A nicely evocative soundtrack which called (ha ha) to mind both the film itself and the general air of a Sofia Coppola soundtrack, especially Marie Antoinette: moody piano pieces, early 80s synth-pop hits (only smokily, distantly familiar to me: the Psychedelic Furs' "Love My Way", F R David's "Words", Giorgio Moroder and Joe Esposito's "Lady Lady Lady"; also Loredana Berte's "J'adore Venise" and Franco Battiato's "Radio Varsavia", which are of the same vintage and also both Italian), the two Sufjan Stevens songs I'd already heard, "Mystery of Love" (which I always want to call "Mysteries of Love" because of Blue Velvet) and "Visions of Gideon" and a smattering of others.
Listening to it also led me down the road of thinking about memorable song/scene pairings (obviously a wholly personal list):
Listening to it also led me down the road of thinking about memorable song/scene pairings (obviously a wholly personal list):
- The first that came to mind, no doubt thanks to the 80s connection: "I Ran" in La La Land, a pitch perfect scene, though I think watching it cost me a bit of my heart to Emma Stone
- Enid (that would be Thora Birch) dancing to "Jaan Pehechaan Ho" in her room as Ghost World opens
- Winona Ryder and friends dancing to "My Sharona" in the service station, Reality Bites
- From the same film, the big dramatic "All I Want Is You"-tracked sequence (the details had blurred before I refreshed my memory with youtube, but the way it made me feel had not)
- Any number from Moulin Rouge, but maybe especially Ewan McGregor singing "Your Song" to Nicole Kidman and its sheer exultant romanticism
- Uma Thurmann in Pulp Fiction to "Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon" (Urge Overkill) - like many of these, encountered at an impressionable age
- Post-party comedown in Marie Antoinette - "Tommib Help Buss" by Squarepusher
- Joseph Gordon Levitt's triumphant walk to that Hall and Oates song in (500) Days of Summer
- "The Killing Moon" in the first scene, and "Under The Milky Way" at the party, Donnie Darko
- "Kissing You", gazes meeting through the fish tank, Romeo + Juliet
- Not a movie, but "Breathe Me" as Six Feet Under ends, wow
- Then there's the "Wise Up" montage in Magnolia
- "The Lonely Shepherd" and Hattori Hanzo's sword in Kill Bill vol 1 (immediately after "Kaifuku suru kizu" no less, which exists in relation to both that film and the amazing All About Lily Chou-Chou)
Excluding:
- Opening and closing credits songs unless they're part of the film itself (a few that leap to mind: Beck's cover of "Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime" at the end of Eternal Sunshine, the Greenhornes' "There Is An End" in Broken Flowers, Anna von Hausswolf's "Track of Time" over the closing credits of Personal Shopper).
- Songs that are totally associated with a film as a whole but not, at least for me, any one particular scene (e.g. "California Dreaming" and that cover of the Cranberries' "Dreams" in Chungking Express, "Non, je ne regrette rien" in Inception, "The Blower's Daughter" in Closer).
- Songs that I've learned to associate with particular scenes through sheer force of watching the film over and over and/or listening to the soundtrack (e.g. Heart's "Magic Man" and Trip Fontaine's locker walk in The Virgin Suicides)
- Karaoke versions (ok, there's only one, obvious example here)
I'm sure I've missed plenty, but those are the ones that have proved closest to the surface.
