UKC

If you were to recommend one soundtrack to buy, what would it be?

I'm currently listening to Near Dark but it wouldn't be that. Thinking maybe Sicario or Arrival - I love the work of Johann Johannsson.

Find something by Hildur Guðnadóttir and you shouldn't go far wrong.  Her Chernobyl music perhaps, the closing piece is sublime.

T.

The English Patient.

Rumanian folk songs, thirties big bands, Goldberg Variations and Yared's own sublime compositions.

Easy Rider. Shame about the film though

Blade Runner

The Mission

Once upon a time in America

Both great recommendations

Now listening to Blade Runner remastered

Score - Once Upon A Time in the West (Ennio Morricone)


A bunch of songs - either Until the End of the World or Natural Born Killers

I shall have a listen to Johansson's and Guðnadóttir's work (have heard it in context, will be interesting to hear out of context; I actually thought Guðnadóttir's music in Joker was used intrusively yet, strangely, this was to the film's benefit)

Would something from Hans Zimmer be too pedestrian? Gladiator is an obvious one, and Black Hawk Down is good.

I've a fondness for the Jackie Brown CD too, partly for the music and partly for the dialogue clips scattered throughout

Slow west, the good the bad and the ugly, battle for Algiers 

During my student years (all 8 of them) I lodged in the house of a composer in Clapham. He did some film and tv music including the scores for Smiley's People and ITV's Sherlock Holmes. Watching an episode of Sherlock Holmes before he started scoring it made me realise just how important the musical score is for the stuff we watch on telly or at the cinema. It's a bit like the Bundesliga matches at the weekend - it's the crowd or the music that makes it.

That said - Jerry Goldsmith's beautiful score for Star Trek: the Motion Picture is brilliant.

There are so many good soundtracks but I think Salieri's agonised musings in Amadeus opened my eyes to the genius of Mozart. 

I also love the opening moments of Apocalypse Now when the Doors perform The End as the jungle explodes in the napalm attack. 

Midnight Cowboy.

A classic scene in a classic movie. One of my favourites. 

"I shall have a listen to Johansson's and Guðnadóttir's work"

Ooh two for the price of one! The Mary Magdalene soundtrack (so "Joker" was not even the first time Guðnadóttir scored Joaquin Phoenix!). I did see this film at the cinema but fell asleep multiple times...

Pulp Fiction.  Misirlou, Jungle Boogie, Son of a Preacher Man...

One classic that's not been mentioned yet: Paris, Texas - Ry Cooder.

good call. Also O Brother where art thou.

The Big Lebowski soundtrack introduced me to both Townes van Zandt and Captain Beefheart.

Last of the Mohicans

For a soundtrack where the bunch of songs are integral to the plot, you could go for Robert Altmans' magnificent epic Nashville. However, you need to like both country music and complex irony.

For 'bunch of songs' soundtrack I'd nominate:

Good Morning, Vietnam

Guardians of the Galaxy 1 (yeah, I know about the movie, but there's some smashing songs!)

Trainspotting has to be worthy of a mention too.

That's a good call. I picked the CD up in a charity shop last year and at first smirked a bit due to some obvious omissions for something that should represent the 60s (presumably to do with licencing) but was pleasantly surprised that it was full of bangrz anyway, notably Eve of Destruction and Excerpt from a Teenage Opera. 

Any Morricone score to any Spaghetti Western.

Mishima: a life in 4 chapters. Score by Phillip Glass.

An odd one; le voyage dans la lune by air.

Gustavo Santaolalla's haunting soundtracks in Babel. Particularly "Iguazu".

The Deer Hunter has a great soundtrack with its very evocative theme Music.

So does Apocalypse now. Wagners The Ride of the Valkyries and The Doors, The End, on the same album. Amazing!!

And Southern Comfort

As it happens, I rewatched Apocalypse Now at the weekend, and I was struck by how well The End fitted the parts of the film it was used for. However, the rest of the soundtrack is a strange mix. The Ride of the Valkyries works very well, but there's quite a lot of electronic noodling from Tomita, which feels rather odd, and clashes badly with the rawness and out-thereness of the film.  

I'd second 'Once upon a time in the West' and add 'Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid' - soundtrack by Bob Dylan.

I love the electronic noodling. It really gives the river journey extra depth.

To be fair, I may not be the most detached observer as there is nothing I don't love about this film. It is, to my eye, without peer.

What did you think of the decision to cut the scene with the second meeting with the Bunnies, for last year's "Final Cut" version or whatever it was called?

What do you think of the decision to (AFAIK) never incorporate into a whole film version the footage of the final air strike on Kurtz' compound apart from on one rare VHS edition?

I did regret the loss of  that scene, but I always felt the original cut was the best, despite Coppola’s disappointment with its “brevity”. That might be a nostalgic viewpoint. But then again, even great works of genius need a cold hard review back at the studio.

In one version I recall that footage acting as a backdrop to the closing credits. I liked it very much as a dream-state coda. I think Coppola was keen not to include that destruction within the narrative and I applaud the decision.

OK. I like all cuts; I did think that Redux was nice in terms of making Willard more rounded, showing him respecting the crew etc, and the plantation scene that so many people hated, does a good job of splitting the film into two halves, as if the crew is crossing the river Styx and encountering some weird ghosts as they cross. 

π

Darren Aronofski’s debut made on a $60,000 budget. Soundtrack by Clint Mansell includes a bunch of late -90s electronica like Massive Attack, Orbital, Roni Size and Aphex Twin. Not exactly John Williams, but more exciting.

It's great, it's great, it's great. Tim Burgess ran a Twitter watching party for Pi a couple of weekends ago, with Clint Mansell live tweeting memories and tidbits about the music as it came arrived in the film. Really fun.

Score - Halloween. John Carpenter's creepy synth soundtrack is absolutely pitch perfectly cold.

Soundtrack - The Crow. A who's who of mid-nineties rock, goth and industrial. So so good.

As Good Morning, Vietnam has gone already; my second choice would be the original Watchmen soundtrack as it’s a good selection that fit really well.

Hard Grit of course ! 
 

Unfortunately it was never available and actually hard to find each individual track iirc.

You may already know this but Gus Hudgins has reassembled the Hard Grit soundtrack: https://soundcloud.com/the-gusenator/hard-grit

Has American Graffiti been mentioned yet?

A couple of 'bunch of songs' ones from the 90's: Singles (AIC, Pearl Jam etc) and Judgement Night (collaborations between metal and rap artists including Ice T/Slayer and Faith no More/Boo Yaa Tribe)

Both excellent.

Andy F

Soundtrack - Watchmen. (Dylan, Hendrix, Joplin among others)

Score - Oblivion by M83. (One of the few films where I thought the music truly stood out on its own). 

ANY? You know he did about 120 of them right? 

I said spaghetti westerns, of which he did the following-The good, the bad and the ugly, once upon a time in the west, the big gundown, for a few dollars more, the great silence, A fistful of dollars, The mercenary, Duck, you sucker, companeros, Navojo Joe, death rides a horse, My name is nobody, return of ringo. Does that begin answer your question about how many Morricone scores i am aware of? And for your information i am a Graduate of the Guildhall School of Music so i do know what  i am talking about.

There are too many to recommend one, but the soundtrack to 'Into the Wild' , by Eddie Vedder, is superb.

Having watched the film once I sought out the music and bought the CD. That's something I very rarely do.

Well done, you seem very clever! Have a teacake  

Thanks, I will!