How do you pick just one Bob Dylan song for a series like this? I have 352 of them in my iTunes library and could probably make an argument for most.
Do I go for a track off one of his trifecta of masterworks from 1965-66 (Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde)? Imagine that… Bob Dylan put out those three albums in two years! Most artists would give their first born to put out three albums half as good over a lifetime.
Today I celebrate the joys of product placement.
I wonder if musician guest spots on TV shows do any good. I’m talking about the sort of thing where The Shins, say, turn up playing the local bar on Gossip Girl (that hasn’t actually happened, as far as I know… it’s just a hypothetical).
One such guest spot I remember, because it combined two of my favorite things, was Aimee Mann’s appearance on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She played two songs in the background of a couple bar scenes and even got to deliver a line (“Man, I hate playing vampire towns”). But I doubt any non-Aimee Mann fans ran out to buy her album.
And on the seventh day, we come full circle.
While Kath Bloom’s ‘Come Here’ signaled the beginning of a romance in Before Sunrise, things are quite different nine years later when Julie Delpy performs her ‘Waltz’ in Before Sunset.
I remember being both excited and scared when I heard Richard Linkater, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy had reunited to film a sequel to Before Sunrise. On the one hand, I was dying to know what happened with Jesse and Celine and I relished the thought of spending another 90 minutes with them. On the other, I felt the first film was perfect and when you mess with perfection the only way to go is down.
OK, so I’m breaking the rules again with this pick, or bending them anyway.
Marketa Irglova is listening to a recording in this clip from Once, but it’s a recording of her own music and she does sing along to the tape, so I think it counts.
I had plenty of Once scenes to choose from — the whole movie is made up of scenes that fit my criteria for this week’s theme — but I really had no other choice. For me, this is far and away the best scene in the movie.
When I talk about the use of music in movies, I throw around a lot of names (Wes Anderson, Paul Thomas Anderson and Martin Scorsese are the most common) but I often forget to include the Coen Brothers. And that’s a major oversight, because these guys have done great things with music in all their films.
Start with the original scores, all penned by the wonderful Carter Burwell. From the banjo-and-yodel version of Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’ in Raising Arizona to the pounding bass drums of Fargo‘s Nordic-inspired title song; from Barton Fink‘s edgy violins to that gorgeous and melancholy Miller’s Crossing theme.
