Weird Cinematic Uses of the Literature

[karlhenning]

Isn't there an episode in Star Trek were they supposedly listens to some Mozart and the soundtrack definitely is Brahms? Now THAT's weird!

Oh!  Thanks for the (as it turns out) reminder!

№ 20:  I like to think this is a deliberate (subtle) comment on the character, rather than an editorial error way . . . in the original Willy Wonka, at one point in the tour of the factory there's a brief, sort-of-calliope reference to the Overture to Mozart's (IIRC) Le nozze di Figaro . . . and the mother of one of the lucky children rapidly remarks "Tchaikovsky" (or was it Rakhmaninov?)

[jochanaan]

. . . and the mother of one of the lucky children rapidly remarks "Tchaikovsky" (or was it Rakhmaninov?)

It certainly would not have been Rakhmaninov, although it might have been Rachmaninoff.

Come to think of it, I always thought the last movement of Bach's Saint Matthew Passion was an odd choice for theme music in Martin Scorsese's Casino.

[not edward]

I remember being rather surprised to suddenly hear Feldman's Rothko Chapel when watching a not-very-special movie adaptation of Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth,

[knight66]

In The Night Porter, a Dirk Bogard film, two men are having sex on a hospital bed to the 'strains' of the duet from Zauberflote between Pamina and Papageno; where the words are 'Man und Weib, und Weib und Man'.

Mike

[mn dave]

...two men are having sex...

I predict Greg will run right out and buy that one. 

[knight66]

Oh heck, I should have put a flap over the comment with, 'Warning Yucky Concept Below'.

Mike

[PSmith08]

It certainly would not have been Rakhmaninov, although it might have been Rachmaninoff.

Come to think of it, I always thought the last movement of Bach's Saint Matthew Passion was an odd choice for theme music in Martin Scorsese's Casino.

What about a man getting blown up doesn't scream Bach? I know that Johann Sebastian is my composer of choice for explosions and the like.

[karlhenning]

What about a man getting blown up doesn't scream Bach? I know that Johann Sebastian is my composer of choice for explosions and the like.

Hmm.  Do I remember aright that the toccata of the Toccata & Fugue in D Minor opened Rollerball with Jas Caan?

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Isn't there an episode in Star Trek were they supposedly listens to some Mozart and the soundtrack definitely is Brahms? Now THAT's weird!

Couldn't say as far as that scenario but there is an episode where a hitherto unknown Brahms manuscript is played by Spock on the piano - a waltz in the home of a human well-to-do living on an alien planet.

Turns out though that the manuscript is of a NEW Brahms work recently composed by...the composer himself! See, the Enterprise crew had stumbled on a human with gifts of cellular regeneration which effectively rendered him immortal. Along with being Brahms he was also Da Vinci, Shakespeare, and a whole host of other 'big guns'...

[Lethevich]

Isn't there an episode in Star Trek were they supposedly listens to some Mozart and the soundtrack definitely is Brahms? Now THAT's weird!

I recall one episode with them miming to the variations movement of Brahms's sextet no.1 with a string quartet, which was... odd to say the least. It may have been the same episode.

[lukeottevanger]

Star Trek seems to have had something of a long-running thing for Brahms

[karlhenning]

A Vulcan would find his music stimulatingly logical.

[DavidRoss]

What about a man getting blown up doesn't scream Bach? I know that Johann Sebastian is my composer of choice for explosions and the like.

That funny!

[karlhenning]

not so much weird as funny. The scene in the Gene Wilder Willy Wonka movie where the musical lock is opened w/ overture to Marriage of Figaro and Mike TV's mom says "Rachmaninoff."

Thanks for the erratum!

№ 20:  I like to think this is a deliberate (subtle) comment on the character, rather than an editorial error way . . . in the original Willy Wonka, at one point in the tour of the factory there's a brief, sort-of-calliope reference to the Overture to Mozart's (IIRC) Le nozze di Figaro . . . and the mother of one of the lucky children rapidly remarks "Tchaikovsky" (or was it Rakhmaninov?)

[karlhenning]

Sorryy, hadn't read the entire thread when I added that.

No worries

Happens. Not clear on the point about erratum.

My recollection was shady, and I wasn't sure if the non-Mozart composer was Tchaikovsky or Rakhmaninov.

[Szykneij]

During the jewel heist at the beginning of the film "Femme Fatale", the background music features a reworking of Ravel's Bolero by Ryuichi Sakamoto called Bolerish which works surprisingly well. I'd like to pick up the soundtrack CD, but for some reason it's always super-expensive when I can find it. Amazon lists it for $51.99!

[drogulus]

    Ridley Scott had a very fine Goldsmith score for Alien, very atmospheric and creepy, but then near the end of the film where Ripley expels the creature from the escape pod suddenly we get Howard Hanson's Romantic Symphony!

[eyeresist]

Goldsmith's original end title music was better, IMO. Certainly more appropriate.

[Cato]

I believe snippets of Finlandia are found throughout Die Harder for some reason, especially when the airplane lands near the end.  And the first movie, Die Hard, used a Brandenburg Concerto at one point: perhaps to emphasize that the villains were Krauts.