Music is one of the most important aspects of a movie since
movies are both an audio and visual form of entertainment. There are different ways that the music can help
elevate a scene. A score is used to give
instrumental backing. It can be simple
background noise used to make travel more entertaining. It could be used to manipulate the audience
and help them feel a certain way. Then
there are the soundtracks compiled of music with lyrics. Some songs are made specifically for movies
while others are licensed. They are very
much like scores. They can set a mood or
help to give backing sound so that there’s some sort of noise. Then there are soundtracks that end become an
essential part of a movie’s story.
This week’s movie, Hudson
Hawk, was one where the soundtrack played into what was happening, helping
to shape the story. The characters were
aware of the music. But there are a few
points that must be covered before we can get to where Hudson Hawk fits into the whole soundtrack storytelling topic. There are other, more obvious ways in which
soundtracks become a part of the plot, helping to drive the story forward as
much as the actions of the characters. A
few of the more common ways in which a soundtrack becomes a part of the story
will be discussed, before a few movies of note that try something a little
different.
Musicals
The most obvious way in which music can become a part of the
plot of a movie is through the standard musical method in which the characters
break into song. When sound was first
introduced into film, one of the popular ways to provide a feast for the
audience’s ears would be to have characters singing. Musicals were huge at the onset of
talkies. From the 1930s through the
1960s, beloved films such as The Wizard
of Oz, Singin’ in the Rain, White Christmas, and West Side Story came out. Disney’s animation branch has also
capitalized on the musical craze throughout the years with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, The Little Mermaid, and Frozen. Three different Disney generations all got
musical entertainment.
Musicals provide the emotions of the characters through the
songs that they sing. Their lyrics are
as important to the story as the actions of the characters. In Poultrygeist:
Night of the Chicken Dead, the song Slow Fast Food Love was used to show
the main characters’ love for one another.
Arbie still loved his ex-girlfriend Wendy and wanted to be together with
her once again. She still had feelings
for him as well. The song presented this
in a humourous, slightly offensive way.
That’s how Troma does musicals.
Musicals don’t need to rely solely on original songs. There has been a craze, as of late, to have
the characters do their own cover versions of popular songs. Moulin
Rouge, Rock of Ages, and Pitch Perfect are some of the notable
examples of this kind of musical. Pitch Perfect also fits into one of the
categories that will come up soon. These
movies tell their stories through the songs of other people, taking the lyrics
and laying them over the characters’ lives.
It’s an easy way to get audiences more invested in the movie since the
recognition factor is at play.
They’re in a Band
This is similar in nature to a musical, though structured a
little bit differently in terms of the intentions of the songs. Like musicals, the movies are pushed forward
through the music. Some of the music
might be influenced by the emotions of the characters. Pitch
Perfect, for example, was mostly about the acapella group singing songs
that other people wrote to move forward in their acapella league. But there were instances where the songs tied
into the emotional arcs of the characters, such as in the final performances of
both The Barden Bellas and The Treblemakers.
The Treblemakers performance closed Benji’s arc of wanting to become an
acapella star. He got to shine with a
beautiful solo rendition of the song Magic by B.o.B. Likewise, the final performance of The Barden
Bellas used Don’t You (Forget About Me) by Simple Minds to show that Beca was
opening herself up for other people to care about her.
School of Rock is
another example of a movie that had the main characters as part of a band,
preparing for a big gig and having their climactic song be a release of
emotions. Dewey Finn, the teacher who
brought the band of school children together, had the rocking guitar solo that
he wanted since the beginning. He also used
the song to show up the band that kicked him out, and found his place in the
world as a teacher of rock. Lawrence,
the keyboard player, proved that he was cooler than he believed, shedding his
self-esteem issues through the performance at Battle of the Bands. Finally, there was Zack, the guitar player
that wasn’t Dewey Finn. He was forced by
his parents to play strictly classical guitar.
The climactic song was a rock song that he wrote about feeling oppressed
through the musical limitations that were being forced on him. The song premiered in front of an audience
that his father was in, allowing him to tell his father his problems through
music.
Another way that the “they’re in a band” movies work is that
the band is performing songs for the sake of performing them only. The songs might push the stories forward in
so much as the band plays a song and the movie moves along after it. The moment is about the band being a band. It’s not about how the characters feel. It might tell you something about the
characters, but the song is not an emotional release. Movies like Miami Connection fit this bill.
The main characters were part of a band, Dragon Sound, but the movie wasn’t
about the band and the music didn’t move the story forward in any significant
ways. The story had to do with the main
characters taking down a drug ring. It didn’t
have to do with their band. The only
thing that the songs did was make one of the antagonists more antagonistic.
Finally, there are the biopic movies like Ray, Walk
the Line, and Dreamgirls which
tell the stories of real life musicians.
The music is important to the movies and move the timeline forward because
they are the songs that the musicians performed. They are a part of the plot solely because
they were a part of that musician’s career.
Music Stores
Once in a while, a movie is released that takes place in a
music store. Maybe the movie isn’t about
the store, but the store has a major influence over the story. Because of that influence, the music on the
soundtrack plays an important part in the narrative. The characters’ lives have to do with sharing
music. They share their musical tastes
with the audience as they share their musical tastes with the patrons of their
shop.
Empire Records was
about the people who work in a record store.
It took place in the record store on a day where a popular musician was
making an appearance. The music that
played as part of the soundtrack came from what was played in the store. Sometimes it was played over the stereo. Sometimes it was a television promo for the
musician. Sometimes it was the guy
running the shop slamming on some drums in his office. Much of the music was being played in the
world of the characters and not just placed over scenes in
post-production. School of Rock did this style of featuring music through what Dewey
Finn played for other people, but because of the band aspect, was included in
the band section of this post.
Speaking of Jack Black, he was featured in High Fidelity, another movie that was
highly dependent upon the record store dynamic.
The main character owned a record store.
He and his two employees discussed music and played music for other
people. The main character took time to
make personalized mixtapes. The songs
featured in the store and on the mixtapes were the soundtrack to the movie,
making the soundtrack an essential part of the storytelling.
Radio
This is similar to the idea of music stores in that the
music is being presented to the audience.
The movies are essentially about the people running the radio stations, like
how the music store movies are about the people in charge of the store. They make the music choices, and the music
that gets played is likely to be what is featured on the soundtrack.
A few movies fit into this category. Pirate
Radio (also known as The Boat That
Rocked) was about a radio station on a ship sailing around the United
Kingdom, skirting the broadcasting laws of the country. Pump Up
the Volume was about a teen that ran a pirate radio station from his
parents’ basement. Both movies obviously
featured music since they featured pirate radio stations. It would only make sense that radio station
movies play music like any normal radio station that isn’t talk radio.
A movie that twists the radio idea in a unique way is The Warriors. The movie wasn’t about the radio station but
the music that played throughout came from a radio station. As The Warriors, a gang in New York, ran from
all the other gangs that were trying to kill them, the voice of a radio DJ
called out to them. She gave updates on
what they did in the city while playing music to help them along their
journey. She was the narrator and the
soundtrack. It’s a way to use the radio
aspect of the movie that hasn’t been done in too many movies or television
shows.
Hudson Hawk
Now onto this week’s movie.
It isn’t the final movie that will be discussed but it’s an important
one to look at. Hudson Hawk (Bruce
Willis) was a cat burglar being blackmailed into stealing three different Da
Vinci artifacts. Within the artifacts were
the pieces of a device that could turn lead into gold. The bad guys wanted to use alchemy to get
richer than they already were. It was a
crazy story that led to a great action comedy the likes of which aren’t seen
very often.
That might not seem like a story that would have a great
musical influence. It was a thief doing
thief things and getting into sticky action situations that included a chase
scene with an ambulance and a gurney.
Not very musical, by the sounds of it.
The music came from the camaraderie of Hudson Hawk and his partner in
crime, Tommy Five-Tone (Danny Aiello).
The two friends had a rapport that made them a perfect thief team. It didn’t matter what they were
stealing. They could be taking the
artifacts that Hudson had been tasked with getting. They could be taking a woman who was being
held captive. It didn’t matter. They were a good team.
Part of the reason that they worked so well together was music. Hudson Hawk knew the length of a lot of
songs. Tommy could list a bunch of
different songs, and Hudson would be able to call out how long each song was. They used this skill to time their
heists. Both of them knew the songs that
they chose, and Hudson picked one that would give them the perfect amount of
time to pull off what they were doing.
They synchronized their actions based on the songs and sang them while
going about their business. It was a
great character beat that was influenced by the soundtrack.
Guardians of the
Galaxy
Possibly the ultimate use of a soundtrack as part of a
movie’s story came in the two Guardians
of the Galaxy films. They are both
known for their soundtracks and how well they were used within the movie. People loved the movies as much for their
soundtracks as for what happened on screen.
The soundtracks gave the movies the vibe that they had and it’s hard to
imagine them working as well without the music.
The first Guardians of
the Galaxy made the soundtrack part of the emotional crux of the
movie. Peter Quill always listened to
his music on his Walkman. It began in
the 1980s on Earth when he was listening to the mixtape that his mother gave
him. She died in the opening scene, and
Peter Quill was taken from Earth soon after.
His only connection to his deceased mother was the music that she gave
him on the tape. He spent most of the
movie unable to deal with her death, even as an adult. He loved her and she was gone from his life,
as was Earth and anybody he knew back then.
These things messed him up pretty good.
At the end of the movie, when he was finally able to deal with his
feelings about his mother’s death, he opened a gift that she had given to him
right before passing away. It was a
second mixtape, which would be an essential part of the sequel.
Guardians of the
Galaxy Vol. 2 made the music even more essential to the story. The first movie had a soundtrack of music
being important to a person’s life.
Peter Quill tried to show Gamora how important music was. His memories of his mother were attached to
the music. He saved the galaxy with a
song. The second movie took the music
even further. The music not only held
Peter Quill’s connection to his mother, but it also led to a connection with
his father. Other characters asked for
Peter Quill’s music to aid them in fighting.
The opening credits featured the characters fighting a monster while Groot
danced to one of the songs on Peter Quill’s mixtape. Not only that. The music had thematic ties to the
characters. One of the prominent songs was
The Chain by Fleetwood Mac, a song that came together from many pieces of other
songs. It was like how the Guardians were
a group of characters coming together from vastly different backgrounds. Fleetwood Mac, at the time, was a band going
through relationship troubles and major disagreements with one another. They came together to create a masterpiece
album. The Guardians were the same in
that they might not always get along but they always came together to save the
galaxy. These themes and the fact that
the songs were mentioned and desired helped to make the soundtrack essential to
the story.
Music tends to be an essential part of filmmaking because of
how it accentuates what is happening on screen.
Manipulation seems like a cruel word to use when discussing how music
can alter a person’s state of mind ever so slightly. But that’s what it gets used for. It helps to convey a feeling so that the
audience can better sympathize with what is happening. Sometimes the music is used for more than
that. Sometimes it becomes an essential
part of how the story unfolds. It isn’t
just helping the story along. It is the
story.
In the cases of the movies that I’ve written about in this
post, the music is more than simple background sound. The music in these movies pushes the story to
new places. The soundtrack becomes an
important piece of how the story unfolds.
The songs become plot points. Hudson Hawk brought the music into the
main character’s personality, making it a part of who he was. That’s how important music can be to movies.
These notes aren’t all that important to this post, but they’re
here:
- Hudson Hawk was suggested by both @lizziegolucky and @donholio.
- Frank Welker did some work on Hudson Hawk. He also had a part in Anaconda and Mortal Kombat.
- Frank Stallone had a role in Hudson Hawk. We last saw him way back in Terror in Beverly Hills.
- Some of the other movies mentioned in this post were Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead and Miami Connection.
- Have you seen Hudson Hawk? What did you think of it? What do you think about the use of music in movies as a plot point? You can discuss any of these topics in the comments section below.
- There are bad movies out there that I don’t know about. Let me know about the movies by sharing them in the comments or on my Twitter timeline. I’m always on the lookout for movies I might not have any idea exist.
- Sometimes when I’m watching bad movies, I share clips of them on my Snapchat story. You can find me on snapchat with the username jurassicgriffin.
- Next week is Mother’s Day and to celebrate it, I will be watching the third and final holiday movie from director Garry Marshall. That’s right, next week I will cover Mother’s Day. We’ll see how that goes. See you in seven days.
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