Some of my favorite musicians and bands have been sampling film scores and using them in their music for many many years and for me personally that’s a totally different thing than another filmmaker taking a score from a great film and sticking it in their own movie. I can appreciate it when musicians sample bits of film scores and dialogue, etc. and use them in their own songs as long as it’s used in a creative way and not to excess. Of course there’s that little thing called copyright involved too. These days it seems like good film composers are few and far between mainly because filmmakers don’t use them anymore and instead inject their movies with the latest pop hits or just borrow music composed for another film.

Film is a visual medium and soundtracks are used to evoke emotions or express what is visually taking place on screen. I personally attach memories and feelings to the film scores I love (I do it to songs as well, which is why I hate hearing a song I love used to sell cars or jeans in TV ads) and great composers create great scores with an original film in mind. If another director just borrows a score from another film it lacks the punch and power of the original (at least for me anyway). It feels like a director is trying to co-opt the good feelings or evocative moods already created by another director in a previous film. I would much rather hear an original piece of music in a new movie.

Composing original music for films is becoming a lost art (hell, making original films is becoming a lost art due to the hundreds of forgettable remakes released every year) and I really think that’s a shame. I wish more directors would work with young aspiring film composers or musicians interested in creating original scores. I think the film world as well as the music biz would really benefit from it.

I’m a filmmaker and saw Contempt in my 1st year of film school and it’s been my response to the dreaded, “what’s your favorite movie?” ever since. I believe I can answer that question not solely based on Godard’s genius seen throughout, but because of Georges Delerue - Le Mépris score. You see I’m more of a “Casino” kind of guy, but Contempt just struck me so differently than anything I’d been exposed to that it shook me to my core. Which brings me to the point of this post.

There’s been a shake up in the hip-hop world (stick with me) over an artist, Jay Electronica, and his use of Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind’s score as the only thing to rap over. No drums or other resampling involved added. While Jon Brion, the original score’s composer, has notably worked with Kanye West, this score was not intended for rap music yet it’s created a buzz about what direction hip-hop should be headed. Simply put, it was an outside the box idea that just worked. How many times can that phrase be applied to filmmaking?

So I thought I’d pass this info along to other fellow film fans as a reminder that what you think you like may just be what you’re used to.

Have a listen here

Ada - If you didn’t enjoy Bande à part, you may not like Contempt. Godard’s films are probably a required taste I suppose and they’re often very slow moving and contemplative.

It does seem like a lot of modern scores just haphazardly slap a bunch of popular tunes into a film without much thought these days. A lot of modern soundtracks remind me of old K-tel records.

Joe - Thanks for the nice thoughts. There’s a lot of wonderful themes going on in Godard’s Contempt such as the death of old cinema and birth of the new and of course the whole thing is wrapped in Homer’s Odyssey, but I really love the way Godard deals with human relationships in Contempt. He has such a wonderful understanding of the inner working life of people and the women in his films are so beautifully written. Fritz Lang’s appearance is wonderful and he does seem extremely god-like in the film.

ad soundtracks:
present soundtracks suck. sure there is lot of good original music, but there are more mtv hits soundtracks. just collections of modern pop (rock, r&b, numetal,…). in the 70s almost every cheap b action flick had original music. maybe im wrong… but i have a lot of old film music albums and no radio hits.

Godard is one of the few filmmakers I can think of who makes what I consider to be great “women” films. . . whatever that might mean. I do believe he has an incredible understanding of how women think and often feel.

I’ve never seen Scorsese’s Casino (I’ve been avoiding his films since Goodfellas I’m afraid only because they haven’t interested me. I do want to see the Aviator though), but nothing bothers me more than when filmmakers take a crucial piece of music from another movie and slap it in their own because they’re too lazy to hire their own composer or come up with an original score. For me it’s like hearing a song I love used in a car commercial. I get nauseous from it.

Too many modern filmmakers do that and it really irks me.

I have heard Piccioni’s score and I like it a lot, but I can’t imagine it in the film.

I’m looking forward to reading your contribution to the blog-a-thon!

By the way, have you ever heard Piero Piccioni’s score for the Italian version of this film, called “Il Disprezzo”? As an album I like it very much but I can’t imagine it with the film. I wish Criterion would have included the Italian soundtrack on their otherwise incredible set, as I have always been curious to see how the film would have played with Piccioni’s score. I just can’t imagine it with out Delerue’s music.