What, Jon, no Henry V?
I believe my Intertubes are broken.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly trilogy is of course great fun and very effective, but I think somewhat overpraised for what it does. However, I absolutely love how Lalo Schifrin quotes Ennio Morricone in Kelly’s Heroes when Eastwood steps out to stare down a Tiger tank.
I also think Apocalypse Now is very effective, not just for the popular and classical music used, but the original music is very moody in the longer Redux version.
One odd combo of music and film to seek out if you’ve missed it is 1977’s Sorcerer. It was Tangerine Dream’s first soundtrack and in many ways the music seems to take over the movie at points.
IMDB.com reports:
A remake of Henri-George Cluzot’s 1953 film The Wages of Fear (also on DVD in a lovely Criterion Disc), this William Friedkin film stars Roy Scheider (at his weary, doomed finest) as one of four men exiled to an unnamed South American country by their mistakes and crimes. Trapped in squalor (and it’s damn convincing looking squalor, too, far beyond the sunbaked black-and-white compositions of Wages of Fear; this film looks like it’s leaving mud on your shoes), unable to return to the lives they abandoned, they’re driven by circumstance to accept a normally unthinkable job. They have to drive old, unstable dynamite from its storage site hundreds of miles over mountain terrain and washed-out roads to the location of an oil well fire so the blaze can be snuffed out. The pay is exorbitant — but it’s commiserate to the danger. The risks are colossal … and they ultimately have no choice.
My work is done here.
