41. Encyclopedia of Film Music

Some silent film scores

George Antheil's score for Ballet mécanique (here) is the greatest piece of music composed for a silent film.

Symphonie diagonale is a visual music film and should be watched in silence. If not, Olga Neuwirth's 2007 score (here) is great.

I like my Potemkin with Shostakovich (here). 

Classical music in cinema

Tarkovsky adored Bach and used his music extensively in his films. Notable examples include Ich ruf' zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ as the theme of Solaris (with Eduard Artemyev;  here), the opening chorus of the St John Passion at the end of The Mirror (here), and  the Erbarme dich aria from the St Matthew Passion in The Sacrifice (here)

My favourite Bach in cinema is, however, The Tree of Wooden Clogs, especially because it relies heavily on the Largo movement of the Harpsichord Concerto No. 5 in F minor (here).

Bach's Sarabande from Suite No. 2 in D minor for Cello features in Through a Glass Darkly (here).

In his later films, Bergman prefers Chopin:  Mazurka No. 4 in A minor, Op. 17 at the end of Cries and Whispers (here), the ''Presentiment of Death'' prelude in Autumn Sonata  (here), and the funeral march in Fanny and Alexander  (here).

Chopin's Nocturne in C-sharp minor in The Pianist (here), of course 

The Piano Teacher heavily features Schubert's music, for example, ''Im Dorfe'' of  Winterreise (here) and the second movement of Piano Trio No. 2 in E-flat major (Isabelle Huppert going to a video booth at a sex shop in a Viennese shopping mall; here).

The Andantino movement of Schubert's Piano Sonata No. 20 in A minor in the closing scene of Au hasard Balthazar (here)

The Rheingold prelude in Werner Herzog's version of Nosferatu (here) is my favourite Wagner in cinema. Also: the Ride of the Valkyries in Apocalypse Now (here), naturally, and the prelude of Tristan und Isolde in Melancholia  (here). 

Händel's ''Lascia ch'io pianga'' in the prologue of Antichrist (here)

The second movement of Schumann's Piano Quintet in E-flat major at the beginning of Fanny and Alexander (here) 

Albinoni's Adagio in G minor in The Trial (here)

The Adagietto of Mahler's fifth symphony in Death in Venice, in the closing sequence (here)

The Intermezzo from Cavalleria rusticana by Mascagni in Raging Bull (here)

I don't remember what film it was that juxtaposed images of a modern urban environment and the first Gnossienne of Satie (here) and managed to impress so much that even now, on my way home from a sexdate late at night, I sometimes listen to this composition. 

The Scent of Green Papaya is the best film featuring Debussy's ''Clair de lune'' (here). 

A segment from Monteverdi's Magnificat in the final scene of Mouchette (here)

''Veris Leta Facies'' from Carmina Burana by Orff in Salò (here)

Singing in films

In The Blue Angel, Marlene Dietrich sings ''Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß auf Liebe eingestellt'' (here). Later, in The Damned, Helmut Berger impersonates her in a drag show (''Kinder, heut' abend da such ich mir was aus''; here) and, in The Night Porter, Charlotte Rampling, topless, sings her ''Wenn ich mir was wünschen dürfte'' (here). 

Jeanne Moreau sings ''Le Tourbillon de la vie'' in Jules and Jim (here) and ''Each Man Kills the Thing He Loves'' in Querelle (here). 

In Pierrot le fou, Anna Karina sings ''Jamais je ne t'ai dit que je t'aimerai toujours'' (here) and, with Jean-Paul Belmondo, ''Ma ligne de chance'' (here). 

''Framboise'' by Boby Lapointe in Shoot the Piano Player (here)

Nashville is full of good music:  ''My Idaho Home'' (here) and many other songs by Ronee Blakley, ''I'm Easy'' by Keith Carradine (here), and ''It Don't Worry Me'' by Barbara Harris (here). 

''Die Wacht am Rhein'' versus ''La Marseillaise'' in Casablanca (here)

''Gondola no Uta'' by Takashi Shimura in Ikiru (here)

The songs of Dancer in the Dark, especially ''Cvalda'' by Björk and Catherine Deneuve (here)

Big Edie singing ''Tea for Two'' in Grey Gardens (here)

''Cucurrucucú Paloma'' by Caetano Veloso in Talk to Her (here)

''En motorcykel vill jag ha'' at the beginning of You, the Living (here)

The Gypsy musicians in Who's Singin' Over There? (here)

A singer or a band defining the soundtrack

Leonard Cohen and McCabe & Mrs. Miller: ''The Stranger Song'' (here), ''Sisters of Mercy'' (here), and ''Winter Lady'' (here)

Simon and Garfunkel and The Graduate: ''Mrs. Robinson'' (here), ''The Sound of Silence'' (here), ''Scarborough Fair'' (here), and ''April Come She Will'' (here)

Neil Young and Dead Man (here)

David Bowie and Christiane F. - We Children from Bahnhof Zoo (here)

I would also add here the soundtrack of Zabriskie Point by Pink Floyd (here) and Jerry Garcia (here). 

And ''The End'' of The Doors in Apocalypse Now (here).

Theme songs

Bobby Vinton's ''Blue Velvet'' (here) and Roy Orbison's ''In Dreams'' (here) in Blue Velvet

Harry Nilsson's ''Everybody's Talkin''' in Midnight Cowboy (here)

''Cuore matto'' in Bad Education (here)

''Te-aud mereu'' by Angela Similea and Cornel Constantiniu in 4 Months, 3 Weeks and  2 Days (here) and ''Liu Lien'' by Yao Lee in Goodbye, Dragon Inn  (here) - the greatest closing titles

''L'eclisse Twist'' by Mina (here)

''Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon'' by Urge Overkill in Pulp Fiction (here)

''Coming'' by Jimmy Somerville in Orlando (here)

Scenes with a memorable musical accompaniment

The wedding scenes in The Scarlet Empress (here) and Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors  (here)

The closing sequence of Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (here)

The Vinteuil Sonata in Time Regained (here)

Odetta singing ''Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child'' in the scene depicting  the arrival of the Magi in The Gospel According to St. Matthew (here)

The psychedelic party in Midnight Cowboy (''Old Man Willow'' by Elephant's Memory;  here)

The background music in the closing sequence of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (''Si m-am indragostit de tine'' by Adrian Daminescu; here)

Regular collaborations

Bernard Herrmann and Alfred Hitchcock. Vertigo's theme (here) is one of the two phone tunes I have ever had, but my favourite is the score of North by Northwest (here).

One cannot forget Herrmann's score for Scorsese's Taxi Driver (here), of course.

Ennio Morricone and Sergio Leone. It was in the darkest moments of my life that I often listened to the main theme of Once Upon a Time in the West (here). "Man with the Harmonica" (here). The score of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (here) is unsurpassable.

Also Morricone's music for Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers (here) and for Pasolini's  Salò (here).

Nino Rota and Federico Fellini. The score of Satyricon (here) is the greatest, but I also love that of 8 1/2 (here).

Eduard Artemyev and Andrei Tarkovsky. Especially the theme of Stalker (here). Entry to the Zone in Stalker (here).

In Ivan's Childhood and Andrei Rublev, Tarkovsky worked with Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov. See the skomorokh sequence (here), the crucifiction scene (here), and the ending (here) of Andrei Rublev.

For Artemyev, check also Konchalovsky's Siberiade (here).

Zbigniew Preisner and Krsysztof Kieślowski. The themes of The Decalogue I (here) and A Short Film about Love (here), Van den Budenmayer's Concerto in E minor in The Double Life of Veronique (here), ''Song for the Unification of Europe'' in Three Colours: Blue  (here), the bolero of Three Colours: Red (here), and many more.

Eleni Karaindrou and Theo Angelopoulos. Ulysses' Gaze (here  and here), Eternity and a Day (here), and  The Weeping Meadow (here), but also many others. 

Mihály Víg and Béla Tarr. ''Valuska'' (here) and ''Old'' (here) in Werckmeister Harmonies  and the theme of  The Turin Horse (here)

Angelo Badalamenti and David Lynch. After Twin Peaks, the score of Mulholland Drive is probably the best, the ''Love Theme'' (here) and ''Diane and Camilla's Theme'' (here), in particular. 

Also ''Polish Poem'' (here) by Chrysta Bell and ''Ghost of Love'' (here) from Inland Empire,  without Badalamenti. 

Ravi Shankar's music in the Apu Trilogy of Satyajit Ray (here)

Popol Vuh and Werner Herzog. The opening scene of Aguirre, the Wrath of God (here), long segments of Heart of Glass (here)

Peer Raben and Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Berlin Alexanderplatz (here)

Goran Bregović and Emir Kusturica. ''Ederlezi'' in Time of the Gypsies (here) and Underground (here). See also ''Bubamara'' in Black Cat, White Cat (here).

Krzysztof Komeda and Roman Polanski. Knife in the Water (here)

Other soundtracks

How could I have forgotten the trumpet of Chinatown (Jerry Goldsmith; here)?

Jeanne Moreau walking to the trumpet of Miles Davis in Elevator to the Gallows  (here)

Andrzej Trzaskowski and Wanda Warska in Jerzy Kawalerowicz's Night Train  (here)

''Yumeji's Theme'' by Shigeru Umebayashi in In The Mood for Love (here)

Music by Senji Ito in Late Spring (here) and by Kojun Saito in Tokyo Story (here) 

My favourites by Georges Delerue are Contempt (here), of course, Jules and Jim (here) and The Conformist (here).

Antoine Duhamel and Pierrot le fou (here) 

Gato Barbieri and Last Tango in Paris (here)

''Lara's Theme'' of Doctor Zhivago (here) and the score of The Damned (here) by Maurice Jarre

Carlos d'Alessio and India Song (here)

Michael Nyman and The Piano (here)

Philip Glass and The Hours (here), especially ''Morning Passages'' (here)

Stefan Nilsson and The Best Intentions (here)

Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson and Children of Nature (here) 

Isaac Schwartz and Dersu Uzala (here)

''Gloria'' from Missa Luba in The Gospel According to St. Matthew (here)

Films that could also be listened only

Giovanni Fusco and Michelangelo Antonioni. My favourite director-composer collaboration. Themes, like the opening of L'avventura (here), but more importantly, elaborate and suggestive soundtracks that have made me adore non-musical sound: the final sequence of L'eclisse (here) and the beach sequence of Red Desert (here).

The musical composition of Fusco and Delerue together with the poetic dialogue of Marguerite Duras at the beginning of Hiroshima mon amour (here)

Last Year at Marienbad as piece of music (here)

Edie Sedgwick's monologues of the Ciao! Manhattan tapes (here) are very musical. 

The opening of Still Life (here)

The whole Flowers of Shanghai (here)

40. 'Times Square'

''In a tired part of the city

Waiting for some fast talk

Watch 'Don't walk' to 'Walk'''

Sometimes she sings, ''Hiding from the fast talk'', or ''Looking for some fast talk''. No difference in meaning.

To close myself off, I wear earphones, but when someone appears to want to ask me something, I take them off as readily as I answer to an expected phone call.

To make myself more available for passers-by, I pretend to be waiting for someone, but when I see a group of joyfully noisy people coming, I take my phone, make it appear that I have received a message and start walking. 

Joyful and aggressive. No difference in meaning.

''Standing in a circle

Staring at the movies

Laughing at the wrong time''

It is others that laugh at the wrong time. At the movies, not in a circle. What circles could I possibly talk about?

I sit in the front and imagine that I am Anna Karina in Vivre sa vie.

''Take a walk around Times Square

With a pistol in my suitcase

And my eyes on the TV''

I posted these lines somewhere once.

''I took my gun and vanished''. I posted this line somewhere once.

''times square was very much I felt my experience of new york it's a song about the the loneliness and the emptiness and the the sort of futility really the and and what I particularly like about it is the bit about the machine gun and the suitcase and that's so much what it's like to be an addict it's this absolute repressed fury you know that you cannot say anything if you told anyone how you felt they would be consumed on the spot so what the addict does what I did is took it out on myself and that's how you deal with that rage but it doesn't help and it's still there''

''Alcohol could take me there''

To have a future.

''And if I die gaining my senses

Wake up in a hotel

Staring at the ceiling''

Sometimes in summer, right before the sunset, the spire of St. Nicholas' Church transforms into a dagger that holds the wrist skin taut but never cuts in.

The song and the quote are available here.

39. Rahvakogu ja paralleelaktsioon

Võrdlen Rahvakogu Robert Musili romaani „Omadusteta mees“ esimeses köites kirjeldatud paralleelaktsiooniga.

Aga siis meenub mulle, et ma ei loe ajalehti, et ma ei tea päris täpselt, mis asi see Rahvakogu on, et mu võrdlus võib olla kohatu.

Ja siis meenub jälle, et tavaliselt polegi kõike vaja teada, et arvamuse või kujundi väljasettimiseks piisab ajendist ja paarist võrdlusalusest.

Et pole oluline, kas võrdlus on tõene või väär.

On huvitav mõelda, et tänavu möödub täpselt sada aastat sellest, kui Musili tegelased hakkavad ette valmistama keiser Franz Joseph I troonileasumise 70. juubelit, et demonstreerida Austria-Ungari paljurahvuselise impeeriumi ühtekuuluvust ning poliitilist, kultuurilist ja ideelist üleolekut Saksamaast, mille keisri Wilhelm II 30. aastapäeva tähistamise korraldamine oli juba alanud (sestap paralleelaktsiooni nimetus).

Need tegelased räägivad vaimust ja hingest sama lennukalt, nagu räägitakse praegu ilmselt demokraatiast ja isamaast.

Mulle tuli see võrdlus pähe vist siis, kui nägin pilti, millel istuvad mingi pika laua taga mingis keldris endised ja praegused tuntud ja unustatud poliitikud ja mittepoliitikud ning räägivad rahvast.

Nõnda nagu Musilil tulevad kokku aristokraadid, kõrged riigiametnikud, töösturid ja sõjaväelased ning räägivad rahvast.

Musilil oli põhjust olla irooniline. Minul vist ei ole ja ma ei taha ka. Sarkasm on niigi liialt moes. Nagu sushi, iPhone ja Must Puudel.

Paralleelaktsioon pühitseb status quo'd. Rahvakogu püüab lahendada probleemi.

Aga selline olemisviis jääb minust väga kaugele.

Ja siis meenub mulle, et selliseid inimesi on väga vaja.

Ja siis jälle, et neid on alati niigi.