Music you want to use in a film.

Ever thought of a song that inspired an idea for a movie or perhaps imagined a scene or short film with music you've been wanting to use? I always used to imagine a sequence I came up with that would utilize the track "Bond Lured to the Pyramids" by John Barry because it has a dreamlike quality to it that fits.

Hell, I even thought of an ending where a psychotic criminal (think DeNiro in CAPE FEAR) jumps into a convertible, pops on the radio and drives off with a grin on his face. What music would be playing? This: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BmiGf1KVok#t=24s The footage cuts hard to black at 56 seconds with "ME!" and the song continues with the credits. Yeah, I'm twisted like that.

"Medea's Meditation and Dance of Vengeance" by Samuel Barber has long been one I've desperately wanted to use in a film. Can't think of a story/sequence to rightly make use of it. It's very grand, after all. But it's so evocative, it absolutely has to be used as a film score.



Sticking with Samuel Barber, I want to use his "Music for a Scene from Shelley" as the background to a sweeping love scene. Right around the 3:19 mark is the perfect music for a good, ol' fashioned Hollywood kiss for a tragic love story.



One last Barber piece. If I ever do a romantic comedy, it's going to rely on Barber's "Hesitation-Tango (A Bedroom Affair)" as a main theme:

Harmsway wrote:

"Medea's Meditation and Dance of Vengeance" by Samuel Barber has long been one I've desperately wanted to use in a film. Can't think of a story/sequence to rightly make use of it. It's very grand, after all. But it's so evocative, it absolutely has to be used as a film score.

Nice choices. Predictably, when filmmakers use Barber it's almost always his ADAGIO FOR STRINGS. I'd say the closest an original film score has got to those Barber works you posted is Leonard Rosenman's EAST OF EDEN. A beautiful pastoral tone poem, that's like a hybrid of Barber and Berg.

Some of the best use of ring mod and Ondes Martenot out there.

Talking about the Ondes, I nominate Olivier Messaien's highly erotic Turangalila Symphony.





Oh, and Edgard Varèse's 1927 masterpiece, Arcana.





No idea what would accompany it, but something suitably insane. You can here a lot the inspiration for Planet of the Apes here.

off the top, Dethroned (X-Ray Dog)



probably on continious loop.

Like how Toru tips his at hat to Herrmann. Not sure what the setting would be, but something existential I guess.



Music for a scene of Liberace falling down a cliff. Soderbergh are you listening?




A bad trip or nightmare sequence.



BOND VS. DINOSAURS: THE MOVIE.

Y'know, I would love to see a film that relies on Shostakovich's 5th Symphony--Shostakovich's greatest work--as underscore. For some reason, I tend to picture scenes from the life of Napoleon when listening to it, but that's not quite appropriate. It would certainly have to be a kind of battle epic, and admittedly Russian history is full of those. But when you don't have Eisenstein around, why bother?

After I'm completed my current screenplay, I'll be pushing on to a loose adaptation of Dostoevksy's THE POSSESSED (also published under the title DEMONS and THE DEVILS), using it as a leaping point for a contemporary social satire of American identity. For that, I would use Shostakovich's "Bacchanalia of John of Kronstadt and Paraskeva Piatnisa" as a title/end title theme. (Sadly, I can't find a YouTube link, but it's a big, very comic, frantic piece.)

For a non-classical piece, Nina Simone's "Keeper of the Flame" needs to make its way into a film somewhere:

Not quite sure what this one would go with, either, but I think it could make for splendid end credits music.

(^Shameless plug of current pop fave completely intentional)

I agree on "Move on Up", I've thought of it for a main titles song. Though I'd use this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k1dFIeKQUY#t=16s

If I ever make a film, where the bad guy is pure evil, I would want his theme to be as good as this:



or this:



but probably this:

This would be great for a comedy.

For something criminal, or maybe a striptease.

If I ever made a movie set in Christmas, I would open the film with Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmastime". I find it strangely appealing, and I used to hate it. It's Christmasy but not in the traditional sense. I do admit, 70s/80s synth music has been growing on me a lot recently.

I like a lot of synth stuff too, but even as a fan of Macca, I f*cking hate that song.

When it comes to post-Wings McCartney, I'm more for stuff like this:

Sharky wrote:

I like a lot of synth stuff too, but even as a fan of Macca, I f*cking hate that song.

When it comes to post-Wings McCartney, I'm more for stuff like this:

Calico Skies, easily my favorite post-Wings Macca song, and probably even a top 5 post Beatles McCartney tune.

He had some good stuff on Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, and even Driving Rain, which I thought, despite a few misses had some tender moments.