In Zombieland (a delectable movie), there’s a scene where the four dysfunctional people we’re learning to love smash up a store full of tacky western-style souvenirs. And have loads of fun doing it. They’re allowed to, because as far as we and they know, they’re the only human beings left in the US. It’s them against millions of zombies.
And what do we hear on the soundtrack while they’re smashing the souvenirs? The Marriage of Figaro overture, sounding like wild, crazy fun, just as it ought to in the opera. (It would work even better in the film if they’d chosen a better performance.)
This is another example of the new use of classical music on soundtracks and in commercials. It’s chosen, apparently, simply for its sound, without any overlay of classical music romance or pomp.
Compare this to the last movement of the Brahms Violin Concerto during an especially violent murder scene in There Will Be Blood. Again, the music suggests wild and crazy fun, though this time with a biting ironic edge, and without any overlap with anything Brahms most likely had in mind. (It’s a much more violent scene than anything in Zombieland, even though — or maybe because — the only monster around is human.)
Greg –
I have nothing against the use of classical music outside of it’s original context (although I think your question in your follow-up post about why music is chosen may have less to do with the “sound’ and more to do with the fact that the music is in the public domain – see the recommended music in the Make Your Own Doritos Commercial contest.)I do, however, think that there is a loss for our culture when music, art, literature have become completely unmoored from any common reference. When Vladimir Nabokov or Toni Morrison reference some other cultural work it is freighted with meaning that makes their works that much more deeply meaningful. I don’t know if our modern culture’s seeming inability to process deeper thoughts than a Hallmark moment or TV pundit’s rant is contributing to the decline of the classical audience, but I’m not so sure that a spot in Zombieland or a 30 second Amex commercial is helping any.
I look at it from the perspective that we think of Rock Stars and Film Stars with a sense of glamour, but classical music “stars” don’t get the same treatment. Classical music composers are somehow “less than” other composers even though numerous classical music composers also composed for film.
I posted a more detailed comment on my blog…
Greg-
I agree that we are constantly creating new cultural references, and we are richer for them. However, imagine how much better the scene in Zombieland would have been if they had chosen The Anvil Chorus (where you actually get to “strike” things in the original.) All I’m really saying, is that if the cultural reference for the Bach Suite is that Amex will replace my broken consumer goods, that is probably not the best thing for our shared culture. Granted, this has been happening for a long, long time – I still think of puffed rice whenever I hear the 1812.
As far as the success of The Wire (which I love), it was a critical success with viewers never more than 4,000,000 – paltry in terms of TV audience. It was niche programming, much like classical and jazz have become.
You need to watch There Will Be Blood again. Brahms’s Violin Concerto is used twice, the first time when Daniel Day-Lewis strikes oil for the first time, the second after he kills Paul Dano’s character. The music doesn’t suggest “wild and crazy fun,” it symbolizes the triumph over enormous odds that the oilman has overcome, his implacable focus, and in the most unironic way possible. There’s nothing questioning at those points, there’s no introspection, it’s pure D major glory.
Mr Sandow: I imagine you hear the AMEX commercial the way you described it because you are a classical music fan, and a very knowledgeable one at that. The vast majority of the audience is oblivious to the content, source and performance quality of the music: it’s just background!