Sound technique · used in 14 films
Writing music with its own instruments, rhythms and melodies for each culture in the film, or drawing on a real culture's musical traditions. The score tells you about the people.
Examples
John Huston · 1975
Composer Maurice Jarre recorded classical Indian musicians alongside a European symphony orchestra. The mixed sound fits a story about two Europeans lost in a place they do not understand. A hymn comes back at key moments and ties Dravot to the home he left.
Where to see it: Dravot's death on the rope bridge: he sings a hymn as the ropes are cut and falls to his death.
Martin Scorsese · 1988
Peter Gabriel's score, released as the album Passion, won a Grammy. It draws on musicians and instruments from Africa and the Middle East. The sound places the story in its region, instead of a European church.
Where to see it: The crucifixion: Jesus is flogged, mocked and crucified in a sequence shot over 3 days with about 60 camera setups.
Ang Lee · 2000
Tan Dun's score blends traditional Chinese instruments, the erhu, pipa and guqin, with Western orchestral writing and Yo-Yo Ma's cello. The musical mix mirrors what the film does with culture. It takes a classical Chinese genre and reworks it for a global audience. The traditional and the modern pull against each other in a useful way.
Where to see it: The desert flashback sequences. Tan Dun's score mixes Chinese and Western elements here. The music does the same blending of cultures as the film.
Joel Coen, Ethan Coen · 2000
Real folk, country and bluegrass musicians such as Ralph Stanley, Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch supplied the voices. The film's roots music tells you who these people are and where they come from. The soundtrack also won a Grammy for Album of the Year.
Where to see it: The gala dinner. In disguise, the group performs Man of Constant Sorrow and the crowd is electrified.
Peter Jackson · 2001
Howard Shore gave the Shire an Irish tin whistle and acoustic warmth. Mordor got a dark, chromatic, brass-heavy sound and the elves got pure, distant voices. You take in these links without noticing, so hearing a theme instantly tells you which culture you're with and where it stands morally.
Where to see it: Gandalf's arrival in the Shire. The move from the somber opening to the cheerful hobbit world is signaled entirely by music.
Joel Coen, Ethan Coen · 2004
Music producer T Bone Burnett built the soundtrack from old gospel recordings and new ones by church choirs. The sound ties Mrs. Munson's world of church and faith to the story. It sets the film apart from the original.
Where to see it: The cellar rehearsals. The gang pretends to be a band while they tunnel toward the casino vault.
Ridley Scott · 2005
The score mixes medieval, Middle Eastern, contemporary classical and popular influences, mostly by Harry Gregson-Williams. It sounds different from Scott's earlier Roman epic. The mix tells you this is a story set where 2 worlds meet. The film also borrows "Vide Cor Meum," a piece first used in an earlier Scott film.
Where to see it: The arrival in Jerusalem: Balian frees the slave who guided him, then meets King Baldwin, Tiberias and Princess Sibylla.
Ridley Scott · 2007
Composer Marc Streitenfeld added shades of blues and soul to his score to fit the 1970s setting. The soundtrack album includes songs by Bobby Womack, The Staple Singers, Sam & Dave and John Lee Hooker. Scott felt it was vital to have the kind of music that was Harlem at the time.
Where to see it: Frank's rise: after Bumpy Johnson dies of a heart attack, Frank steps into the heroin trade and starts selling "Blue Magic."
Woody Allen · 2008
Spanish music is used as part of the seduction. Vicky is deeply moved by a Spanish guitar performance in the evening, and soon afterward she gives in to Juan Antonio's advances. The music tells you she is falling under the spell of the place.
Where to see it: The guitar performance. Vicky listens to a Spanish guitarist during her weekend with Juan Antonio, and she is moved.
Joel Coen, Ethan Coen · 2009
Composer Carter Burwell wrote the original music, and the film also uses Yiddish songs such as Dem Milner's Trern, about Jews being thrown out of their homes. Alongside it plays 1960s rock from Jefferson Airplane. The 2 sounds show a family caught between old and new worlds.
Where to see it: Danny's meeting with Rabbi Marshak. The old rabbi only quotes Jefferson Airplane's Somebody to Love and returns Danny's radio.
Peter Jackson · 2012
The dwarves sing a slow, low song about the Misty Mountains and their lost home. It gives them a musical culture of their own. Howard Shore later builds an orchestral version of the tune into the score, so it keeps coming back as a reminder of what they want.
Where to see it: Misty Mountains song: The dwarves sing about the mountains and the home they lost.
Wes Anderson · 2018
Alexandre Desplat's score leans on taiko drums, and the soundtrack borrows music from Kurosawa films such as Drunken Angel and Seven Samurai. The sound tells you this fictional Japan is built from love of its cinema.
Where to see it: The opening drummers: After a woodcut-style prologue, taiko drummers play as the opening credits appear.
Ryan Coogler · 2018
Composer Ludwig Göransson traveled to Senegal and worked with singer Baaba Maal. Talking drums, a West African instrument, became the sound of T'Challa and play alongside a large orchestra. The music tells you Wakanda is rooted in African culture.
Where to see it: The coronation at Warrior Falls. The tribes gather for the ritual, and M'Baku challenges T'Challa to combat.
Ryan Coogler · 2025
The film opens with Annie's voiceover about musicians whose music can reach past death, from West African griots to old Irish poets. Sammie's music is the Delta blues. Remmick answers with Irish folk song, the music of his own people. Composer Ludwig Göransson even played the score on a 1932 resonator guitar, the same instrument Sammie carries.
Where to see it: Remmick's "Rocky Road to Dublin". The vampires stamp out an Irish dance outside the juke joint, singing together while they wait to be let in.
Questions
Learn more