[Film Music] The Best Songs Used in the Best Scenes [Plenty of Them]
Hello! This time let me introduce the songs used in films that I personally think are wonderful!
http://kmit.in/emagazine/article/the-gift-of-music/
The way you feel about a song really is different before and after it gets used in a film!
A song used inside a film has the characters’ feelings riding on it, so when you hear that song again the scene comes back to you and you get to relive the exact same rush — and that’s the beauty of it.
This time, rather than reviewing the songs themselves, I think I’ll put the weight on the scenes they were used in.
Contents
From La La Land
Another Day of Sun
No way this one gets left out lol
It’s incredibly catchy, and I think it’s a song put to great use — it gets across that this film is “a musical” beautifully.
And the slightly old-fashioned feel of the visuals is the best. As I wrote in the review, it also feels like a film in praise of the good old days.
Epilogue
The opening stretch feels so lonely that it has the audience going ahh, this is sad, and then in come phrases from “Another Day of Sun,” which is also the theme of La La Land.
The visuals are an homage to the old musical films too, which is lovely.
It was “dreamlike” music, exactly right for closing this film out.
The credits
This is the track that played over this film’s credits.
I picked it simply because I think it’s a good song.
Starting with “Another Day of Sun” and ending with “Another Day of Sun” — lovely.
From Whiplash
Caravan
Same director as La La Land.
At the end of this film the protagonist uses his drumming to force the band into playing a piece called “Caravan.”
The protagonist is put through hell by that unbelievably vicious, terrifying shaven-headed instructor, but with this “Caravan” he hijacks the instructor’s band and takes his revenge.
But as the piece goes on you can see a change in the protagonist himself, and he ends up delivering a solo of divine drumming. The instructor is spellbound by it too, and the instructor’s conducting and the protagonist’s playing build to the greatest climax there is.
I love this film enormously, so I picked the song that brings the final scene straight back.
From Fantasia
Symphonic poem “Night on Bald Mountain” (Rimsky-Korsakov version)
Fantasia, released in 1940, the first film in stereo.
It astonished me that an animated film and a form of expression at this level existed before the war.
The scene this piece is used in has skeletons and a god of death called Chernabog turning up.
And I personally love the piece called “Danse Macabre,” and I think that whole view of life and death and the way it’s expressed match up perfectly, so I picked “Night on Bald Mountain.”
From Guardians of the Galaxy
Ain’t No Mountain High Enough
This song is used at the very end of the film.
The protagonist was given a present, on her deathbed, by the mother he lost to cancer when he was small.
But he couldn’t bring himself to open that present for something like twenty years…
But partway through this film he sees a vision of his mother and finally feels ready to open it.
Inside was a cassette that his mother had chosen the songs for and gathered onto one tape.
And what struck me as so wonderful is that the first track on the cassette is “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”.
Here are the lyrics (excerpt)
http://orangejuice-music.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2007-10-07
His mother was probably choosing the songs on the assumption that her son would listen to them after she was gone, and hearing this one with that in mind is enormously moving.
[For newcomers] What Is the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe)? [MARVEL]
Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)
https://ameblo.jp/ue-juku/entry-12281020252.html
Also from Guardians of the Galaxy.
This song is one the protagonist’s father and mother both loved, and — like father like son, I suppose — the protagonist himself loved it enormously too.
This is a spoiler, but the protagonist’s father had killed his mother, and he was the main villain of this film.
What I liked is that the protagonist and his father seem to read this song differently.
Here’s what I mean. The song is about a sailor and a woman in a port town falling in love, but in the end the sailor chooses the sea and leaves. The protagonist’s father quotes this song and uses it as an excuse, saying that killing the mother and walking away simply couldn’t be helped — but late on, the protagonist chose a different road.
That’s it for this time.
There are other songs I want to introduce, so I’ll write those up next time.
