Thomas Bangalter of Daft Punk has scored Gaspar Noe’s new film Soudain le vide, which opens in the UK in a few months. Bangalter grew up through disco music. His father Daniel Vangarde wrote the Gibson Brothers’ hit song Cuba and Ottawan’s D.I.S.C.O. Bangalter himself is one half of Daft Punk, and his soundtrack for Noe’s earlier film, Irreversible was exciting and brilliantly nauseating. But the honorable mention on the Enter The Void soundtrack goes for now to Mark Bell’s LFO, whose classic acid techno Freak blasts behind the opening credits. Furthermore, if there were an award for the Most Techno Title Sequence this one would surely get the best of the decade.
Jimmie Dale’s Gilmore’s beautiful rendition of Mack The Knife features in the closing sequence of Jacques Audiard’s multi award-winning prison drama, Un prophète (2009). Gilmore had a small role in The Big Lebowski as one of the bowling characters, and was formally a member of country band The Flatlanders. Mack The Knife was written by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht for The Threepenny Opera. The original music for Un prophète was scored by leading composer Alexandre Desplat, but Gilmore’s track is fast becoming the acknowledged theme of the film.
Clint Mansell composed the original soundtrack for Duncan Jones’ understated Moon (2009), the full length feature debut from the boy from Beckenham also known as Zowie Bowie. Mansell of course already has a great track record, having scored most of Aronofsky’s films (and dozens of others). His classic string arrangement of Lux Aeterna performed by the Kronos Quartet in Requiem for a Dream has been used over and over again and was remixed for Paul Oakenfold’s Bunkka album on the track Zoo York. Mansell also recently rebooted his band Pop Will Eat Itself.
Quentin Tarantino has always used excellent soundtracks on his films. His most recent, Inglourious Basterds (2009) is made up of pieces from Jacques Loussier, Lalo Schifrin, Ennio Morricone, Charles Bernstein and others, including Billy Preston’s theme from the movie Slaughter (1972). The video above contains a montage from Slaughter.
Angels and Demons, based on Dan Brown’s book of the same name features a soundtrack by veteran composer Hans Zimmer. Zimmer has composed over 100 film soundtracks to date. He also features on the pop promo of Video Killed the Radio Star, having worked as a keyboard player with Trevor Horn and The Buggles at the time. This piece is from the Angels and Demons sequence entitled God Particle.
Nick Cave and Warren Ellis make a beautiful couple. They worked together on the soundtracks to both The Proposition (2005) and the English Surgeon (2007), and recently recorded the audio book version of Cave’s new novel The Death of Bunny Munro, lifting the text way beyond its page quality. Here they perform one of my favourite of their works, from the soundtrack of the film The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford (2007), Rather Lovely Thing.
The next sequence is from the soundtrack to Noriyuki Abe’s Bleach: Fade To Black, I Call Your Name (2008). Bleach is a Japanese manga anime series of films that is slowly growing a cult following elsewhere.
Norwegian mezzosoprano Tuva Semmingsen’s version of Handel’s Lascia ch’io pianga features on the soundtrack to Lars Von Trier’s film Antichrist (2009), which features Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg in her strongest role to date. Hats off to Gainsbourg who survived filming despite the pressures of her role, sustaining a severe head injury off-set and recording a fine new album, IRM (French for MRI) with Beck all within the space of two years. The soundtrack to Antichrist also features a version of the same Handel piece performed by Karina Gauvin.
The next track, another from the Inglourious Basterds soundtrack, is Ennio Morricone’s Rabia e tarantella. This features on the closing credits sequence. Inglorious Bastards (correctly spelled) is also the English language name of a 1978 film, Quel maledetto treno blindato, directed by Enzo Castellari.
And for the last track for this month is one more from Hans Zimmer. This beautiful piece makes up part of his original soundtrack for Guy Ritchie’s latest film, Sherlock Holmes, starring Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr. as Holmes and Watson. A broken piano is used on the recording of the soundtrack which Zimmer pitched to Ritchie as a meeting of The Pogues and a Romanian orchestra.
Music player above.
Click on the video bar
to see accompanying visuals.
Helen Donlon
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