Scores

            I have recently watched the trailer for Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, and by recently watched I mean I watched it two times before I began writing this post, and today I’ve watched it about seven times total. Yesterday it was closer to twenty times. This has been going on for the past few weeks, and is rapidly approaching an obsession or maybe it’s already gotten there.

            Now, before you cry something like whacko, might I say that I am not watching the trailer for its visuals at least not any more, I finished with that the first time through. I could practically recite it...”There’s a mole, right at the top of the circus. He’s been there for years.” Then the words How do you find an enemy. I could go on. I could also describe the scenes that play throughout the trailer, but I don’t have quite enough drive to do that and I’m already pretty sure it would bore you even more than my average post does.

            No, the reason I keep watching and rewatching the trailer is because of the score. It’s wonderful. All minor key with a violins screeching and morose melodies that lend an extra veneer of authenticity and gloom to the 70’s aesthetic of the film. I hope that it is the actual score for the film and not something they cooked up for this trailer as it is the main reason I am so excited about the film. Which got me wondering, how great a contribution does the score of a film make to its overall impact?

            Take for example Rosemary’s Baby. I have recently read the novel, one of the many underappreciated efforts of Ira Levin; whose books almost always made terrific films that outlived their literary source. It’s pretty good, actually, although a lot of the narrative punch is ruined by the fact that I’d previously seen the film and so the big reveal was…well…expected. However, rewatching the film, I am struck by something. It is, almost scene for scene, identical to the novel. Oh, Roman Polanski does things in the movie I would never have thought of, like using the shadows on the bedroom wall to indicate action in the next apartment or the odd collision between Rosemary in her bed and dreams. But, the dialogue is taken, often word for word, from the Levin novel.

Yet, the novel uses the old trick of horror novels, making the setting seem as real as possible so when they pull the rug out from under you it is even more shocking. But the film it is pervasively creepy from the very first frame, with the pink cursive lettering, which isn’t creepy or the shot of New York, again not creepy, William Castle’s name, which is only scary because it indicates this film might be terrible, and that lilting hummed lullaby…which is so unnerving. Indeed, the score is the best, most terrifying parts of the film and it is a film filled with terrific elements. But it’s the lullaby that most people remember, especially if they’ve seen that final scene.

Psycho is a similar story, its soundtrack one of those things everyone seems to remember. and there’s Twisted Nerve, whose theme is little more than the creepiest whistling you will ever hear. It’s so good Quinton Tarantino even used it in Kill Bill. Admittedly even the score can mess up a film especially if its too overwrought, but a good one remains understated but pervasive. Just like that of the trailer for Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.