Soundtrack, The - Volume 7, Issue 2, 2014

Released in 1987, the continued popularity of Dirty Dancing by Emile Ardolino, and its associated soundtrack cannot be disputed. David Shumway’s analysis of the film’s soundtrack argues that its newly produced songs, such as ‘(I’ve Had) the Time of My Life’ performed by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes, rupture the purported realism of the film’s 1963 setting in favour of idealized fantasy. Exploring the implications of Shumway’s claim, this article examines how Dirty Dancing’s theme song has been taken up in two contemporary romantic comedies – Crazy Stupid Love by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa (2011), and Heartbreaker by Pascal Chaumeil (2010) – in which it is used by the male protagonists in order to win favour with their prospective partners. Combining Judith Butler’s work on performativity and citationality with the work of Ian Garwood and Frank Krutnik on the role of quotation in the recent romantic comedy and Rick Altman’s and Richard Dyer’s work on the film musical, the article observes how in both films, the male characters appeal directly to the women’s enjoyment of Dirty Dancing, culminating in scenes where the male and female leads perform a dance to ‘(I’ve had) the Time of My Life’. Complicating the dominant perception of the use of older songs in the contemporary romantic comedy, the article investigates the complex legacy of a hugely popular film whose eclectic soundtrack has seen relatively little academic interest.

Despite the charisma of its stars, Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway, the original version of The Thomas Crown Affair (Jewison,1968) is not thought of as a classic film of its era. As a consequence, it is generally best remembered less for its plot than for its use of novel split screen images, the infamous chess game scene, and its Oscar-winning song, ‘The Windmills of Your Mind’, performed by Noel Harrison. The song is heard during the film’s opening titles, but also features as non-diegetic underscore during a scene in which Crown (McQueen) flies a glider part way through the film. Various scholars suggest that ‘The Windmills of Your Mind’s inclusion is as an interpolated song, i.e., that it has no particular connection to the film’s storyline. In contrast, I argue that the song’s music and lyrics do serve a narrative function, and that my claim is reinforced through its inclusion in the 1999 remake, which features Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo in the leading roles. On this occasion, the song appears to be included as an homage to the original version; it is performed by another Englishman, Sting, and it is heard over the closing credits as an evocative reminder of the earlier film.

This article argues that Bob Dylan’s ‘Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door’, which accompanies a key scene in Sam Peckinpah’s 1973 film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, has had its relevance to the narrative enhanced by the song’s widespread propagation. The analysis provides a context for Dylan’s score in Peckinpah’s oeuvre as well as within more general late 1960s and early 1970s scoring trends in the film western. Pertinent is the number of versions afforded Pat Garrett (a theatrical cut, a director’s preview and a hybrid ‘special edition’), resulting in either the inclusion or omission of Dylan’s vocals and lyrics. The presence, or lack thereof, of this important element affects the semantics of the scene and film. In tracing aspects of the history of the song’s presence in cinema after Pat Garrett, the article shows how the drama of the original ‘Heaven’s Door’ scene is often reiterated. This dovetails with Peckinpah’s and Dylan’s shared concerns with memory and cyclicality. Finally, the article illustrates that the use of popular ‘standards’ with judiciously omitted lyrics can suggest an interior monologue and a novelistic insight into a character’s thoughts.

This article examines the way in which the James Bond theme songs have helped shape the Bond series stylistically, and also considers song-writing as a process of adaptation and development by analysing the songs’ relationships with other Bond musical compositions. It considers the performers and evidence of the success of the Bond soundtracks. It argues that the Bond theme songs have an afterlife both in directly shaping those which follow in the series and also in that the cultural memory of earlier compositions and performances, powerfully influences their marketing and reception.

Empirical research suggests that incongruent or mismatched film-music combinations can result in separate perceptual encoding of auditory and visual information, which draws attention to the components that comprise a scene. These processes help to explain the often memorable qualities of such filmic moments, which can create interpretations that may influence the resulting reception and use of the music. Examples often cited as incongruent include the use of seemingly ironic popular songs to accompany depictions of violence. Through analysis of such quotation of ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ and ‘Over the Rainbow’, this article discusses why popular song can be particularly effective in the construction of such moments. The benefits of conceptualizing these moments as incongruent, and in approaching this term from a psycho-semiotic perspective and drawing particular attention to notions of signification and intertextuality, allows further speculation about the impact of such moments on the afterlife of the quoted song.

This article considers Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Mrs. Robinson’ in its original context of The Graduate (Nichols, 1967) in relation to its composition, lyrical content and narrative role. The song’s later use in other films is then examined, with consideration of issues of intention and reception in regard to evocation of The Graduate, and of the part that visual and other elements play in this alongside music. ‘Mrs. Robinson’ is seemingly universally employed as a deliberate nod to Nichols’s film, but a variety of contexts for and manners of this can be identified, in part using Serge Lacasse’s (2000) concepts of ‘autosonic’ and ‘allosonic’ quotation (where the former is the quotation of recorded sound, and the latter that of abstract musical structure, realized through new sonic means). The article argues that these later uses of ‘Mrs. Robinson’ have contributed to a re-inscription of the song’s signification in culture more broadly; much as Benjamin is seduced – led astray – by Mrs Robinson in The Graduate, we ourselves have now been seduced into new and arguably false interpretations of her musical namesake.