Music and songs have always played an important role in filmmaking since its inception of the silent era. Whether it is a moving soundtrack or a well-placed song, music adds not only to individual scenes but to the entire movie and even beyond. We often recognize, identify, and associate movies with their unforgettable soundtrack; be it the themes of the Godfather, Lawrence of Arabia, or Love Story, the soundtrack takes us right back to the movie itself and is often intimately connected with our feelings and sensations experienced while watching the said film.
As someone who has grown up with music videos having been
part of the glorious MTV generation, I especially appreciate it when filmmakers
make effective and full use of this. The film may at times come off as a music
video or worse a perfume commercial but in the right and capable hands, all
this will make us feel elated. Not that music is always necessary as the Dogme
95 movement has demonstrated, yet it paints a vivid picture and adds push,
drive, and adrenaline as seen and experienced rather memorably in films like The
Social Network or even Challengers (a shoutout to the
talented duo of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross).
Yet, I believe that end credit songs are equally important
and relevant to the movie experience, and they may be somewhat underrated or
downplayed in their overall effect and influence of the movie itself. This is
rather a type of after effect or of coming together of sorts. It can
also accentuate or emphasize certain emotions either experienced throughout the
film or be intimately connected to a given protagonist. I will briefly discuss
a handful of end credit songs that I found lasting and impactful and that have
significantly enriched my movie experience. Here we go in no particular order:
Suicide in Civil War
That may have been the point you might rightly point out as
the characters, both new and seasoned reporters and journalists are just
taking note and documenting events outside of their control via the medium of
pictures. This is undertaken perhaps for posteriority, out of curiosity, or
simply for themselves, a type of self-gratification. Yet, before we get to the
final shot, not unpredictably another still, there is the intro of a song that
feels out of place and yet at the same time precisely augments and elevates the
feelings of despair expressed in the movie.
The song in question was by a band I had not heard of before but it has been rather influential. Their name is
characteristically Suicide, and the lyrics are simple but effective in their
simplicity: dream, baby, dream. There was devastation, death, and
destruction throughout the film’s running time, and then the film ends on rhythms
that may have come from a second-rate synthesizer with lyrics that could have
been penned by a high school student. In other words, it was baffling and
utterly brilliant.
In fact, I had to look up the song and got a Google alert
due to the band’s name and then I put it on repeat, listening to it countless times.
As I was doing so, the final scene from the movie started replaying in my mind
and I began to appreciate its deliberate tone and overall message.
It literally helped me change my mind and feelings towards the movie and I saw
what Garland was trying to show us here. In fact, it turned out to be a movie that
must be watched especially in the background and context of today’s world,
politics, and polarization.
Although some have criticized the film for not taking sides,
I believe those critics missed out on the whole point (yes, it did have a point
after all!), namely, to show us and document the brutality, callousness, and
evil of a civil war and that it would not be in any way or manner a glorified
war or a glorious revolution. No, all we would get is mayhem, chaos, death, and
destruction, and the end of a once beautiful and promising nation. But as the
song points out, we should not lose our ability to dream, baby, dream of
a better future and a better more peaceful world despite it all.
Sinnerman in Inland Empire
Yet nothing compared to the ending of Inland Empire.
This may be a spoiler except first, there is nothing to spoil here, and second,
nothing really happens and yet everything does. The driving song is “Sinnerman”
by Nina Simone, and we see characters coming together not as characters but as
actors portraying them.
It is dark but weirdly uplifting and, in a way, there is a
sense of catharsis not in a clear and direct way but rather in a surreal unconscious
way and form. Suddenly, everything comes together, the monkeys, though random, somehow
make perfect sense, and we understand on a nonverbal level why there were
talking bunnies, and the film feels complete as a result.
The counterpoint and statement of this well-chosen song brings
it all home and ties up the different knots or rather unties them for us and
give us a full picture. Perhaps any other ending would have made me feel that I
had just wasted a good three hours of my life on a movie that was disjointed
and all over the place. But that was not the feeling I left with, courtesy of
the vibrant and memorable song of “Sinnerman.”
This House is…. The House
The House is yet another surreal experience woven around the concept of a… house. It is stop-motion animated and consists of three short films that are in no discernible way connected to each other and that each feel different as they take place in different time periods and more importantly in different houses made by different filmmakers.
The first one is more like a traditional goth horror story
set in the 1800s; the second one, a bizarre real estate interaction set in the
2000s involving various rats, which goes horribly and devastatingly wrong as
the place becomes infested with bugs and insects (don’t ask), and the third one
set in a (more or less) distant future, which ranges from anthropomorphic cat renters
from hell to renters from another spiritual realm during an upcoming end-of-world
disaster.
Although each vignette was well-made, I was wondering what
the point of this anthology was. Then I heard the final song. It was not only
thematically linked to the house and delineated the difference between a house
and a home, but it was in the voice (literally) of one of the characters.
It was the second film’s real estate developer played by Jarvis
Cocker singing as an anthropomorphic rat musing about how a house was nothing
but a building, just a number of bricks put together, whereas a home was where
the heart was. And suddenly, the house transformed into an important symbol of
both estrangement and feeling at home, and I could not help but to love and
appreciate how the film somehow with the aid of this final song managed to
connect three random stories into one.
Hoist that Rag in A Most Wanted Man
A Most Wanted Man was very good throughout, but the final scene played brilliantly by Philip Seymour Hoffman, such a huge and irreplaceable loss to the world of cinema, summed up despair, frustration, and desperation in palpable ways. The song by Tom Waits only underscores the feeling of helplessness of someone being played by higher forces or simply forces that are outside of one’s control.
In the film, we see how the protagonist tries hard to make
things work and to gain credit and recognition only to have everything unexpectedly
snatched away from him in the last minute. He steps out the car, drives along
but you can sense his nervousness and anger, and then it all ends and
culminates in the mesmerizing Tom Waits song. I think of this character
whenever I hear this song; they are intricately linked together in my mind, and
at the same time, I realize how much I miss this towering acting legend who left
us much too soon!
Honorable Mentions
I would like to finish with three honorable mentions. First
off, Tarantino’s rather mediocre Death Proof, arguably one of
this worst and least interesting films (I did like Jackie Brown but
had strong reservations when it came to The Hateful Eight),
but this grindhouse film ends with a brilliant piece of filmmaking and a catchy
punchy end song.
It feels quite liberating and feminist as the women joyfully
and gleefully take revenge on the perpetrator played coolly by Kurt Russell with
the Serge Gainsbourg song "Chick Habit" in the background (originally “Laisse tomber les filles”)
that is a warning to better not mess with girls (in its original not
to play with an innocent heart) as they could just like that come back and
bite you and even kick you in the head before you know it. This ending elevated what was
a rather bland and uninteresting film when viewed and considered by Tarantino’s standards.
Then there is a Dogville that not unlike Inland
Empire made us think what the hell we had just watched until the
pulsating tune of “Young Americans” by David Bowie appears with images from the
civil rights movement, and we suddenly understand that the film was criticizing
and commenting on various elements of American history, culture, and mentality.
And just like that we find ourselves back at square one.