Great cinematic uses of classical music

I love it when a classical piece turns up in a film in a way I would never have expected it, and somehow a remarkable synergy results. We get the benefit of the most remarkable compositions ever written, and also a sense of independence / parallel motion with the film's images. The music is not yoked to the film in the way as a properly fitted score, and the freedom is often exciting.

Let's cast aside 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY for once, and concentrate on some of the other magical choices... Now keep in mind that I'm talking only about usages of classical music as underscore. (Source music - either visualised or offscreen - is a whole different game - and Walter Benjamin's 'Storm Cloud Cantata' and a certain scene involving Wagner in APOCALYPSE NOW could not be excluded from that list.) Some of my favourites follow:

1. Carl Orff's 'Gassenhauer' (aka 'Musica Poetica') for BADLANDS - turns a film about a killing spree into an unexpectedly spiritually enlightening experience. This is unassailably at the top of the list for me.

2. Richard Wagner's 'Vorspiel' from Das Rheingold for THE NEW WORLD - takes a historical epic and makes it a story about the beginning of the world. (Which it is, in an emotional/philosophical sense.) The same piece was used effectively in Werner Herzog's remake of NOSFERATU.

3. Arvo Part's 'Spiegel im Spiegel' from Tom Tykwer's HEAVEN - grants Cate Blanchett and Giovanni Ribisi a little bit of heaven on earth before the long arm of the law catches up with them. The serene piano and cello piece sits nicely alongside fellow Part composition 'Fur Alina' in the film.

4. Mascagni's 'Intermezzo' from Cavaleria Rusticanna for RAGING BULL - is it possible to feel nostalgia for Jake Lamotta's experiences in the ring? This piece suggests that it is. Also used in the closing minutes of GODFATHER III.

5. Handel's 'Sarabande' for BARRY LYNDON. The use of this piece for the nailbitingly formal duel sequence of Kubrick's film is inspired. The heavy-handed use of the music for the funeral of a key character inspired a musical joke in Michael Winterbottom's recent film TRISTRAM SHANDY: A COCK AND BULL STORY. The use of Schubert's haunting trio in the same film is another standout.

6. Richard Einhorn's VOICE OF LIGHT (writen for Dreyer's THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC) grants an air of holiness to the nuclear reactor scenes in K-19: THE WIDOW MAKER. It's hard to believe Klaus Badelt's score would have had anything near the sacred quality of this music, and it's telling that they not only used it the Einhorn piece in the most important sections of the film, but went to the trouble of including it on the soundtrack album.

7. The reworking of Ravel's 'Bolero' for key sequences of FEMME FATALE (dir: DePalma, comp: Sakamoto) and RASHOMON (dir: Kurosawa, comp: Hayasaka) also stands tall in the tradition of classical references. Both use the piece against very different scenarios.

8. There needs to be at least one Peter Weir film in here too. I'm divided between the use of Boccherini as the closing theme of MASTER AND COMMANDER, Albinoni's 'Adagio' from GALLIPOLI and the use of Gorecki in FEARLESS.

9. Technically, the use of 'Popcorn Superhet Receiver' in THERE WILL BE BLOOD is a classical reference, even though the material is used quite freely in the score of the film.

10. Bach cello suite no 5 in Bergman's film CRIES AND WHISPERS. This is pretty much the only music in the film, and boy does it leave its mark.

I've tried to restrict myself to only a couple of Kubrick and Malick references. Goodness knows within THE NEW WORLD, BADLANDS and THIN RED LINE are enough canny musical references to fill a list easily.

Special mention also goes out to the use of a short section of Arvo Part's 'Litany' for the golf range sequence of Michael Mann's film THE INSIDER. Extraordinarily unsettling in context. What an imaginative choice.

Part is a favourite with film-makers these days. I tracked 'Fur Alina' into one of my short films, and the film was lifted mightily by the association. 'Fratres' in its string orchestra/percussion incarnation was clearly the underpinning of James Newton Howard's 'Evacuation' cue in SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS. The same piece in the cello/piano incarnation eloquently accompanied the post-catastrophe sequence of THERE WILL BE BLOOD. 'Silouan's Song' gave a genuine sense of tragic weight to the closing minutes of THE GOOD SHEPHERD, a film that without it would fall far short of feeling like it had come to a conclusion. The myriad uses of 'Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten' in cinema are nigh uncountable.

And if a clever classical reference is permitted rather than a full classical piece, the prize should go to Bernard Herrmann's reference to Wagner's TRISTAN AND ISOLDE in VERTIGO.

Now if 2001 had been included, then there would have been four entries on the list alone devoted to that film.