Salutations, traveler of The Internets! Welcome to William's Bloody Hell, so named after our founder, Sir Bloody William.
He is seen in the likeness above in a rare, 19th century woodcut. This
image was rumoured to have been
commissioned after a bout of unpleasantness
in the White Chapel district of London. Do enjoy your stay and peruse our many, varied offerings, much of which cannot be found elsewhere!
:: Today's soundtrack: Elliot Smith "Because" ::
Well, it's Academy Awards time once again. Yeah, it'll probably be all over by the time most people read this, but what the heck. I just wanted to use it as an excuse to share with you all my idea for an awards category. You can agree or disagree if you want over its validity, but I think it's got merit.
What I would like to propose to the Academy is this: an award for most artistic use of a song. Basically my idea revolves around the fact that there is a category for best ORIGINAL song, but nothing else. See, to me a film can use an old song or a cover version made just for the movie and use it in such a way that it gives you a whole new perspective on it, or it accentuates that one moment in the picture just so. In other words, just because the song wasn't written specifically for the movie doesn't mean its use in film should be discarded as un-noteworthy. At least to me.
I guess what I'm hoping would come of this category would be better use of songs within film. I mean, I get sick and tired of movies like Fast Times at Ridgemont High, The Craft, or Scream or something which just toss any old tune by some top of the charts teen friendly band at any old time, regardless of appropriateness, with the intention to sell soundtrack records. Pisses me off.
Look at movies like Donnie Darko or The Rules of Attraction. They both had very carefully though out and artistic placement of songs, but to The Academy this doesn't mean a thing. Rules of Attraction could have very easily gone for some Top 40 song over their main titles, but no, instead they made the decision to used "Six Different Ways" by The Cure. If you are familiar with the film, then you know this song choice is very deliberate and keeps with the themes of the movie very well. But come award time, something like this doesn't mean a thing because none of the songs used were written expressly for the film itself. They were songs that already existed and so it doesn't matter what kind of artistic statement, no matter how poignant or meaningful, you make with it.
Speaking of artistic statements, doesn't a song written specifically for use in a specific movie kind of get a lessened sense of artistic impact? Think about it. You're creating a song just for this movie, therefore complete control over what it sounds like, what the words are, et cetera can be carefully contrived to suit the filmmaker's purpose. Again, I'm going to go with a Cure song as an example (just so you don't think all I ever do is think happy yay thoughts about the Cure... although 90% of the time I do. I simply want to come across as being even handed on the subject and not favouring particular musicians), this time "Burn" which was written just for The Crow soundtrack. Yes, it's a lovely song and all, but playing the lines "'Just paint your face' the shadows smile / slipping me away from you" right at the moment when Eric is painting his face feels a tad too contrived to feel artistic. It comes off as forced. I would much rather they worked with "The Hanging Garden" by the Cure for the movie because the Crow comic had it in there and it would have felt like they were making more of an effort.
Still not convinced there should be an award for this? Well let's look at some more, shall we say, popular films. Reservoir Dogs. The famous shot of our boys walking to the strains of The George Baker Selection's "Little Green Bag"? Who here would say this is not awesome? That song was carefully chosen for that moment. Could you imagine any other one taking its place? I thought not, but because that song already existed, and not written for the film, that moment of movie awesomeness goes unrecognized come trophy time. What about V for Vendetta's end credits? Nothing could have been more appropriate than "Street Fighting Man" by the Rolling Stones. Let's get some recognition for the use of an existing song that readily displayed parallels to an existing story!
Yes, I realize that simply creating this category for the Academy Awards will not completely eliminate cheesy "let's sell us some soundtracks!" song usage, but it definitely WILL help. Don't believe me? Let's look at the original song category. Many films that are based on Broadway shows with the songs built in are taking the trouble to write new ones just for a shot at this Oscar. Look at Phantom of the Opera. Look at Chicago. They wrote new songs for the end credits of the movie versions because all of their other songs wouldn't count for any recognition because they were written for the plays and not the movies. We know that filmmaker's are willing to go this extra mile, and this mile is loads more work than the category I'm offering. Hiring a lyricist and a composer, drafting it, coaching the singer, all the recording time, it all adds up to way more trouble than finding just the right song that's already out there to highlight a particular moment, or even the whole film if it's the main or ending titles. And hey! My category would mean that these musicals wouldn't even HAVE to write new songs for the Oscars at all! The versions that appear in the movie would be eligible for my artistic use award!
There's my proposal. All I want to do is encourage and recognize the use of artistic songs in films. Isn't that a good thing? Music can be a important part to a movie in general, and all I want to do is make movies a little better, and isn't that what we all want? Come ooooooon. But what do you, the viewers at home, think? Good idea or dumb?
William (artistically obsessed)
comments powered by Disqus