A Summer Place airs (or “aired” depending on when you read this) this morning on TCM and I have two confessions: First, as famous as it is, I didn’t actually see it until a couple of years ago. Yes, it took me that long to get around to it but the theme song has played in my head for years. It’s a song I’ve heard in a thousand different contexts and more than a few different movies, usually resourced for the purposes of parody. Here’s the second confession: Even after seeing the movie, I still think of the song first. Film is a medium that often employs dozens upon dozens of skilled craft people and artists, all working together towards an end result that, hopefully, will stick with the viewer for years afterwards. Sometimes, though, what sticks with the viewer has nothing to do with all those people and everything to do with the musician putting together the score.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Just because we think of a piece of music first doesn’t mean the filmmakers weren’t doing their jobs well, of course. The movie could be fantastic but the music takes on a life of its own in the popular culture in a way the movie doesn’t. As a result, many more people may end up knowing a theme or popular song from the movie than know the movie itself. I’ve got quite a list of my own as it turns out.
When I think of movies where, upon hearing the title, I immediately think of a piece of music before thinking of the movie, the list is longer than I would have thought and includes quite a few substantially well made movies. For instance, whatever qualities and delights Doctor Zhivago may hold in store for the viewer, the fact is I can’t hear that title without thinking exclusively about Lara’s Theme, at least for the first few seconds as I hum the theme in my head (there it goes again). It’s not one of my favorite Lean movies but I like it well enough. Still, it’s the theme that stands out the most. With another Lean classic, The Bridge on the River Kwai, which is a favorite, I pretty much always think of the Colonel Bogey March first and foremost when I hear the title (and I am now, as expected, whistling it in my head).
And how about Romeo and Juliet from 1968, directed by Franco Zefferelli? Anyone able to hear that title without humming A Time for Us? I love Nina Rota, truly. The man was an astounding talent and A Time for Us uses many of the same elements he would later employ for The Godfather theme (listen to the them back to back and they start to sound the same after enough listens). Nonetheless, despite all my love for Rota, I can’t bear to hear that theme anymore (but, oddly enough, I’m still okay with The Godfather Theme, or should I say, Speak Softly Love, its actual title).
While we’re on the subject of A Time for Us, there’s another love theme that I could live without but it enters my head the second I hear the title of the movie. I almost don’t want to write it out because it will get in there and I won’t be able to get it out. Let’s see, where do I begin… ACK! I did it again! The theme from Love Story. Man, do I hate that theme. I am, also, no big fan of the movie. In fact, I’ll just say it: That movie is atrocious. I watched it a few years back for the first time since the seventies and, egads(!), what a horror. A deeper, denser pile of sentimental treacle you couldn’t make. And that song! Well, I’ll leave it at that and move on in the hopes that another theme quickly takes over in my mind.
Next up is an example of a movie I both love and yet the theme still comes to mind first. That’s okay because I love the theme, too. The movie is Laura and the theme is one of my favorite pieces of music ever. David Raskin wrote the score and, later, Johnny Mercer put the main theme to lyrics and a classic was born. I can’t help but hum that great theme whenever I think of the movie and it makes me want to see the movie every time. In fact, when I finish writing this post I just may do that.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Some scores I love so much that I long ago bought them and they have since become such listening favorites that the movie hardly exists for me anymore, even in the case of all time cinematic masterworks. That’s a pretty weighted statement so let me make sure I explain myself a little bit before I start. You see, sometimes the music from a movie combines so well with the movie that I not only love it on its own but can use it as a substitute for watching the movie, especially if I’ve seen it enough times to know where all the musical cues are. One case in point is the original soundtrack for The Third Man which I purchased about five years ago and have listened to countless times without watching the movie once in the interim. Of course, I’ve seen the movie probably a dozen times so it’s only natural that listening to the movie can now transport me inside the movie without necessarily having to actually watch the movie. Other music that does this to me: The Magnificent Seven, La Dolce Vita (Nina Rota again), Playtime, Mon Oncle, Adventures of Robin Hood, and Vertigo, all soundtracks I own, all transporting.
As seen above, a movie can be great and still have a musical theme that supplants the movie for generations of music listeners afterwards. I would never argue that Vertigo isn’t worth watching over and over again but, if you’re like me, at a certain point, sometime after seeing it on the big screen, finally, the music became enough to replay the movie in my mind. It’s a spiritual connection, almost, one in which the music allows you to keep watching the movie without actually watching it and, as a result, really get inside the movie and let it get inside you. Other times, the movie isn’t so great but the theme lives on forever and infests the listener’s mind even as they try to put it out. There are so many like that, I sometimes wonder where do I begin to… NOOOOOOO!!!