered headpiece, sticking her finger into a cake’s frosting while the Gang of Four’s Natural’s Not in It, is heard in the background. The Strokes’ What Ever Happened? plays as Marie longs for an extramarital affair that is finally over. And Ceremony by New Order dominates the scene of Antoinette’s 18th birthday party. What can be said, other than Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette soundtrack tells us that teenage lust, angst and loneliness continues throughout eternity.

Marie Antoiniette: A Historical Lover of Dogs

Marie Antoiniette’s disparity is illustrated in an early moment in the film, upon her arrival at the French border, when Marie’s new royal family ruthlessly grabs her childhood pet dog, a Pug named Mops, for the more appropriate French Poodle. Thankfully, there was a happy ending in real life, where they were reunited, apparently due to the intervention of new king, her husband, Louis XVI. Sofia Coppola’s film does not close with revealing Queen Marie Antoinette’s less-than happy ending with her beheading, but it is believed that she carried her pet Papillon with her to the guillotine.

Oddities & One Shots

SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER

Stigwood and the Bee Gees

Despite John Travolta’s pulsating dance moves on the disco floor, without South Australia’s producer, Robert Stigwood’s 1977’s Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, it would not be considered a Hollywood classic. Stigwood licensed a mostly fictional 1976 article about working class Italian-American men with menial labor some jobs, who would spend their entire paycheck for a Saturday night at a local Brooklyn discothèque. It seemed obvious that the young men were on a fast track to nowhere, but while drinking and dancing on the floor, it was clear that everyone had a chance to become a star.

Saturday Night Fever‘s soundtrack stayed on top of the Billboard charts for six months, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time. Stigwood was the manager of the Bee Gees and commissioned the Brothers Gibb to contribute three of their songs: Stayin’ Alive, How Deep Is Your Love, and Night Fever – which all became number one hit songs. Yvonne Elliman’s version of If I Can’t Have You, which the Bee Gees also wrote, topped the charts, as well. Good or bad, Stigwood’s soundtrack has been ingrained into our consciousness and used so often that it’s regarded more than a cliché. Maurice Gibb of the Bee Gees later commented that every time he turned on the radio a Saturday Night Fever song was playing, to the point where he would become ill.

THE 007 FRANCHISE

Barry and Bond

The narrative of 1964’s Goldfinger is typical of many of writer Ian Fleming’s plots: While investigating a gold magnate’s smuggling operation, James Bond uncovers a plot to contaminate the Fort Knox gold reserve. Guy Hamilton, an English film director, who directed 22 films from the 1950s to the 1980s, including four James Bond films, is noted in the credits as director. But, with no offense to Hamilton, this is a franchise movie, and does it really matter who directed it. So let’s give it to the duo producer team of Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli, better make that Cubby Broccoli, who took exception when people assumed that his last name stemmed from a vegetable. Later, it was revealed that it really did, but his family replied it was the opposite, with broccoli name after the Broccoli family.

A viewing of Goldfinger will take you into a sinister world of suspense, intrigue and betrayal. And you’ll see in action: Sean Connery as MI6’s 007, the only real Bond; Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore, who made the 1960’s seem so carefree and less PC; Harold Sakata’s Oddjob, the man with a sharp hat, who gave us a new name and new meaning to Head Over Heels; and finally, Gert Fröbe as Auric Goldfinger, who turns everything he touches into gold, though still not determined if his hands ever touched a former US president’s gold-plated bathroom toilet.

The soundtrack is the work of composer John Barry, who created a musical vocabulary that will forever be synonymous with 007. Barry is also famous for his first marriage to the deceased and equally iconic, Jane Birkin. While it was hard to choose between his Bond soundtracks, Barry perfected his sound with the bold and brassy theme for Goldfinger, performed by Shirley Bassey.

ROCK ‘N’ ROLL HIGH SCHOOL

Arkush/Dante and the Ramones

Rock ‘n’ Roll High School is a 1979 musical comedy, co-directed by Allan Arkush and Joe Dante, billed as jukebox extravaganza. The title cut is a song performed by the rock band, the Ramones, who were an American punk rock band formed in the New York City neighborhood of Forest Hills, Queens in 1974. Known for helping establish the punk movement in the United States, the Ramones are often cited as the world’s first true punk band. Though initially achieving little commercial success, the band is seen today as highly influential in punk culture. All members adopted pseudonyms ending with the surname Ramone, although none were biologically related; they were inspired by Paul McCartney, who would check into hotels under the alias Paul Ramon.

The Rock ‘n’ Roll High School theme song opens with an extended drum beat, with lead singer Joey Ramone eventually singing the opening line, “Rock, Rock, Rock, Rock, Rock ‘n’ Roll High School.” And why did we include it: Let’s just say, Because it feels so goddamn good. – Attributed to Sam Peckinpah in his film, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, a 1974 Mexican-American Neo-Western.

Stay tuned for The Film Soundtracks in Our Lives, Part II: The relationship between auteur, François Truffaut and orchestral composer, Maurice Jaubert. In fact, you can see it now at https://travelingboy.com/travel/the-film-soundtracks-in-our-lives-part-ii/.

The post The Film Soundtracks in Our Lives appeared first on Traveling Archive.

The beaches of Rimini were deserted when I arrived to write my story. From the waterfront road, I could wander down any short side street and then pass through abandoned play lots, vacant volleyball courts, rows of empty changing facilities, shuttered beach bars and cordoned-off areas normally packed elbow-to-elbow. The tourist season was long gone, most of the waterfront was shut down and I felt like the only one around.

As I opened a waist-high wooden gate and then walked onto the beach, the desolation was inspiring. Empty sand stretched across the horizon, from left to right, as the metallic blue of the Adriatic Sea washed over the beach, only to recede, and then repeat. Slowly. Patiently. The sea was not in a hurry. It had nothing but time.

A dismal overcast sky harmonized the scene, reminding me of a Fellini quote: “You always need an excuse to set off on a journey. In the same way you need an excuse to start a film.”

I’m not even sure I agreed with that quote. Yet it came to me, right there on the beach in Rimini, Fellini’s hometown.

The son of a traveling salesman, Federico Fellini was born in 1920. He won five Oscars, four for Best Foreign Language Film, and the last one, in 1993, for lifetime achievement. He passed away later that year.

The port area of Rimini, and the Adriatic in general, inspired a multitude of imagery in Fellini movies, playing a significant role in his cinematic art, even though he never actually filmed a single scene here. He reconstructed everything in the studio, most often at Cinecitta in Rome.

Standing on the sand, I saw only a few footsteps from other people since the whole area was empty, but the presence of those footsteps spoke volumes. I Vitelloni, an early Fellini film from 1953, included a few scenes from this beach. Roughly translated as slackers, layabouts or bored provincial slobs, the vitelloni were dudes that loafed around, engaged in petty crime and squandered all their potential.

The sand reappeared in La Strada. Nowhere was Rimini specifically mentioned, but the film began and ended on the beach. Anthony Quinn’s emotional breakdown in the sand went down in history as one of the most dramatic scenes in all of Fellini’s oeuvre. I could not walk in the sand, here on this beach, in Rimini, without that scene entering my head.

As I stood there watching the Adriatic roll over the sand, I also heard Nino Rota’s trumpet motif from the La Strada soundtrack. It wouldn’t leave my head. One of the greatest film composers of all time, Rota was better known for the Godfather soundtracks, but he was also one of Fellini’s most dedicated collaborators. He wrote the music for almost every Fellini film, many of which featured the sea as a backdrop, a character, or a minor role.

Of course, I couldn’t leave out Amarcord from this walk along the beach. More than any other Fellini enterprise, Amarcord depicted childhood memories, family squabbles, friendships and various eccentric characters all over Rimini during the fascist era, including important episodes on this very beach. In one of the film’s most memorable scenes, this beach is where the townfolk came out to worship the Rex Ocean Liner, pride and joy of the fascist regime, as it sailed past the port. Even if the version of Rimini depicted in the film was entirely from Fellini’s head, Amarcord to this day continued to saturate the entire Rimini area.

With Fellini, one could never tell if his material was wholly autobiographical, if characters or scenes were based exactly on his life, the antics of his pals, or if he just made everything up. As with any poet, it was all of the above.

Fellini Museum: Dov’è Nino Rota?

To celebrate the centenary of the maestro’s birth, the Fellini Museum was scheduled for a 2020 debut, but Covid-19 put everything on hold. The museum did not open until August of 2021.

Now, two floors of Rimini’s Renaissance-era fortress, the Sismondo Castle, were filled with multimedia exhibits, demonstrations, costumes, letters, documents, videos and replications of movie sets, all dedicated to the life, work and poetic legacy of the man himself.

Upon entry, a spiral installation sculpted with various script pages descended from the ceiling in the foyer. The first room was then dedicated to Fellini’s wife, Giulietta Masina. Numerous vertical video projections graced each side of the space, all depicting Giulietta in various films and in various stages of her life. Each projection rotated through different images over and over, creating a funhouse effect. The changing video panels directed me straight to the end of the space, where I saw the ramshackle motorcart from La Strada — the actual motorcart Giulietta and Anthony Quinn used in the film.

Due to her superb performances in Nights of Cabiria and La Strada, Giulietta was a major reason why Fellini won his first two Oscars. Especially in those two movies, Giulietta portrayed characters from the backwater countryside and gritty underbelly of Italy in 1950s, allowing Fellini to highlight people and environments normally ignored by society. The curators did the right thing by making her the focus of the first room upon entry to the museum.

Up and down two whole floors, various other displays extrapolated dimensions of Fellini’s life and art. One room featured wooden Catholic-style confessional structures, through which viewer/participants could watch video interviews with Fellini, Marcello Mastroianni and several more. A huge larger-than-life statue of Anita Ekberg from La Dolce Vita was sprawled across on the floor of another space. Behind her, a monitor revealed montages from the film. Yet another space was dedicated to costumes Fellini used in his film, Casanova. 

Other spaces provided video boards with various scholarly texts and books on Fellini, including one space designed to replicate Fellini’s home library. Bookshelves adorned one wall, while a few coffee tables offered books for everyone to peruse. Two video screens played a film explaining various influences on the maestro, including Jungian psychology, the I-Ching and authors like Jorge Luis Borges.

The famous Book of Dreams was featured in another room. In 1960, the Jungian psychoanalyst Ernst Bernhard encouraged Fellini to write and draw his dreams. The result was an incredible diary full of writings, drawings, colors, erasures, playful fantasies and unspeakable fears. Fellini’s process of internal excavation, a constant dialog with his inner life, proved fundamental to his journey from the 1960s onward, as he dove into the works of Carl Gustav Jung. Beginning with 8 1/2 and Juliet of the Spirits, Jungian psychology played a major role in Fellini’s artistic experience, although the seeds were present in his earlier films.

Sonic-wise, the museum was loud in all the right ways. Each exhibit bled over into the next one. From the start, Nino Rota’s main melodic theme from La Strada carried throughout the castle. As I moved up the stairways and passed through subsequent displays, I could hear it the whole way through, coming in and out, as if that film penetrated everything else. The tune was already in my head before I even entered the museum. And there it was again, everywhere.

Rota’s music played an integral role in Fellini’s career. The two were inseparable. As soon as you heard a typical Rota motif augment a particular scene or character, you just knew you were watching a Fellini film. Even people with no musical knowledge have pointed this out.

On that note, I was disappointed to see nothing in the museum dedicated to Nino Rota. I even wrote in my notebook, “Dov’è Nino Rota? Where is he?”

Fortunately, though, there was indeed a separate section of the museum dedicated to the late Tonino Guerra, the renowned poet and screenwriter who worked with Fellini on Amarcord and a few others. Guerra was Fellini’s age and grew up in the nearby village of Sant’Arcangelo. As a poet, he wrote simple verse in the Romagnolo dialect, hardly any of which has been translated into English. His screenwriting career, which spanned 50 years, led him to work with some of the giants of European cinema. He cowrote many of the classic Antonioni films — L’Avventura, La Notte, L’Eclisse, Red Desert, Blow-Up and Zabriske Point — and also worked with Tarkovsky and Angelopoulos. He won lifetime achievement awards at several different festivals.

It was for Amarcord, especially, that Guerra came to collaborate with Fellini. Together, they first wrote the book, then the script, although Guerra is hardly mentioned in the voluminous decades-long analysis and discussion of the film. Fellini gets all the credit. It was refreshing to see the contents of the Tonino Guerra Museum in Sant’Arcangelo — Nel Mondo di Tonino Guerra — temporarily relocated to the Fellini Museum. One can watch video interviews with Guerra and view his visual art and ceramic sculptures, in addition to his poetry.

Follow Your Own Footsteps

In Rimini, a massive amount of work was done to document every possible structure all over town, every street or every plaza that had anything remotely to do with Fellini. There were lists, addresses, and lists of addresses. It went on and on. One could choose however many footsteps to follow, if one was into that kind of thing.

For starters, I popped into the lobby of the Grand Hotel, the property featured in Amarcord. It was open for all to see.

In a 1967 essay titled, “Rimini, My Hometown,” Fellini wrote about the eccentric characters and experiences of his youth. The whole essay is essentially a blueprint for Amarcord, including extensive childhood memories of the Grand Hotel.

“We would roam around it like mice, trying to get a glimpse of the inside,” he wrote, adding several hundred more words about the property’s mystique, its allure, its exotic wonders. One day, he finally did get inside, noting a smell of wax polish, as there was in the cathedral on Sunday mornings. It was silent and peaceful like an aquarium. “Then gradually I saw sofas as big as boats, armchairs bigger than beds, the red strip of carpet slowly curving up the marble steps toward the gleam of colored glass; flowers, peacocks, snakes, luxuriously interlaced, their tongues intertwined; from a dizzy height, miraculously suspended in mid-air, hung the biggest lamp in the world.”

Every time Fellini came back to Rimini, he stayed in room 315, which is now a highly requested room with a balcony facing toward the sea.

After the Grand Hotel, another spot demanding my attention was the newly restored Cinema Fulgor, also a masterpiece from Fellini’s youth, although when the young Federico first discovered the place, it was hardly the opulent attraction it is now. It was a “warm sewer of vice” he wrote. The experiences of Fellini and his friends in this theater inspired the notorious scene in Amarcord where Titta tried to put the moves on Gradisca as she obsessed over Gary Cooper on the screen.

The real-life Cinema Fulgor had long since fallen into a sad state of disrepair until just recently. Now it constituted a separate annex of the Fellini Museum. Inside, red velvet seats complemented lavish gold trimmings. The seats were comfortable, impossibly comfortable. I didn’t want to get up.

Any degree of Fellini ghost-stalking eventually led one over the Tiberius Bridge, en route to Borgo San Giuliano, Rimini’s historic quarter, the village where parts of Amarcord took place. Formerly a gritty rundown fishing village, the Borgo was now transformed into a civic pastiche of dreamlike murals featuring characters from Fellini films. The houses were fixed up. The facades were vibrant and colorful. The Festa del Borgo San Giuliano erupted every two years, attracting tourists from all over Europe.

The Tiberius Bridge itself was a masterful structure built by the Romans 2000 years ago. During World War Two, the Germans destroyed many of the bridges in Rimini, but for whatever reason they were not able to take out the Tiberius Bridge. These days, many Roman bridges remained throughout the land, but the Tiberius Bridge was one of only a few still used for everyday traffic.

After Fellini’s funeral in 1993, his casket arrived in Rimini, where thousands gathered throughout the streets for the motorcade. The procession eventually passed over the Tiberius Bridge.

If one was going to walk in the footsteps of Fellini, the journey necessitated a walk in the footsteps of his funeral. As I took a nighttime stroll across the bridge, the blues came over me. The sky was turning into a deep, dark azure color, as was the Marecchia River. I stood there for quite some time, just watching the pedestrians amble in front of me.

Elsewhere in town, I slithered in and around numerous other Fellini-related locales, so much that it became overkill. If anything, all poets and novelists can learn from Fellini, in terms of how to properly fictionalize childhood memories and then transform them into usable material.

The following morning, I headed back toward the beach, although I took a circuitous route. Instead of heading along the canal and right up to the channel harbor, I crossed the center of town, navigating cobblestone pathways past the main shopping district of handbags, banks, cafes, outdoor seating and gelato joints, and then straight past the other side of the train station, so that I could arrive at a more southern portion of Viale Regina Elena, the road running parallel to the beach.

Much of the commerce along Regina Elena was shut down since the tourist season was over. The street was devoid of traffic except for a few construction workers or city employees wearing fluorescent orange and yellow work jackets. Only a few restaurants remained open, along with immigrant-owned corner markets and trinket shops.

Old hotels and new hotels alike, hundreds of them, remained closed for the upcoming winter season. They stood along the road and the maze of side streets, forming a complex patchwork of emptiness. Small handfuls of locals wandered around, happy to conduct their business during the quiet part of the year.

But I was not traversing the beach district for the commerce. I was here for 26 different streets renamed after Fellini films and screenplays. Each was a tiny side street that ran perpendicular to the beach, between the main road and the waterfront.

Oddly enough, many of the streets were formerly named after composers, but had long since been renamed after the maestro himself. Via Johann Strauss was now ia La Dolce Vita. Via Mozart was now via I vitelloni. Via J.S. Bach was now via Le notti di Cabiria. Who needed Bach and Mozart when you could name streets after the town’s most favorite son? As a result, one could literally walk through the entire film career of Federico Fellini over the course of a mile or so. What a concept.

Back to the Beach

Continuing on Viale Regina Elena eventually put me right back at the Grand Hotel, where a nearby street was renamed after Giulietta Masina. There seemed to be a collective effort to acknowledge Giulietta, not just Fellini. And rightly so.

All this time, the sea was only a few moments away, and since La Strada, 8 1/2 and La Dolce Vita all concluded on the beach, I headed right back to the sand one last time. The entire beach remained empty and desolate, although the sun was now overhead in the sky, so I could see at least a few other people way off in the distance.

On the sand, I did not collapse like Anthony Quinn at the end of La Strada. Unlike Marcello in La Dolce Vita, I did not project my failed journalism career onto a dead sea monster and there was no blond woman trying to save me. There was only the clear metallic blue of the Adriatic Sea. I could only imagine the stories it held.

Something about the Adriatic seemed different than other bodies of water. I couldn’t explain how, but I could see why it left such a mark on Fellini.

The Rimini of today didn’t even resemble the imaginary version Fellini depicted in his films, but maybe it served as a lesson. A reminder. A testimonial to how a genius could process his childhood trauma, run tests in the laboratory of his inner self, fabricate whatever components he needed, and then use it for creative purposes, all while continuing to dream.

Everything from my trip came spiraling back to the present moment. The theme from La Strada. The murals of Borgo San Giuliano. Giulietta’s likeness across 20 hanging video panels. The poetry of Tonino Guerra in Romagnolo dialect. Those red cushy seats at the Cinema Fulgor. All of it, together, formed a matrix and danced around me, just like at the end of 8 1/2.

I even heard Fellini from the great beyond, applauding me, encouraging me from his grave.

“End the story on the beach,” he said to me. So that’s what I did. I took one last look at the deserted surroundings. Then I turned around, left the sand, and went back out the wooden waist-high gate toward the road.

The post The Rimini of Fellini: The Fellini of Rimini appeared first on Traveling Archive.

Curated by Ed Boitano.

1. Viaggio in Italia (1954)

Director: Roberto Rossellini;  Story and screenplay: Vitaliano Brancati & Roberto Rossellini); Cast: Ingrid Bergman, George Sanders, Maria Mauban

Roberto Rossellini’s groundbreaking spiritual masterpiece is still ahead of its time and widely misunderstood. An unhappily married English couple (played by Rossellini’s wife, Ingrid Bergman; and George Sanders) drive to Naples for an inherited property. There is mundane dialogue and bickering about the collapse of their marriage.  As the film closes, they are caught in a religious procession, and an off-screen miracle takes place. All they can see is a lame man, euphorically waving his crutches in the air. Overwhelmed by the experience, they make a new commitment to their marriage.

2. Kings of the Road (1976)

Director/writer: Wim Wenders; Cast: Rüdiger Vogler, Hanns Zischler, Lisa Kreuzer; Cinematography by Robby Müller

Wim Wenders’ Kings of the Road is about a movie projector mechanic (Wenders’ regular, Rüdiger Vogle), traveling the lonely backroads of pre-reunification West Germany to dilapidated movie theaters. He meets a depressed linguist, who just bungled a suicide attempt. The two decide to travel together in an attempt to come to terms with their own lives in a changing world. The final installment of Wenders’ Road Trilogy, shot in stark b/w by the brilliant Robby Müller (another Wenders’ regular).

3. Wild Strawberries (1957)

Director/ Writer: Ingmar Bergman; Cinematography: Gunnar Fischer; Cast( Full of Bergman regulars): Victor Sjöström, Ingrid Thulin, Bibi Andersson, Gunnar Björnstrand and Max von Sydow (the Seventh Seal’s courageous knight in a bit part as a gas station attendant).

Ingmar Bergman’s richly humane masterpiece, dramatizes one man’s journey of self-discovery. Driving from Stockholm to Lund  to accept an honorary degree, an aging professor (played by veteran filmmaker, Victor Sjöström), confronts the emptiness of his existence and the inevitability of his own death. Traveling with his pregnant niece (Ingrid Thulin),  the narrative is conveyed through iconic imagery of flashbacks, dreams and nightmares. The final two shots, linked through a dissolve, are among the most heartfelt endings in the history of the cinema.

4. Thelma & Louise (1991)

Director: Ridley Scott; Writer: Callie Khouri; Music: Hans Zimmer; Cast: Susan Sarandon, Geena Davis, Harvey Keitel, Michael Madsen, Christopher McDonald, Brad Pitt

Two working-class women (Susan Sarandon, Genna Davis) bust out of small town Arkansas life in a 1966 T-Bird to blow off a little steam. Their Road Trip transitions into a couples-on-the-run when Thelma shoots a man, stopping a brutal rape of Louise. The characters undergo a rite-of-passage and sense of self-discovery as they traverse the U.S.’ expansive landscape. With sheriff’s cars behind them, their road ends at the edge of a cliff. Rather than surrender, they decide to floor the T-Bird over the cliff, leaving the audiences with a freeze-framed symbolic image of them flying through the sky.

5. The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

Director: John Ford; Writers: Nunnally Johnson (screen play), John Steinbeck (based on his novel); Cinematography: Gregg Toland; Cast: Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine, Charley Grapewin; John Qualen

The Grapes of Wrath is a film adaptation of John Steinbeck’s novel, directed by legendary John Ford. The narrative focuses on the plight of the Joad family, who have been forced off their land due to the Oklahoma Dust Bowl. In a barely functional truck, the group heads to the promised land of California. They are met with inhumanely low wages, corrupt orchard owners and savage strike-busting vigilantes. The film is blessed with many of Ford’s hallmarks, Tom Joad’s (Henry Fonda) ending soliloquy, and the innovative use of deep-focus cinematography by pre-Citizen Kane cameraman, Greg Tolland.

6. La Strada (1954)

Director: Federico Fellini; Writers: Federico Fellini, Tullio Pinelli (story and screenplay), Tullio Pinelli (dialogue), Music: Nino Rota; Cast: Anthony Quinn, Giulietta Masina, Richard Basehart

Gelsomina (Giulietta Masina) is a gentle peasant girl, sold by her mother to  Zampanò (Anthony Quinn), a brutal strongman in a battered traveling circus. She endures physical and emotional abuse as his assistant, but still manages to carry on. The film ends in tragedy when Gelsomina finally breaks down and is abandoned. Later, Zampanò is confronted with his own brutality and drops to his knees at the seashore in remorse. The ‘sea’ and Chaplin films, where Masina plays a version of the Little Tramp, are recurring influences in the work of Federico Fellini. The film launched Fellini and Masina (Fellini’s wife, seven films together) to international stardom.

7. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974)

Director: Sam Peckinpah, Writing: Gordon T. Dawson, Sam Peckinpah (screenplay), Frank Kowalski, Sam Peckinpah (story). Cast: Warren Oates, Isela Vega, Kris Kristofferson, Robert Webber, Gig Young, Emilio Fernández as El Jefe

Bring the Head of Alfredo Garcia is pure Peckinpah at his best and most personal. Made on a shoestring budget with an all Mexican crew, Benny (Warren Oats), a washed-up piano player in a Tijuana bar, overhears that a bounty  has been placed on the head of Al Garcia by a Mexican Mafia Kingman (actor/director, Emilio Fernández). Benny knows Al is dead and buried; he only has to dig him up and cut off his head to earn the money, providing a new start for him and his prostitute girlfriend. But there are other unsavory characters in the mix, leading to a ruthless treasure hunt.  Benny readdresses his priorities in an attempt to regain his own self-respect and get to the top of the madness. For Peckinpah, ‘the top of the madness’ was Richard Nixon and interfering film studio executives.

8. Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

Directors: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris; Writer: Michael Arndt; Cast: Greg Kinnear, Alan Arkin, Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Paul Dano, Abigail Breslin

Initially regarded as a simple family satire, Little Miss Sunshine captured the hearts of mainstream audiences and fits the bill as an uplifting American Road Movie. The directorial debut of a husband and wife team, and a first time writer; a stellar ensemble of six-players, pile into vintage VW Van for a 700-mile journey from Albuquerque to Redondo Beach. Their goal is to make it to a Ramada Inn, the location of a beauty pageant, so their young daughter can participate in the contest. On the journey, the family tries to come to terms with their own personal dilemmas and piece of the American Dream

9. The Straight Story

Director: David Lynch; Writers: John Roach, Mary Sweeney; Cinematography: Freddie Francis; Editor: Mary Sweeney; Music: Angelo Badalamenti; Cast: Richard Farnsworth, Sissy Spacek, Harry Dean Stanton

David Lynch made a G-rated movie for Disney, and it is as unique and Lynchian as any of his past films. An ageing farmer (Richard Farnsworth) must complete his final act of redemption: To mend wounds with his estranged brother, whom he has not seen for decades. His old truck is severely out-of-order, so he rigs up a lawn mower to make the long trek to the distant state.  Due to the comical mode of his transport, he attracts much attention, meeting a cross-section of rural Americans, facing their own problems. Former stuntman Farnsworth passed away at 80, shortly after the film was made.

10.  Green Book (2018)

Director: Peter Farrelly, Writers: Nick Vallelonga, Brian Hayes Currie, Peter Farrelly; Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Mahershala Ali, Linda Cardellini

Green Book offers easy lessons learned about an accomplished African-American pianist chauffeured by a streetwise New York Italian-American bouncer to musical engagements in the U.S. South’s Jim Crow years. At first they are ambivalent about each other, but become friends, learn from one another, realizing that they were prisoners of their own stereotypes of others. It’s a safe movie, but serves as a reminder how things once were – Ali being refused service at hotels, mocked by locals as a man of color wearing fancy ‘uppity’ clothes. Peter Farelly captures some iconic images, and Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali are a delight to watch.

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