After watching a film, you leave the cinema or turn the TV off. While thinking about whether you liked it, do you break down your thoughts about why you feel the way you do? Was it the directing? The editing? The cinematography? The visual or sound effects? Perhaps the soundtrack? What about a particular scene? Was it a dolly shot? A protracted tracking shot? A montage sequence? Any sequence on its own can be beautiful and be seen as “well made”. That sequence’s full force, though, can only be experienced after the built-up before it and fully appreciated after what comes next. A film is the outcome of dozens, hundreds, or thousands of people who have worked on tight deadlines to produce the quality of what you watch and listen in cinemas or at home. Hence, “it takes a village to make a film”.
For the purposes of this article, I decided to write on defining soundtracks that played a catalytic role in constructing powerful cinematic sequences. Some are well known, some not so much and others potentially unnoticeable to the vast majority. I strongly suggest you watch these films before reading further, as my descriptions give away either the ending or essential parts of the plot. Regardless of a film’s critical or financial success, despite its popularity, irrespective of its music’s genre… these are some of the films that still give me goosebumps every time I watch them or happen to listen to their soundtracks while contemplating life.
The Last of the Mohicans (1992): Action / Adventure / Drama
Director: Michael Mann
Music by: Randy Edelman, Trevor Jones
Logline: A family of three trappers is tasked to escort to safety the daughters of a British colonel while he is at war with the French and the Native Americans.
From the beginning till the end, The Last of the Mohicans is a series of impactful sequences, making it extremely difficult to choose the one that stands out. The film’s main theme plays in numerous scenes in various versions. Towards the end, the theme plays under the waterfall when Hawkeye realises that they need to surrender the girls so they can save them afterwards. Before he jumps through the waterfall’s torrential waters, he grabs Cora tight, looks her in the eyes and emphatically says:
“[…] You stay alive, no matter what occurs! I will find you! No matter how long it takes, no matter how far. I will find you!”
Later on, the not-so-l likeable Maj. Heyward becomes the unlike hero sacrificing himself, Magua and his small army lead the two girls to the top of the steep cliff, while Hawkeye and his family ferociously take out everyone who stands in their way. The film’s theme powerfully accompanies the tragic moments where Hawkeye’s brother arrives first, suffering a horrible death in Magua’s hands, defending his love. Having lost him, the girl jumps to her own death while her sister is watching, and Hawkeye’s father unleashes his unfathomable rage and excruciating pain, brutally slaughtering Magua.
The Last of the Mohicans has not aged a day and, in my humble opinion, remains one of the most remarkable period films ever made.
P.S. Michael Mann is also responsible for one of the most intense cop thrillers ever made, Heat (1995)
Schindler’s List (1993): Biography / Drama / History
Director: Steven Spielberg
Music by: John Williams
Logline: Oskar Schindler, a wealthy German industrialist, becomes even wealthier during World War II by exploiting Jews, but everything changes when the persecutions start.
As with The Last of the Mohicans, it seems unfair to pick one sequence only. That is because, in Schindler’s List, one soul-crashing sequence succeeds the next. Personally, though, the one that always brings tears to my eyes is the one that Schindler and Stern finally have that drink. Two hours and fifteen minutes into the film, Stern, the man behind the scenes, the man who is responsible for the unfathomable metamorphosis of an industrialist womaniser into a philanthropist, the man who categorically refused to have a drink with someone like Schindler, feels that, despite how hard they have tried they ultimately failed. In that moment of despair, right before Schindler departs, he looks at Stern with wishful optimism…
Schindler: Someday, this is all going to end, you know. I was going to say we’ll have a drink then. (Stern weeps) Stern: I think I better have it now.
The uncertainty of tomorrow and the heart-breaking hopelessness contrast with the feeling of appreciation toward a man who did the best he could to save the lives of people he once considered only as expendable means of profit and agreed for the first time to have the drink he refused to for years. Steven Spielberg’s directing is accompanied by John Williams’ main theme, making it one of the most powerful dialogue pieces ever made.
I might be writing about soundtracks and powerful sequences, but the full force that hits you is also the result of Janusz Kaminski’s haunting cinematography and Michael Kahn’s sensitising editing. Needless to say, all four won the golden statuette – and more.
The Mist (2007): Horror / Sci-fi / Thriller
Directed by: Frank Darabont
Song: “The Host of Seraphim”
Written by: Lisa Gerard and Brendan Perry
Performed by: Dead Can Dance
Logline: When a mist comes out of nowhere, bringing with it monsters beyond anyone’s imagination, a diverse group of people in a supermarket must do whatever they can to protect themselves from them or from each other.
The film’s last sequence starts with a group of people’s escape from the supermarket, initially a place to protect themselves against monstrous forces, but ultimately a prison as dangerous as the mist itself. The reasons that led the group to escape that place are significant to comprehending the sequence’s tragic irony. Darabont explicitly stipulated to Dimension Films that he will come aboard only if the scripted ending stays as it is.
The father, his young boy, an extremely nice and incredibly good-looking lady, and a lovely old man and a woman, as aforementioned, manage to escape the supermarket, enter a car and drive off, not knowing how far the mist has spread or what kind of creatures they will encounter. “The Host of Seraphim”, dark, epic, inspired by Balkan polyphonic singing, adds to the mystery of the unknown journey. Tragedy hits immediately while driving past a doomed school bus that stood no chance and continues with the father’s house, whose wife is cocooned against their house’s wall. Keep moving on, not knowing what lies ahead, the car runs out of fuel in the middle of a forest (music fades out). With eerie sounds gradually closing in, the father takes out a gun with only four bullets and shoots everyone so they don’t suffer the horrible death others had before them. Having nothing to lose, he comes out of the car, ready to meet his death, only to see… (music fades in) the army emerging from the mist prevailing over the few creatures that are left, followed by trucks full of survivors that are led to a safe place. Instantly, the first question that comes to the viewer’s mind is: If you were him, how would you cope with what you have done?
Time of the Gypsies (1988): Comedy / Crime / Drama
Directed by: Emir Kusturica
Music by: Goran Bregovic
Song: “Ederlezi”
Logline: A young Romany, in an attempt to save his sister, embarks on a journey of crime with dangerous consequences.
The Romany village celebrates, a young couple finds love, the grandma in front of the campfire weeps for the young couple… and “Ederlezi” puts everything together like “a midsummer’s night dream”. Full of emotion, joy and tears, Kusturica creates a “paganistic” sequence of how life was meant to be. A life as a Romany can only dream of. The dream sequence becomes the film’s landmark, and “Ederlezi” fades in once more, much later on, with the realisation of how fast life can be cut short when it’s too late for forgiveness or remorse. Finally, it appears one last time when Perhan’s odyssey comes to an end, and his purpose has been fulfilled.
Time of the Gypsies, the first ever feature film shot in the Romany language, had a significant impact on the Balkan and Eastern European cinema, and along with the film, the polyphonic soundtrack added to the film’s myth and spirituality.
Requiem for a Dream (2000): Drama
Directed by: Darren Aronofsky
Music by: Clint Mansell
Songs: “Winter: Southern hospitality” / “Winter Overture”
Logline: In the hope that everything will get better, a mother, a son, his girlfriend and their friend can only dream big.
A mother wants to get on her favourite show. The son wants to become a businessman. His girlfriend blindly believes in him. Their friend wants to score big. Massive blow to American society, Requiem for a Dream, from start to finish, keeps pounding the American dream, its means to get there, and its after-effects on a collective but also individual level: drugs, trash TV, superfluous diets, and ephemeral fame unfold aggressively throughout the film and build up to an amalgamated sequence, masterfully pieced together by film editor Jay Rabinowitz on Clint Mansell’s track “Winter: Southern hospitality”. During the film’s staccato rhythm, the mother receives immense treatment for abusing diet pills, the son gets hospitalised due to his infected heroin arm, his friend is transferred to a hostile, racist prison in the South, and the girlfriend ends up doing “ass-to-ass” shows for yuppies who stick money to her mouth.
The shockingly effective sequence leads to the film’s culminating denouement, which reveals the fate of all four. “Winter Overture”, the film’s main theme that has been remixed countless times, draws the curtains open and presents the result of it to you. In an attempt to fulfil their dream “quick and easy”, the mother gets institutionalised, the son loses his arm, his friend remains locked up in that prison with withdrawal syndrome, and the girlfriend realises that there is no going back after what she had done. In the name of an illusion we call dream…
P.S. Ellen Burstyn’s performance is out of this world.
Swing Kinds (1993): Drama / Music
Directed by: Thomas Carter
Music by: James Horner
Song: “Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen”
Artist: Ella Fitzgerald
Logline: In Nazi Germany, a group of teenagers who love Swing music and refuse to join Hitler’s Youth eventually have to face the unbearable reality of their time.
One of my favourite films growing up! A group of kids going against the tide. And what an inconceivably monstrous tide that was. They go out, listening to swing music… and playing it… and dancing to it all together. And as the months pass by, the group of youths gets chewed up and spat out by the monster. It infiltrates their beliefs, spreads like metastatic cancer, eats them from within, and tears them apart.
In the end, after everything is said and done, one of the teenagers, Peter Müller, is alone. No places to go to… no one to go with… no music to play… But this one Swing club. Peter decks out, and while knowing what the stakes are, he goes by himself. The singer sings Ella Fitzgerald’s slow tempo “Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen”. Peter, ready to give it all, holds it but dances to the rhythm. The singer keeps singing, the pace slowly picks up, and so does Peter. Every couple around him starts dancing faster. Peter starts dancing faster. The singer sings faster. Not acknowledging anyone, Peter dances faster… and faster… and faster. And swings left, right, and centre on his own, finally releasing years of pain, anger, and sorrow… until Hitler’s Jungen invade!
Other than the personal effect that sequence still has on me, I have never heard anyone talk about it, not even mention it. If you watch it, I hope it resonates with you and that “Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen” makes you express yourselves in a way you have never done before.
Hustle and Flow (2005): Crime / Drama / Music
Directed by: Craig Brewer
Music by: Scott Bomar
Song: “It’s Hard Out Here For A Pimp”
Artist: Three 6 Mafia
Logline: A hustler who’s been constantly looked down on and aspires to become a rapper takes every wrong turn to get there.
A man and his aspiration! A man… who tries to squeeze a dollar out of a dime and doesn’t even get a cent. Terence Howard as “Djay”, Taryn Manning as “Nola”, and Taraji P. Henson as “Shug” give incredibly emotional performances in a drama that could as well be biographical. And you know what? Recording the “It’s Hard Out Here For A Pimp” sequence feels real and gets you pumped up as it is the first time Djay has actually achieved something, the first step to waking up from his dream and doing something about it. He pours his heart into it and sees himself as somebody with a purpose. As he raps from his soul, everyone around him looks up to him, and the fulfilment makes him the tallest man in the world.
Djay is no hero – far from it – mainly due to what he does. What makes the audience overcome the nature of his profession, though, is his will to succeed but also the way people put him down for it. Isn’t it interesting? When people with no dreams see you as a failure, you do your best to turn your back on them and raise the bar even higher. When people who have had dreams though, and had their breakthrough, see you as a failure, you just want to kick their pompous arse.
No one really has an answer to why we become what we are in life. But seeing a person giving their heart and soul to achieve something is strong enough to make the audience even root for a hustler.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000): Action / Adventure / Fantasy
Directed by: Ang Lee
Music by: Dun Tan
Song: Farewell
Logline: When a skilful young burglar steals the Sword of Destiny, a swordsman and a female warrior go after her to retrieve it.
A love that never came to fruition. Two honourable fighters that their honour never allowed them to tell each other how they felt. When the most precious weapon is stolen, both of them embark on a journey to retrieve it, and so the adventure begins. The journey is adventurous indeed. Li Mu Bai’s and Yu Shu Lien’s quest unavoidably brings them as close as they should have always been. They track down their adversary foe, none other than Jen Yu, a misled young girl who possesses knowledge of mystical scripts.
Just like life itself, unexpected turns lead Mu Bai to save her life from a poisonous needle at the cost of his own. Jen realises the wrong of her ways and, as fast as she can, she hastens to find the antidote. The drums, the erhu, and the violins start playing “Farewell,” which fades delicately the moment Shu Lien needs all the hope she can get that they will finally be together. She encourages him not to waste his breath and save his strength. But as his life departs, Mu Bai lets his heart speak: “I’ve already wasted my whole life. I want to tell you with my last breath that I have always loved you. I would rather be a ghost, drifting by your side as a condemned soul, than enter heaven without you. Because of your love, I will never be a lonely spirit.”
I believe further commentary is not needed…
The music, responsible for setting the mood and evoking feelings, more often than not, is left out of reviews and critiques. That applies tenfold to songs accompanying particular cinematic moments that, sometimes, become the films’ landmarks yet somehow are forgotten before even the end credits start scrolling. The films mentioned here are not my top five or ten. Jaws (1975), Above the Rim (1994), Dangerous Minds (1995), Friday (1995), Trainspotting (1996), The Color Purple (1987), My Girl (1994), Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), Platoon (1986), Cinema Paradiso (1988), Seven Chances (1925)… all of them, and more, contain sequences that are most definitely worth elaborating.
Regardless, next time tears come to your eyes while watching a scene, in a moment you can’t stop laughing, or when you realise your heart is skipping a beat, take a moment afterwards and wonder, what made you feel that way? Music will always accompany our feelings – in cinema and life.
Thanks for reading!
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Solidarity for all the innocent lives who suffer the atrocities of war!
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