Gutbrain Records

Tuesday, 07 October 2008

The car chase in Bullitt is justly celebrated. One of the things that makes it great is Lalo Schifrin's music, particularly the lack of it. He writes a prelude to the chase itself, as the two cars slowly drive around, preparing for the inevitable clash. The music stops and the click of a seatbelt fastener acts as the report of a starting pistol. From that point on, the sounds of the engines and tires are the music.

(What makes the famous chase in The French Connection so good is Gene Hackman's face. He makes that scene exciting almost all by himself.)

It seems that few people think about not scoring scenes these days. One of the reasons I found Hellboy 2 to be dull was that Danny Elfman's score runs throughout, stopping only when Guillermo del Toro wanted us to hear a Barry Manilow song. That's how I remember it, anyway.

A couple of years ago there was an article about movie music in the Palm Beach Post. The author, Scott Eyman, addressed one of the problems when he wrote:

[David Arnold] was scoring Godzilla [the really bad American one] and was told, "Oh, we'll need music here." Arnold was confused. "Wait a minute," he said, "we're in the streets of New York, it's raining, we've got Godzilla's footsteps, his breathing, there are screams from the people below, the sound of cars crashing, explosions - he's crushing cars and pushing over buildings, being attacked by helicopters, so we've got rotors, missiles, bullets as well as small-arms and tanks rumbling in from the street. . . . What on earth is the music supposed to do?"

The answer came promptly: "Make it exciting."