Saturday, February 6, 2010

Speaking of soundtracks.....

Alex Ross writes on his music blog for The New Yorker:

On the weekend of February 19th, and for some weeks thereafter, millions of Americans will enjoy a program of Giacinto Scelsi, John Cage, Lou Harrison, György Ligeti, Morton Feldman, Krzysztof Penderecki, Alfred Schnittke, Nam June Paik, Ingram Marshall, and John Adams. This fairly bold lineup of composers, which would cause the average orchestra subscriber to flee in terror, appears on the soundtrack to Martin Scorsese’s film “Shutter Island.”
Scorsese's music supervisor is Robbie Robertson (!)

It would be interesting to make a list of Scorsese's best soundtracks -- Bernard Herrmann for Taxi Driver, of course, but I'm thinking of his use of non-commissioned pieces. I can remember vividly his use of "Bell Bottom Blues" somewhere, but can't remember the movie. Mean Streets? Maybe "vividly" is the wrong word....

3 comments:

David Chute said...

Complete track list from a double album of music from Scorsese films. (Too pop for you, I would have thought.)

Several Clapton's listed here, but no "Bell Bottom:"

Tulkinghorn said...

It was "I Looked Away" but it WAS Mean Streets

David Chute said...

"Mean Streets," which I saw late, is closely associated in my mind with the period in which I was starting to write professionally about movies, and setting opera aside for rock music--just too late for an era in which punk clubs enforced a "no boomers" policy.