Movie Soundtracks Theme Week

Movie Soundtracks: The Roundup

Check out all of the posts for our Movie Soundtracks Theme Week here.

Take Away This Lonely Man: (500) Days of Summer And Musical Storytelling by Victoria Edel

We hear the song one more time in a moment that mimics the first, after Tom’s illusion is shattered. Instead of listing what he loves about Summer, Tom lists the things he hates about her, concluding with “It’s Like The Wind,” and yelling, “I hate this song!” The romantic illusions are finally cracked. This isn’t the movie he thought it was.

Creating the Mythology of Beatrix Kiddo Through Music by Rhianna Shaheen

Tarantino’s vast knowledge of music is clear from the very beginning with Reservoir Dogs. However, it isn’t until the Kill Bill series when his soundtracks begin to drift away from pop and instead embrace more orchestral sounds like that of Ennio Morricone. Viewers need no knowledge of the genre to instantly recognize that spaghetti western feel. It’s that famous mix of Spanish guitar, orchestra, whistles, cracking whips, trumpet, flute and sometimes chorus that recalls images of Clint Eastwood clad in a green poncho and cowboy hat as the iconic Man with No Name.

Running Away With The Runaways: Sex, Rock ‘n Roll, and the Female Experience by Angelina Rodriguez

The music throughout the film deals with the lost and rebellious feelings during coming of age for young women. The movie tells the story of these two individuals and how their lives were affected by fame, but underneath that is the coming of age experience for young girls realizing their power and sexuality within a culture that seeks to suppress them.

The Siren Song of Cartoon Catgirls by Robert V. Aldrich

As evocative as the scene of the Puma Sisters doing their thing might be, and as culturally-charged a time as the release of Dominion Tank Police might have been, much of the success of this scene is owed to the music. “Hey Boy,” by Riko Ejima, is a haunting song that, while seemingly chaste in that it seems to be singing about dancing, captures something deep, deep in the soul.

Love It or Hate It, Emotions Served Raw in the Music of Les Misérables by Katherine Murray

Ugly singing; ugly make-up. ‘Les Misérables’ is deservedly known as the film that tried too hard to bum us out, and Anne Hathaway is known as the actress who tries too hard to be liked. But, isn’t it nice, sometimes, when somebody makes an effort?

The Sounds of Change and Confusion in The Graduate by Caroline Madden

Mike Nichol’s The Graduate has one of the most popular soundtracks of all-time. The songs reveal the dynamics of a character, theme, and a moment without the use of dialogue or a backstory, but simply through the lyrics of a Simon and Garfunkel song.

Love Jones: The Soundtrack of the Neo-Soul Generation by Inda Lauryn

Whale Rider: Women and Children First by Ren Jender

Lisa Gerrard of Dead Can Dance, one of the few successful women musicians who made the transition to film composer (she won a Golden Globe for her work on Gladiator), wrote and performed the music for 2002’s Whale Rider–and she didn’t have to date writer-director Niki Caro to do so. Gerrard might seem an unlikely choice: when I briefly worked in a women’s sex shop in the 90s, the store owner told me not to play Dead Can Dance on the sound system because they scared away customers. But Gerrard’s score for Rider does what the best movie music is supposed to do: reinforcing the drama of the film without calling unnecessary attention to itself.

What’s in a Soundtrack? The Sweet Sounds of Romeo + Juliet by Leigh Kolb

Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet is a tale told by the older generation. Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet is one told by “unfaded” youth. When Des’ree was singing “Kissing You” as Romeo and Juliet kiss (and oh, how they kiss), she is singing with deep longing and pain. When Glen Weston sings “What is a Youth?” he sings at Romeo and Juliet, about how youth–and female virginity–fades.

The Soundtrack for That Thing You Do! Withstands the Test of Time by Lisa Anderson

That Thing You Do! with its sly humor, strong performances and ultimately heartwarming romance makes for satisfying viewing. It’s a meditation on the tension between art and commerce that manages to acknowledge what can be good about temporary fame. It’s also a squeaky-clean antidote to sordid, drug-filled “Behind-the Music”-type stories both fictional and real.

Watch Me Shine: Legally Blonde and My Path to Girl Power by Kathryn Diaz

My attachment wasn’t about Elle Woods or embracing hallmarks of traditional femininity that get belittled by western mainstream society (that would come later). I was all about lyrics like, “That’s not the way/ Nice girls behave/ Oh yeah I know/ You told me/ It’s not your choice/ I have a voice/ I guess you just don’t hear me.” It spoke to me on a spiritual level.

Girls Just Wanna … Take Control of Their Own Lives by Shay Revolver

I’m a lot older now and I still squeal with excitement when Girls Just Want to Have Fun comes on. When it showed up on Netflix my daughter and I watched the movie over a dozen times. We would take “supreme silly” dance breaks whenever the music would play and when the Netflix purge occurred we found a DVD copy (OK we got two in case one got scratched or lost) of our very own on Amazon so that we could continue this tradition at will.

Death by Stereo: Innocence Lost in The Lost Boys by Bethany Ainsworth-Coles

The Lost Boys is a classic 1980s vampire flick directed by Joel Schumacher. It is as famous for its soundtrack as it is for its content. The entire film in fact is exemplified in its main theme–“Cry Little Sister,” by G Tom Mac–from the typical horror themed sections to its classic 80s rock moments down to its choral moments. These sections sum up the film almost perfectly.

The Soundtrack for ‘That Thing You Do!’ Withstands the Test of Time

‘That Thing You Do!’ with its sly humor, strong performances and ultimately heartwarming romance makes for satisfying viewing. It’s a meditation on the tension between art and commerce that manages to acknowledge what can be good about temporary fame. It’s also a squeaky-clean antidote to sordid, drug-filled “Behind-the Music”-type stories, both fictional and real.

That Thing You Do movie poster — *That Thing You Do!* movie poster

This guest post by Lisa Anderson appears as part of our theme week on Movie Soundtracks.

What makes a film’s soundtrack memorable? Some beloved films, such as Pulp Fiction, pull together varying songs to capture the essence of a film, while others, like O Brother Where Art Thou? have artists covering existing songs specifically for the movie in question. That Thing You Do! (1996) took a novel approach somewhere in the middle. Writer/director Tom Hanks collaborated with others to create original songs in the style of various musical genres of the time and record them under the name of fictional musical acts from the movie. Despite its initial popularity and the success of the movie, the resulting album has fallen into relative obscurity, but I believe it still holds up.

The movie itself tells the story of a fictional “One-Hit Wonder” band from 1960s Eerie, Pennsylvania. Young Guy Patterson, played by Tom Everett Scott, is asked to sit in with a band for a local contest after their usual drummer (Giovanni Ribisi in a bit role) breaks his arm. Guy brings a new tempo to the band’s signature song, “That Thing You Do!” and also gives them their new name: The Oneders, which is pronounced “Wonders” but hilariously mispronounced “Oh-nee-ders” on multiple occasions.

The pepped-up version of “That Thing You Do!” becomes a hit, and the Oneders go from local radio play to the state fair circuit to the Billboard charts and national TV. Along the way, they have help from Andrew White (Tom Hanks), their manager with the fictional Play-Tone records, and Faye (Liv Tyler), the lead singer’s mistreated girlfriend, after whom Guy pines. Success turns sour, as it inevitably must (at least in the movies), but not before the audience is treated to many great songs that sound like they’re lifted straight from the 60s.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPMLG8mnCRM”]

As the film opens, we hear “Lovin’ You Lots and Lots,” by the Norm Wooster Singers — a shout-out to the tame, almost muzak-like sound that’s about to be supplanted by rock ‘n’ roll. As the Oneders play gigs, we hear them perform not only “That Thing You Do!” (of course), but also “Little Wid One,” “Dance With Me Tonight,” and “All My Lonely Dreams.” The first two are up-tempo 1960s rock, while the latter is a slow ballad of the sort that the lead singer, Jimmy, apparently has a proclivity for. His post-Oneders band, the Heardsmen, also has two songs on the soundtrack: “She Knows It” and “I Need You (That Thing you Do),” although the latter is also attributed to the Oneders.

It’s when the Oneders go on a state fair tour with other Play-Tone artists that the music gets even more varied. “Hold my Hand, Hold my Heart” by the Chantrellines captures the sound of Black all-girl groups such as the Supremes. “Mr Downtown,” by Freddy Fredrickson, combines a lounge-lizard sound with the feel of a James Bond title song and a dash of Raymond Chandler. Diane Dane sings in the tradition of female soloist torch singers on “My World is Over.” The Vicksburgs, a rock band much like the Oneders, alludes to the era’s fascination with the automobile in “Drive Faster.”

The world of the Oneders is full of instrumental music, too. “Voyage Around the Moon,” by The Saturn 5, is a spot-on homage to surf music. Cap’n Geech and the Shrimp Shack Shooters provide the sound for the Beach-movie phenomenon in “Shrimp Shack,” and are portrayed by the Oneders in a metafictional movie. Not least of all, Del Paxton, Guy’s favorite jazz musician, performs “Time to Blow.” My only regret is that “I am Spartacus,” Del’s Jam session with Guy, didn’t make the cut.

The movie presents some interesting challenges to those interested in social justice analysis, and it’s hard to say whether that’s a weakness of the script or due to the restrictive cultural environment in which the story takes place. The only named Black characters are somewhat stereotyped — the sage Jazz musician Del and Lamar, the cheerful hotel concierge. But Guy expresses a deep respect for specific Black musicians on several occasions, and the movie seems very conscious of how much American music owes to Black musicians.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJZQzUuN7Eo”]

The movie does less, in my opinion, to redeem its depiction of women. Most of the female characters seem shallow and hyper-focused on their romantic relationships, with the exception of Faye, who is also very relationship-focused, but is given more substance and seems more genuinely interested in music. Unfortunately, this sets her up as an Exceptional Woman — the kind who you know is better than the rest because her friends are all men — and the movie only passes the Bechdel test by a brief early exchange between her and Guy’s girlfriend. She could have more agency in terms of her relationships, too, but the movie does a nice job of contrasting how Jimmy treats her with how Guy treats her. (On a more subversive note, “Little Wild One” is basically all about the sexual double-standard.)

Liv Tyler as Faye in That Thing You Do! — Liv Tyler as Faye in *That Thing You Do!*

In the end, Guy must reconnect with his his love of making music in order to decide what to do with his life after the Oneders. That Thing You Do! is not the least predictable movie ever, but with its sly humor, strong performances and ultimately heartwarming romance makes for satisfying viewing. It’s a meditation on the tension between art and commerce that manages to acknowledge what can be good about temporary fame. It’s also a squeaky-clean antidote to sordid, drug-filled “Behind-the Music”-type stories, both fictional and real.

The soundtrack to That Thing You Do! was released by Epic Records under the name of the label from the movie, Play-Tone Records. Hanks later spun off Play-Tone as his own label, to release other movie and television soundtracks, including Bring It On and the soundtrack to The Sopranos. Almost 20 years later, I remain impressed by the quality of the songs and how closely they imitated the genres of the era, and I heartily recommend both the movie and its music.

Death by Stereo: Innocence Lost in ‘The Lost Boys’

‘The Lost Boys’ is a classic 1980s vampire flick directed by Joel Schumacher. It is as famous for its soundtrack as it is for its content. The entire film in fact is exemplified in its main theme–“Cry Little Sister,” by G Tom Mac–from the typical horror themed sections to its classic 80s rock moments down to its choral moments. These sections sum up the film almost perfectly.

This guest post by Bethany Ainsworth-Coles appears as part of our theme week on Movie Soundtracks.

Spoilers Ahead

The film itself seems pretty simple; Lucy (and her two sons Michael [Jason Patric] and Sam [Corey Haim] move to Santa Carla to live with Lucy’s dad in Santa Carla. However, Michael falls in with a bad crowd and is seduced into being a vampire by David (Keifer Sutherland), the pack’s leader. There is of course more to it than this (a pair of vampire hunters, a small child, and a generic love interest), but that’s the main gist.

“Cry Little Sister” links to this film perfectly, the way only the best movie themes do. I’m organizing this article in three subtitled sections, which employ quotes from “Cry Little Sister” in relation to parts in the film.

“Love Is With Your Brother”–Homoeroticism and Forgotten Women

In an article about The Lost Boys it would be a travesty to dare forget the amounts of male bonding and homoerotic tension. The vampires and their culture in particular is shown in this light with the androgynous (and gorgeous) David, the supposed leader of the gang as they steal and kill people to feed. He also seduces Michael into drinking the blood, thus beginning his transformation into a vampire. This is an interesting twist on the female seductress trope as seen in most vampire movies. This twist is best summed up Jeff Allard in his review: “Typically (especially today in our Twilight world), either Michael or David would’ve been written as a girl but in The Lost Boys you’ve got a male bringing another male into the fold.”

This is certainly true if we look at typical vampire stories–e.g. Edward turns Bella in Twilight, Dracula turns Lucy Westernra in Dracula, etc. The victim is often the woman and is seen as weak and inferior; by subverting this, Schumacher includes not only an equal playing field but also huge amounts of sexual tension. Especially as in most vampire novels, films etc. the transformation into vampire is often treated incredibly sexually. While this isn’t the first time a man has turned a man into vampire (Anne Rice’s Interview With a Vampire, which is also homoerotic) it is a very interesting occurrence that should not be avoided. David even takes him to his first feed on human blood.

The women throughout this are mainly forgotten and depicted in two major roles: the sister or the mother. All the boys share a bond shown throughout the film. Through the vampires themselves, who are the “sons” of Max (Edward Hermann), to the actual brothers of The Frogs (Corey Feldman and Jamison Newlander) and of course are main brothers Sam and Michael. Most of the story revolves around Michael’s betrayal of Sam from trying to attack him when the first gets too great. Sam chooses to help him and save him from the Frogs’ vampire killing obsession. This is shown equally in the song “Cry Little Sister” with “love is with your brother,” which repeated several times throughout the song, reinforcing its importance in the piece.

“The Masquerade, Strangers Will Come”–Broken Families

Whilst brotherhood may be a strong point in the film, families themselves are not shown to be as sturdy. Lucy has had a messy divorce, which is the reason she and her boys have moved to Santa Carla. They themselves despite their non-functional new lives get along well and cracks only appear when Lucy dates Max and Michael becomes half vampire. However, this family is not the most interesting of the families. It’s not even the Frog family, who we only see very briefly as a whole unit.

It has to be Max and the boys. Max is the head vampire but has lost control of his boys and is longing to find them a mother, a role he thinks Lucy would be just perfect for. He does genuinely love his boys though, especially when as he walks into the house the final time he sees David’s body.

However, this twisted family image also encapsulates the portrayal of women. During this film, both Star and Lucy take on maternal roles. Lucy, of course, is already a mother, and Star looks after Laddy (the child half vampire). They are both shown to be manipulated by the vampires into becoming family members and helping the group.

“Thou Shall Not Fall”–Innocence Lost

“Cry Little Sister” features a large section of choral vocals repeating religious-type phrases sung by what sounds like children. These are used to great effect during the final scene, where David is impaled and killed by Michael. During this section, once he is impaled, his face slowly regresses back to a child and how he was before he was turned into a vampire thus showing him as an innocent young boy rather than a dead monster. David’s death accompanied by “Cry Little Sister’s” faded choral section singing “thou shall not die” gives the audience just a glimpse of who he was before Max transformed him, probably like Michael against his will. The audience is presented with the horrible truth that David and all the vampires were just missing children shunned by their leader. In death for both David and Marko (Alex Winter, who is the first to be killed and youngest of the boys) they are taken back to being lost children.

“Cry Little Sister” is the perfect song for a fantastic horror movie. Whilst the movie certainly isn’t flawless, it really is an excellent take on the vampire genre (plus who in their right mind doesn’t like teen vampire with cool hair, leather jackets and motorbikes who lives in an abandoned hotel?). They are living the twisted teenage dream and the soundtrack portrays that perfectly.

Recommended reading: Boomer Beefcake and Bonding’s analysis of subtext in The Lost Boys

Bethany Ainsworth-Coles is a young writer from England who enjoys overanalyzing things and watching films. She tweets over at https://twitter.com/wierdbuthatsok.

Girls Just Wanna … Take Control of Their Own Lives

I’m a lot older now and I still squeal with excitement when this film comes on. When it showed up on Netflix my daughter and I watched the movie over a dozen times. We would take “supreme silly” dance breaks whenever the music would play and when the Netflix purge occurred we found a DVD copy (OK we got two in case one got scratched or lost) of our very own on Amazon so that we could continue this tradition at will.

Janey and Lynne bond over Dance TV — Janey and Lynne bond over *Dance TV*

This guest post by Shay Revolver appears as part of our theme week on Movie Soundtracks.

The year was 1985. A very young and impressionable Shay had grown quite fond of the moving picture shows. She watched anything and everything. Some of them only once, others she recorded and watched over and over again. She was particularly fond of movies with a great soundtrack. Her older sister’s old bootleg copy of Rock ‘n’ Roll High School with the defiant, audacious and energetic PJ Soles was at the top of her list.

Then one day she came upon a new girl-powered (and probably more age-appropriate) film to love. This film would seal her belief that music and moving images go together like PB and J. It would imprint on her that the tone of a film could be realized through music and create a process by which the older Shay would write every script and edit every frame to a song. It wasn’t the first film that helped her see this beautiful pattern and it wouldn’t be the last, but it would definitely be the most fun. It would be a movie watched over and over again by a feisty little girl after school almost every day for a month in her Catholic school uniform and triple laced LA Gears. She would down all of the Fun Dip, eat all of the popcorn, and drink all the iced tea in the fridge while hanging out on the couch staring up at the big screen TV watching Girls Just Want to Have Fun.

Girls Just Want to Have Fun poster — *Girls Just Want to Have Fun* poster

For those of you that haven’t had the awesome pleasure of seeing this film I’m going to break it down for you: Army brat Janey Glenn (played by a very young Sarah Jessica Parker) gets transferred to Chicago with her family. She meets Lynne Stone (Helen Hunt) at her new Catholic all girls school. They become instant friends over their love of Dance TV, a nationwide TV show. When the opportunity presents itself for them to audition to become dancers on the show they couldn’t be happier; that is, until Janey’s super strict military dad puts his foot down and says NO. The story could end there, but Lynne convinces Janey to do it anyway. A majority of the movie is spent with Janey going behind her father’s back to practice with her partner, thwarting (and retaliating against) the evil plots of her rich girl nemesis, Natalie , falling in love with her “wrong side of the tracks” partner Jeff, and finally standing up to her dad, doing things her way and making her dreams come true.

Janey wishing she could be on Dance TV — Janey, wishing she could be on *Dance TV*

The thing about Girls Just Want to Have Fun is that it isn’t just about the girl power, female friendships, choosing your own destiny, standing up for what you believe in story line, it’s also about the music. In fact it’s so much about the music that it’s one of the few feature films whose soundtracks have their very own Wikipedia page. The music in the film isn’t just a soundtrack, it’s the story of their lives. It provides a freedom and excitement that is needed to propel the story (and in some ways the girls’ lives) along.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILXC6S6UZf4&index=3&list=PL8B90EF1762DB0144″]

Each song plays at the perfect time in the story and the music gets more and more intense as Janey breaks out of her shell, pulls away from who her father and society expect her to be and becomes the person she wants to be, or has always been but, not had a chance to discover.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBVfBFhLYnw”]

The music is Janey in some ways and follows her path throughout the film from the innocent pop music in the beginning as a naive and sheltered Janey begins to explore the world, to the woeful soul music as she faces disappointment, hopelessness, and obstacles on her way to accomplishing her goals, to the “punk” music that plays when she breaks out and begins to express and stand up for herself.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRRKmh6mTpI&list=PL8B90EF1762DB0144&index=8″]

Each note, lyric, and melody seems carefully curated to what’s happening on screen. The soundtrack plays in the background like an extra character in the film. It goes so smoothly with the images on the screen that it seamlessly integrates with the film becoming way more than background audio.

One of the things that makes this film and its soundtrack so memorable is that you feel every note. When the music plays you feel compelled to get up and dance along, which for the record is why it’s good that this film can be viewed in the comfort of your own home. The music even creates a freeing emotional release in the end when Janey’s father shows up to stop her from doing the final dance off to secure her spot on the show against her monied rival Natalie. As the song plays in the background you know before her dad does or even Janey does that despite seeing her dad, she isn’t going to be that good little girl she had always been. She’d grown up a bit and the defiance in the music shows that.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TASGl0_jnjU”]

You could just feel through the music that she was going to acknowledge her father’s presence and do what she felt was right in her heart. She was going to dance, despite the consequences or incurring her father’s disapproval, disappointment, or wrath. When it was all said and done Janey grew up to the music and we all cheered and danced along with her. Even her hard-nosed father came around. He was proud of her and she had gained his respect.

Janey breaks free and literally flies at the finals — Janey breaks free and flies at the finals

As an avid film (and music) lover, this was one of the films that inspired me. It was all about being bold, blazing your own path and figuring out who you are for you. The music didn’t overshadow the film or try to be hip by using the music of the “kids” and coming off as messy or chaotic. It helped tell the story in such a way that it became a part of the story and it taught me that sometimes you’ve just got to dance, a lesson that I gladly share with my little mouseling whether we’re watching this movie or just baking cookies in the kitchen. It also taught a nation of little girls that sometimes it’s OK to be different, to fight the system, to follow your heart, and let it lead you to your dreams. And in a world where girls are still often taught to be seen and not heard, to be obedient without question and to play nice, everything about Girls Just Want to Have Fun was a welcome wake-up call.

Shay Revolver is a vegan, feminist, cinephile, insomniac, recovering NYU student and former roller derby player currently working as a New York-based microcinema filmmaker, web series creator, and writer. She’s obsessed with most books, especially the Pop Culture and Philosophy series and loves movies and TV shows from low brow to high class. As long as the image is moving she’s all in and believes that everything is worth a watch. She still believes that movies make the best bedtime stories because books are a daytime activity to rev up your engine and once you flip that first page, you have to keep going until you finish it and that is beautiful in its own right. She enjoys talking about the feminist perspective in comic book and gaming culture and the lack of gender equality in mainstream cinema and television productions. Twitter: @socialslumber13.

‘Love Jones’: The Soundtrack of the Neo-Soul Generation

‘Love Jones’ does more than captures a moment in time in the late 90s. It creates the point when neo-soul established itself as the music of all of us with artistic inclinations, those of us leaving fantasies of teenage love affairs behind for a more realistic image of making a relationship work. And, yes, for some of us it brought about a sexual awakening that helped us accept that sex could exist outside a relationship if it’s truly wanted that way.

Love Jones movie poster

This guest post by Inda Lauryn appears as part of our theme week on Movie Soundtracks.

The summer of 2000. I share my extensive music collection with my friends. In this collection: a three-year-old soundtrack to a film I never saw in the theaters but caught on video in the dorm on a night that turned into a communal viewing. I and my summer buddies listen to this soundtrack so much that we even know the background noise to a spoken word poetry performance taken directly from the film, so when we watch the film on a bus trip to an amusement park, we not only recite the poem, but also the audience reactions. We have a great time and I have a personal memory associated with one of the best film soundtracks of the late 90s.

That film: Love Jones. The 1997 film has the distinction of providing the neo-soul generation with its soundtrack. Juxtaposing Lauryn Hill and Maxwell with The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and the combination of Duke Ellington and John Coltrane practically captures the essence of the burgeoning “neo-soul movement” during the mid-1990s. As the unofficial neo-soul soundtrack, Love Jones also shares an honor with the classic Super Fly soundtrack by Curtis Mayfield: many who know the film and the soundtrack agree that the soundtrack is decidedly superior to the film. (A snippet of Mayfield’s “Give Me Your Love” even appears in the film set in his hometown of Chicago.) However, seeing the film again with nearly 20 years between its release and the present day gives me more appreciation for the film, what it captured during its time, and the soundtrack.

Soundtracks to Black-cast films have always been as important as the films themselves and often attracted some of the most popular acts of the day, much like the soundtracks for Jason’s Lyric, Panther, Waiting to Exhale, and The Best Man. In some cases, they are extensions of the story on film, letting the audience relive a moment in which the song plays a crucial part. In some ways, they are a form of fan fiction with tracks not found in the film still somehow becoming relevant to the story being told. Dionne Farris’ “Hopeless” playing over the opening montage of black-and-white photos depicting Black life in Chicago brings as much nostalgia to the listener as it does to Nia Long’s Nina Mosley as she laments the end of her engagement. It represents the state of Nina’s relationship with ex-fiance Marvin (portrayed by Khalil Kain) as well as her role as a photographer. The dialogue that introduces Larenz Tate’s Darius Lovehall and his friends (two of whom are portrayed by Bill Bellamy and Isaiah Washington) definitely draws its inspiration from the burgeoning spoken word scene that colored the Black coffeehouse scene before it was co-opted by the mainstream.

Nina and Darius on a date in Love Jones

Mellow and smooth, the Love Jones soundtrack creates that Black boho ambiance that permeated the flawed but still believable and enjoyable film. As a Black college student at an HBCU, seeing Black artists onscreen making a living as artists held a certain appeal even though my life was taking a drastically different trajectory at the time. But for me, the depiction of that lifestyle remains the most romantic aspect of it. The images of Nina and Darius heading off on their first date on his motorcycle (or scooter) is definitely a romantic image reminiscent of films such as Roman Holiday－only I’m seeing it with people who look like me. I’m seeing a Black woman wooed, looked at as if she could launch 1,000 ships and start a war between nations. I’m seeing a Black woman change a man’s life with the power of her existence.

Of course, in the romance genre, miscommunication drives the film, but it becomes irritating quite quickly. Seriously, the entire premise of the film relies on the understanding that Nina and Darius deny they are in a relationship, but rather they’re just kicking it. Interestingly, this uncertainty that things will work out in the end is actually one of the things I appreciate most in this film now that I’m in my mid-30s. But at least while watching Nina and Darius fumble around like teenagers for an hour and a half when I was in my early 20s, I got a depiction of a lifestyle few would achieve and a soundtrack that made it all worthwhile.

Furthermore, I saw Nina and Darius bond over music. Darius’ first meeting with Nina at The Sanctuary prompts him to rename his poem in honor of his newfound pursuit of the beautiful Nina. They meet again when Nina decides she needs an Isley Brothers CD and Darius tips her to a Charlie Parker track she’s never heard before. They go to a reggae club, The Wild Hair, on their first date, growing closer. The extradiegetic music works just as well. How many of us immediately think of the beautifully shot sex scene when we hear Maxwell’s “Sumthin Sumthin (Mellow Smooth)”? The jazz underscoring many scenes adds to the neo-soul, spoken word vibe permeating the film. The jazz score does more than create the background music all films use. It indicates sophistication, a film made for grown folks in an era when many Black films focused on coming of age or the second coming of Blaxploitation films.

Nina takes photos in Love Jones

In fact, the very essence of neo-soul comes together quite nicely in one collection. Lauryn Hill’s “The Sweetest Thing” gave us all that romance we wanted in our 20s: feeling the sensation of the kiss upon the collarbone and fingertips on the small of the back. Hill and the others in the neo-soul bracket gave us most of our music memories in our 20s. We were between enjoying our parents’ music that music such as Hill’s harkened back to and we were outgrowing the pop-radio oriented R&B of our adolescence that did not quite grow up when we did. Many of us first heard Duke Ellington’s and John Coltrane’s timeless duet “In a Sentimental Mood” on The Cosby Show, but the film brought it back to us in a new context, the rekindling of a romance between two young adults when Nina decides sex would cheapen a date that had been so perfect. (She was wrong by the way.) Cassandra Wilson’s incredible vocals on “You Move Me” evokes memories for the characters of what they lost and what they could have had if only they tried harder to make it work. Out of context for those of us revisiting the soundtrack, the sensuality of the track provides a perfect backdrop for one of those evenings.

Like many soundtracks of the time, Love Jones also includes songs not used in the film, usually to showcase new talent or to add more to the mood of the film. Trina Broussard puts a new spin on an old R&B staple and amazingly does not muck it up considering she covers a Minnie Riperton classic, “Inside My Love.” Admittedly, I heard her version before Riperton’s, but her version does the lyrics justice. The 20-somethings even got a taste of our adolescence with the Xscape cover of “In the Rain,” both because many of us first heard Keith Sweat’s version in our youth rather than The Dramatics and also because we grew up with Xscape (or Xscape grew up with us). While not used in the film, the song reminds us of the ways the rain itself added to the film at key moments, making Chicago an essential part of the film’s overall charm. In Chicago, we see Darius futilely running after the train to tell Nina goodbye as she heads for New York to pursue a career opportunity. In Chicago, we see Black communities going through their trials and tribulations in love and life.

Of course, the overarching theme of the Love Jones soundtrack is romance. But it is an adult romance differing from the lyrics we often heard in hook-up, club culture songs that still bang today. To borrow from George Michael’s assessment of his hit song “I Want Your Sex,” “It’s not about fucking. It’s about fucking within a relationship.” This is what Amel Laurieux sings about in Groove Theory’s smooth “Never Enough.” This is what Meshell Ndegeocello gets at with that below the belt bass line in “Rush Over” with Marcus Miller. It’s definitely what Cassandra Wilson croons about in her orgasmically magical “You Move Me.”

A shirtless Darius in Love Jones

Love Jones does more than captures a moment in time in the late 90s. It creates the point when neo-soul established itself as the music of all of us with artistic inclinations, those of us leaving fantasies of teenage love affairs behind for a more realistic image of making a relationship work. And, yes, for some of us it brought about a sexual awakening that helped us accept that sex could exist outside a relationship if it’s truly wanted that way. Of course, in the trajectory of a romance film, the relationship has to prevail. But there’s no judgment of Nina and Darius when they both tell themselves the other is just a temporary situation.

For me, the Love Jones soundtrack represents a trip back to my college days in New Orleans as much as it does a time when Black-cast films showed me images of my aspirations as well as an escape. It was my coming of age into adulthood and that awkward territory called relationships. It was the time when The Brand New Heavies began to speak to me more than Boyz II Men and other acts with hit machines behind them. The soundtrack represented the moment I entered the grown folks club.

Inda Lauryn has been previously published in Interfictions, Afropunk and Blackberry, A Magazine. She is currently working on a few fiction projects and blogs about women in music at cornerstorepress.wordpress.com.

What’s in a Soundtrack? The Sweet Sounds of ‘Romeo + Juliet’

Zeffirelli’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is one told by the older generation. Luhrmann’s ‘Romeo + Juliet’ is one told by “unfaded” youth. When Des’ree was singing “Kissing You” as Romeo and Juliet kiss (and oh, how they kiss), she is singing with deep longing and pain. When Glen Weston sings “What is a Youth?” he sings at Romeo and Juliet, about how youth–and female virginity–fades.

William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet: Music From the Motion Picture (this CD was--OK is--one of my greatest treasures) — *William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet*: Music From the Motion Picture

Written by Leigh Kolb as part of our theme week on Movie Soundtracks.

When you are 14, your senses are heightened–music permeates every part of you, a brush of a hand sends shock waves through your body, and the smell of someone’s shampoo and chewing gum is enough to evoke lust. It’s no surprise that for adolescents, music is a powerful, integral part of their self-identity and emotional expression.

I’m thankful that I was 14 in the mid-90s. I know it’s easy to be nostalgic and believe that the moment we came of age was the best moment in the history of the world (“When I was that age…”), but I’m confident in saying that 1996 was really an epic year for being 14.

Riot grrrl was hanging in the air. Female musicians were featured on the airwaves, many male rockers were feminist, and teen films featured complex female protagonists. I was saturated in feminist media. We were riding an idealistic wave of feminism–a new generation of daughters whose mothers had lived through the women’s movement, who lived in a world where Title IX and Roe v. Wade always existed.

When I was 14, Baz Luhrmann’s William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet was released, and the play that has been speaking to and about teens for 400 years awakened my already heightened senses. As someone who identified more with Wuthering Heights than Pride and Prejudice as a teenager, this intense angst really spoke to me. And the music that accompanied the film was woven into the fiber of my life–I imagined it as my soundtrack, not just the film’s soundtrack.

I’ve written before about how I see the film (and Shakespeare‘s text) as challenging patriarchal social orders and revealing the toxicity of masculinity. Luhrmann’s version highlights this, certainly more so than Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 version.

Zeffirelli’s soundtrack featured a score by Nino Rota and its “Love Theme” is known in two versions–“What is Youth?” and “A Time for Us.” “What is a Youth?” is included in the score, and features the lyrics that are sung on screen during the Capulet party when Romeo and Juliet meet. The lyrics to this version focus on how “cupid rules us all,” and that “youth” and the “fairest maid” all fade. In contrast, the lyrics to “A Time for Us” are more hopeful: “…some day there’ll be a new world / a world of shining hope for you and me.” Romeo and Juliet as a text can be read in both ways, of course. It’s important to think about Zeffirelli’s version in the context of the “youth” movement of the 1960s–anti-war rebellion, women’s rights activism, rising counterculture–and what Romeo and Juliet tells us about the utter ignorance and destruction of adults’ decisions.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCQMlyXMRJE”]

Luhrmann also pulls Romeo and Juliet into the context of an era dominated by youth culture (see aforementioned links and 1,000 Buzzfeed posts about how rad the 90s were). However, this Romeo + Juliet is marked with much more poignant commentary on gender and culture. The “Love Theme” from Romeo + Juliet is sung by Des’ree, a Black woman (she performs on screen at the Capulet party, a nod to the Zeffirelli version). “Kissing You” is a more abstract look at love: “Pride can stand a thousand trials / The strong will never fall / But watching stars without you / My soul cries… Touch me deep, pure and true.” The entire scene, and the song itself, is a more intimate and moving addition to the party scene.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7eH9qnH8TM”]

Luhrmann’s soundtrack (he is, after all, known not only for his showy films but also for his curated soundtracks) was the soundtrack to my teen years. If I want to really feel those 14-year-old feelings, I just need to listen to Romeo + Juliet. The choices of popular musical artists of the time (Des’ree, Garbage, The Cardigans, Radiohead, Butthole Surfers, Everclear, etc.) related the story of Romeo and Juliet through their own eyes, not those of a stodgy old narrator. And the diversity of the artists–male, female, Black, white–also reflects the progressive nature of youth culture.

Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet is one told by the older generation. When Glen Weston sings “What is a Youth?” he sings at Romeo and Juliet, about how youth–and female virginity (eye roll)–fades. Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet is one told by “unfaded” youth. When Des’ree sings “Kissing You” as Romeo and Juliet kiss (and oh, how they kiss), she is singing with deep longing and pain.

Luhrmann’s soundtrack, then, does what we imagine Shakespeare aimed to do with this play–forces us to look critically at love and life through the eyes of youth to critique the patriarchal social orders that cause the tragedy.

Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is often read in school when students are freshmen in high school. I would imagine the framers of this curricular choice were thinking that Romeo and Juliet is a cautionary tale against rebellion and teen lust. Instead, Romeo and Juliet really is about the absurdity and destructive nature of society’s bullshit norms and rules.

The songs in Romeo + Juliet aren’t just for backdrop; instead, these songs are characters–edgy, angry, beautiful, and poppy representations of the sweeping emotions of youth, love, anger, and rebellion.

Just listen, and be transported to a youth that won’t fade:

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4xPXlneCGs”]

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJbXjIEP6rM”]

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkXdeUjM1pc”]

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JNb93N3-ek”]

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU6i_JhbVsc”]

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIbiG04X3ws”]

See also at Bitch Flicks: The Tragedy of Masculinity in Romeo + Juliet

___________________________

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature, and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

The Sounds of Change and Confusion in ‘The Graduate’

Mike Nichol’s ‘The Graduate’ has one of the most popular soundtracks of all-time. The songs reveal the dynamics of a character, theme, and a moment without the use of dialogue or a backstory, but simply through the lyrics of a Simon and Garfunkel song.

This guest post by Caroline Madden appears as part of our theme week on Movie Soundtracks.

The marriage of two different art forms- the sounds in our ears and the image on screen- can take a scene far beyond what was written on paper. With a well-placed song, a moment in film can be experienced on all levels, staying in our head long after the credits roll. Lyrics to a song can provide an insight into a character’s mind on a deeper level than just dialogue. Mike Nichols’s The Graduate has one of the most popular soundtracks of all time. The songs reveal the dynamics of a character, theme, and a moment without the use of dialogue or a backstory, but simply through the lyrics of a Simon and Garfunkel song.

The most renowned song used in the film is “The Sound of Silence,” which acts as the soliloquy of film’s protagonist, Benjamin Braddock. Inspired by the Kennedy assassination, the song became a popular hit associated with the 1960s counterculture and antiwar protests. “The Sound of Silence” holds what is the ongoing and overarching theme of the film–youths rebelling against the middle-class values of their parents’ generation. It also most representative of the inner turmoil Benjamin finds himself on upon graduating college and embarking on his new journey to “the real world.”

The first time the song plays is during the opening scene. The song kicks in after Benjamin’s plane has landed in Los Angeles. The pace of the song follows the speed of Ben’s monotonous progress through the airport. It peaks as he rides an escalator to meet his family and then fades out as the scene dissolves into a close-up shot of Ben at home, sitting unhappily in front of his fish tank, ready for his new life.

The next few scenes play out the lyrics we have just heard in the opening.

And in the naked light I saw

Ten thousand people, maybe more

People talking without speaking, people hearing without listening

People writing songs that voices never share

And no one dared disturb the sound of silence.

“Fools,” said I, “You do not know –Silence like a cancer grows.

Hear my words that I might teach you.

Take my arms that I might reach you.”

But my words like silent raindrops fell

and echoed in the wells of silence.

These lyrics echo the graduation party, where Benjamin is surrounded by a stifling crowd of his parents’ friends, all talking and asking him about his future without bothering to hear his answer. No one listens to his concerns or apprehensions. Benjamin wants to make sense of his world first before worrying about his future, but adults want him to have a plan. In the film’s most famous line, a family friend suggests Benjamin goes plastics.

The older generation wants the younger generation to follow in their footsteps, to conform for the sake of safety and tradition. This is the reasoning for all of Benjamin’s aimlessness and disaffectedness, seeing that his only option seems to be unhappily working in a sterile corporate setting until middle-age. His zombie-like drone in the airport opening reflects the future Benjamin pictures if he follows in his elders’ lead.

“The Sound of Silence” is also featured in a second montage. The song plays right after Benjamin has shut the hotel door to have sex with Mrs. Robinson, his first time. The montage begins with brilliant dissolves and intercuts as Benjamin monotonously (just like the airport opening) goes through the motions of his days at home with his parents over his shoulder and nights alone with Mrs. Robinson. The affair is not the answer he is looking for, though. He still suffers through “the sounds of silence” with no one around to understand or hear him. The song is played again because Benjamin is still as confused as he was at the beginning of the story.

Although “The Sound of Silence” has been told through Benjamin’s point of view, the lyrics can also reflect Mrs. Robinson’s state of being. We learn that she got pregnant before marriage, and that is why she is with Mr. Robinson. Mrs. Robinson was raised in the 30s, 40s, and 50s, and the mindset of that upbringing gave her no other choice. The consequences of her actions were that she had to live her life being with a man she did not want to truly be with.

Not only was she stuck in a marriage she did not want, she also makes it clear throughout the movie that she regrets letting her education go to waste. It is a sore spot for Mrs. Robinson, she goes from “I don’t like art” to “I studied art in college” in a matter of minutes.

“Hear my words that I might teach you.

Take my arms that I might reach you.”

But my words like silent raindrops fell

and echoed in the wells of silence.

Mrs. Robinson must have felt the truth of these words throughout the course of her life. Wanting to express to her parents how she did not love Mr. Robinson and did not want to be with him, how she wanted to continue her education. She was, and is, a woman in an unhappy marriage trying to make herself heard. But gender roles in the 1950s meant women were silenced, only expected to do their duties as a housewife, to serve their homes and husbands’ wills.

Mrs. Robinson’s unhappiness manifests itself within her actions in film. These changes in her actions were due to her increasing unhappiness in her mandated role as a housewife. These new ideals and changes of the 1960s led her to understand that women have just as many rights as men do, negating her ingrained mindset of the 1950s that women are supposed to bow to their superiors (men).

“The Sound of Silence” song ends, and “April Come She Will” quickly picks up as Benjamin lays in the hotel bed, cutting to him bored in his room and then leaving for the pool. The song ends with a clever match cut as Benjamin jumps off of a pool raft and into bed with Mrs. Robinson.

“April Come She Will” is a simple and bittersweet song that represents the seasons of Benjamin’s relationship with Mrs. Robinson.

April, comes she will,

When streams are ripe and swelled with rain

May, she will stay,

Resting in my arms again.

These lyrics represent how smitten Benjamin was with Mrs. Robinson at the beginning of their affair. Mrs. Robinson continues to stay, and their affair goes on for some time.

June, she’ll change her tune.

In restless walks she’ll prowl the night.

July, she will fly,

And give no warning to her flight.

However, their relationship is beginning to change after Benjamin being pressured by his parents and Mr. Robinson to go on a date with their daughter, Elaine.

August, die she must.

The autumn winds blow chilly and cold.

September, I’ll remember.

A love once new has now grown old.

Their relationship is coming to an end, and though the affair was exciting and new at first, it cannot go on forever it will soon dissolve.

The third song in the film is “Scarborough Fair,” and is played several times. It first plays as Benjamin is driving to Berkeley to find Elaine, who he is now newly smitten with.

Are you going to Scarborough Fair?

Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme

Remember me to one who lives there

She once was a true love of mine.

This can be read as representative of his journey, Benjamin is searching for what he believes to be is his love, the answer to all of his uncertainty and meandering and questions of what to do with his life.

Between the salt water and the sea strands

(A soldier cleans and polishes a gun)

Then she’ll be a true love of mine

The war references represent the battle within him, the questions Benjamin is facing with his love life and whether or not he is going to do something about it. He is here in Berkeley to find Elaine and to convince her to be with him.

Are you going to Scarborough Fair?

These lyrics play as the film pans on Elaine, the first time we see her at Berkeley. The lyrics question if Benjamin is going to make the choice fight for what he believes he wants in his life? Is he going to go for it?

An early version of the chart-topping hit “Mrs. Robinson” is another highlight of the film’s soundtrack. Originally written about Mrs. Roosevelt, the title and character of the lyrics was changed to fit the film. The song plays several times throughout the film, most notably throughout the chase scenes as Benjamin heads to Elaine’s wedding.

The lyrics do not directly comment on what is happening on screen, but is instead a further reflection on Mrs. Robinson’s character. It is also a song that again reflects the theme of the film, the old generation vs. the new generation, and the ideals of the 50s vs. the changes of the 60s.

Hide it in the hiding place where no one ever goes.

Put it in your pantry with your cupcackes.

It’s a little secret just the Robinson affair.

Most of all you’ve got to hide it from the kids.

The entire older generation of the 60s was desperately trying to maintain an unmaintainable false image that they’ve been trying to hold up for years. Hide it from the kids, they’ll rip off the covers and expose everything that’s wrong with their generation’s ideals, which were forcing you to hide your true self or submit to a forced gender role. Work at a job you hate. Give up your education to get married because you are pregnant.

Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?

Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

Joe DiMaggio represents the heroes of the past, the traditional American values that were so highly honored in that time. But the ideals the past have given way to the upcoming changes, the defiance of gender roles and roles in society.

The Graduate begins and ends with the same song, “The Sound of Silence.” Elaine and Benjamin’s rebellion against their elders culminates here. Benjamin has stopped Elaine’s wedding and they leave together. They run onto the bus, their smiles and glee slowly turning to lost and forlorn looks as the music starts to play.

“The Sound of Silence” also speaks to Elaine’s character. Elaine has surely felt the “sounds of silence” as Benjamin has. She is also struggling with the idea of not wanting to spend her life being dictated and controlled by the ideas of her parent’s generations. Elaine must have felt pressure from her father and mother to marry this man, a perfect man to secure her future. Who needs an education from Berkeley when you can get married? But Elaine is not going to be doomed to repeat her mother’s mistake of being in a loveless marriage. What better way to out rightly and outrageously defy her parents than running away on her wedding day?

Although Benjamin and Elaine have succeeded in doing everything to defy their parents, now they ask “What are we left with?” What do they do now? Are they going to repeat the mistakes of the past and stay together without really loving or knowing each other? Benjamin’s questioning of what to do with his life is no different now than at the beginning of the film. He is just as confused and directionless as ever. The film ends as it began, book-ended with the famous Simon and Garfunkel tune.

The Graduate changed the world when it became one of the first films to reuse popular music for a film, as well as one of the first representations of counterculture youth. It proved that music could be used to comment and highlight themes and characters of a film. The songs impeccably fit with a film that first represented the future changes that would rock the country.

Caroline Madden is a recent graduate with a BFA in Acting from Shenandoah Conservatory. She writes about film at GeekJuice, Screenqueens, and her blog. You can usually find her watching movies or listening to Bruce Springsteen.

The Siren Song of Cartoon Catgirls

As evocative as the scene of the Puma Sisters doing their thing might be, and as culturally-charged a time as the release of ‘Dominion Tank Police’ might have been, much of the success of this scene is owed to the music. “Hey Boy,” by Riko Ejima, is a haunting song that, while seemingly chaste in that it seems to be singing about dancing, captures something deep, deep in the soul.

This guest post by Robert V Aldrich appears as part of our theme week on Movie Soundtracks.

As young teen, I grew up with the unhealthy belief that female sexuality was a subdued and subtle thing. This was a misinformed viewpoint that had been fostered predominantly by growing pretty firmly in the mainstream. Countless songs on the radio, shows I watched on TV, and movies I rented from video stores, all depicted women in the same way: no matter how assertive or aggressive they may be in their day-to-day lives, when it came to anything even remotely sexual, they turned into timid kittens hiding under the bed, fragile things needing to be gently encouraged and carefully wooed, lest they fold up entirely.

Fortunately, I also grew up an anime fan (or an otaku if you really want to be pretentious about it), so this malarkey was dismissed with all the subtlety of a rocket-powered chainsaw when I first watched 1988’s Dominion Tank Police and saw the Puma Sisters distract a SWAT team with an impromptu strip-tease.

[youtube_sc url=”http://youtu.be/mi5GFuvCIp4″]

So, let’s go ahead and get a few things right out of the way. Yes, they’re fully formed adult women with cat ears. Unless you’ve never seen anime ever, that really shouldn’t be anything new. And yes, they’re stripping out of nurses’ uniforms. Because, again, it’s anime and why wouldn’t they? Pretty much all they needed was for one of the Puma Sisters to be holding a riding crop and the scene would have hit some kind of bizarre fetish hat trick.

But here’s the thing: as hot as that scene is, what makes it so remarkable and stand out against so much cheesecake in anime (and entertainment in general) isn’t the sexiness, the fetishistic imagery, or even just the animated near-nudity. What makes this scene stand out is the way it characterizes the Puma Sisters. They aren’t timid about their bodies or the affect it has on others (re: men). They are fully aware of that effect. And they don’t just know it; they know how to use it. And they not only know how to use it, and do so, they enjoy it gleefully.

This is a paradigm-challenging depiction of women that would go through me like a shot, and one that would be shared among many of the anime fans during this era. It wasn’t just “cat-girl strip-tease.” That would have been fun, but immediately forgettable. What makes this so remarkable was the manner in which the Puma Sisters conducted themselves, commanded the attention of everyone and everything around them, and used their sexuality as a nigh-literal weapon.

Who could guess a cartoon with a woman in combat armor on the front might not be the usual?

To fully understand the impact of this scene – or just to make sense of its zaniness – one must take a step back and understand the whole show–Dominion Tank Police, by the legendary Masamune Shirow (best known for Appleseed and Ghost in the Shell). In Dominion Tank Police, Newport City (and presumably the world) live under a dangerous pollution cloud, necessitating people to wear gas masks at all times when outdoors. Tangentially related, crime has gotten so bad in Newport City that a branch of the police employ tanks in their pursuit of law and order (the titular tank police). Opposite the tank police is Buaku and his gang of criminal mercenaries, who have been hired to steal valuable chemicals from a research hospital. The mystery of the chemicals’ nature, use, and origin unfolds across the four installments of the series (a follow-up series titled New Tank Police, released in 1993, follows an unrelated story).

Cat-girls on futuristic motorcycles. And thus the future was born.

Anna and Uni, the Puma Sisters, are Buaku’s primary partners and ostensibly his muscle. They seem to have little interest in crime aside from it being more entertaining than any of their previous employment (different media portray those previous jobs as everything from stripping to the suggestion that they’re androids built for sexual service). As a result, they tend not to take their heists very seriously, the police very seriously, or even Buaku very seriously. This is best demonstrated by the very scene in question where they decide to distract a SWAT team with a striptease simply because the lighting’s really good.

To further understand the significance of this scene, you have to understand when and where it was seen. Namely, it was seen by teenage nerds in a pre-Internet age. Nowadays, anybody with a smart phone can find digital images of extreme sexuality, but in 1988, you had to work for it. You had to know what movies to rent from the video store and at what minute-mark to watch up to. And that was just for live-action stuff. If you wanted to see a cartoon with anything even passing for erotic, you were almost definitively out of luck (Rule 34 was a long way off).

More than that coming from a pre-Internet age, Dominion Tank Police came out just as the 80s cartoon boom was dying. Transformers was in its pseudo-fifth season which was just repackaged reruns, while Robotech, She-ra and others had been off the air for a while. While Dominion Tank Police wasn’t the only anime movie to come out during the Japanimation period, the others were totally different genres and largely devoid of sexuality. On top of that, it would be another five years or so before the 1990s Anime Invasion would get underway.

This was also a time of cultural upheaval. The Cold War was ending, with the fall of the Berlin Wall eminent. There were more channels on TV than there were hours in the day. “Straight Outta Compton” was redefining music, while “Smells Like a Teen Spirit” had yet to deflate the bloat of rock which dominated the airwaves. There was magic in the air in those days. So much change was happening all around us. And so to go to Blockbuster and see on the new releases shelf a section labeled Japanimation, and to see cartoons unlike anything any of us had ever seen? It was a transformative experience, to put it mildly.

A once-in-a-lifetime scene that would change a thousand lives for a lifetime

“Hey, let’s dance, to the hot beat

Hey, hey boy

The heated heart, feel it

And look at me

Hey, let’s dance, don’t be so shy

Hey, hey boy

Don’t be so hesitant,

Let’s dance

This dressed-up town…

This running music…

Hey boy

Nothing intricate…

There aren’t any rules tonight.”

We’ve all heard songs about sex. Some use love as a metaphor for sex, while others use dancing. And some are straight-up explicit. But what they all generally have in common is that most are sung by men. In the rare instance that a song about sex is sung by a woman, it’s almost always passive. This trend has thankfully started to change recently, but it is a new phenomenon, less than twenty years old. In the preceding eight decades or so of broadcast music, women have never been depicted as sexually inclined, adventurous, and certainly not aggressive.

Underground music notwithstanding, the music that’s seen radio play (and thus what most people would have access to in a pre-Internet world) has almost always been passive. Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away” puts the onus upon the partner. ABBA’s “Voulez-Vous” sings about enticing a partner to buy the drinks. Janis Joplin sang about wanting to convince the man in “Take Another Piece Of My Heart.” Even Madonna, who almost invented the modern version of the “sexually-aggressive-woman-in-music” image, had songs like “Papa Don’t Preach” and “Like A Virgin” to her name at this point. She sang songs about sex, absolutely. And that was groundbreaking, no argument, but they still took a passive role.

“Hey Boy” is totally different. “Look at me.” “Don’t be so hesitant.” “There aren’t any rules tonight.” All of this sung with a sultry voice over a shifting tempo. For an entire generation of anime fan, this was the very first time we’d ever heard a woman sing not that she hoped we would do something for her, not that we could do something together, but that she was going to take us by the hand and teach us something about ourselves.

That sexual aggression, combined with the cultural blindsiding that took place by seeing sexually charged cartoons, would burn this scene – and its song – into so many minds. That haunting score invokes a magical time in our lives when animation became more than just cartoons, when women could take the lead, and when life in the world started to get real interesting.

Robert V Aldrich is a writer and geek chic commentator. When not writing at various websites and periodicals, he writes serials and other stuff for his own website, TeachTheSky.com. He has a new novel out, Rhest for the Wicked, that he’d reeeeally love for you to check out.

Running Away With ‘The Runaways’: Sex, Rock ‘n Roll, and the Female Experience

The Runaways movie poster — *The Runaways* movie poster

This guest post by Angelina Rodriguez appears as part of our theme week on Movie Soundtracks.

The Runaways, based on Cherie Currie’s autobiography Neon Angel: The Memoir of a Runaway, starring Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart, takes us on an adventure through the early lives of rock legends Joan Jett and Cherie Currie.

The actors bring the characters to life right down to their mannerisms. — The actors bring the characters to life, right down to their mannerisms.

The actresses go as far as pretending to be left handed when they are both right handed, playing and performing the songs themselves. These women really gave lively and compelling performances. The Runaways encapsulates life for women during the 1970s. It addresses the overt sexism that the all-girl-rock-band experiences, and the loud rock and roll statement they made by harnessing their sexuality and their aggression. These two tough, street smart kids from broken homes helped to pave the path for female rockers of our time. This film does justice to the music the band made in the best way– with an incredible soundtrack.

The film opens with the young Cherie Currie dripping menstrual blood on the sidewalk to the musical stylings of their idol, Suzi Quatro, with “Wild One.” This sets the tone for the film. She is going to be unapologetic, in your face, and confessional about being a girl. Later, the song “Cherry Bomb,” The Runaways’ most famous hit, talks about Cherie’s blossoming sexuality. Women are often sexualized in the media and within their day-to-day lives, but women actually choosing to be sexual and to enjoy their sexuality is a relatively new and radical notion. The song encourages young women to tap into their own power, angst, and sexuality, regardless of what authority figures have to say about it.

“Hello Daddy, hello Mom
I’m your ch ch ch ch ch cherry bomb
Hello world I’m your wild girl
I’m your ch ch ch ch ch cherry bomb”

The introduction scenes for each character parallel in an interesting way. We get to know our Cherie as she lip syncs “Lady Grinning Soul.”

Badass. Just sayin. — Badass. Just sayin’.

She mimics the movements of this androgynous, iconic male star with precision. She is essentially in drag during this scene. Then we see something similar, as the young Joan Jett lurks around a leather store until she finally buys a jacket. “I want what he’s wearing,” she says and dons what would later become her signature look.

Joan Jett is just not Joan Jett without that leather jacket.

The characters are shown, subverting the gender norms in a very obvious way in the start of the film. They are rebels who simply don’t want to play by the rules of their time. “My brother says guys like girls who are soft and flirty,” Joan’s friend explains to her. “That’s because he’s a pussy.” This statement, although the word “pussy” itself is far less than progressive, explains that Joan feels that men that don’t support female empowerment are simply intimidated. “I Wanna Be Where the Boys Are” is the musical embodiment of this feeling. Both of these girls are desperate for the liberty to express their aggression, their rebellion, and their sexuality like their male peers. There are several songs on the soundtrack that deal with gender, among them “Rebel Rebel” by David Bowie and “It’s A Man’s Man’s World” by MC5.

It’s kinda weird how infatuated fans are about two 15-year-olds kissing.

During the infamous roller rink kissing scene between Joan and Cherie, the mood is set by one of the sexiest songs on the soundtrack; “I Wanna Be Your Dog” performed by The Stooges is heavy with mood and has the kind of bass line you can feel below the belt. Although this scene was likely added for shock value, it’s empowering to see our characters expressing their sexuality in nontraditional, non-monogamos ways. The characters kiss boys and girls, without any need to really speculate on what that means or what their “true identities” are. Seeing the girls behaving outside the confines of labels and societal expectations is liberating. A lot of the other songs seek to sexually empower women, such as “You Drive Me Wild,” “Queens of Noise,” and “Cherry Bomb.”

However, the result of these young stars and their early rock ‘n’ roll careers was a somewhat downward spiral involving drug use and several underplayed abuses. The rock ‘n’ roll engineer, Kim Fowley (played by Michael Shannon), essentially created the band from thin air.

“That Frankenstein looking motherfucker did it.” — “That Frankenstein-looking motherfucker did it.”

There’s an almost meta dynamic inside the film as we observe one of the most important all-girl rock bands being brought together and greatly influenced by a man. His gaze and his expectations directed the music, the dress, and the attitudes of the band. Of course, some of this came naturally. As Cherie explains in one interview,“We didn’t have to push the envelope, we just had to show up and be ourselves.” The film touches on this when Fowley makes Cherie pose for a scandalous photo shoot even though she doesn’t want to, and gains more media attention than the rest of the band.

As the film ends we are shown the beginning of Joan Jett’s extremely successful solo career with her songs, “I Love Rock n Roll,”“Bad Reputation,” and “Crimson and Clover.” The music throughout the film deals with the lost and rebellious feelings during coming of age for young women. The movie tells the story of these two individuals and how their lives were affected by fame, but underneath that is the coming of age experience for young girls realizing their power and sexuality within a culture that seeks to suppress them. This is close to the hearts of many viewers because we have so much progress to make in the world of arts and entertainment for women. As Joan Jett states in an interview for NYDailyNews, “I don’t think much has changed, to tell you the truth. The media says that equality for women has arrived, but if you look around, you still don’t see girls playing guitars and having success with it.”

Angelina Rodriguez grew up in West Virginia. She will be attending Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio this fall. She spends her time making art and interning with Literacy Volunteers of Harrison County.

Creating the Mythology of Beatrix Kiddo Through Music

Tarantino’s vast knowledge of music is clear from the very beginning with ‘Reservoir Dogs.’ However, it isn’t until the ‘Kill Bill’ series when his soundtracks begin to drift away from pop and instead embrace more orchestral sounds like that of Ennio Morricone. Viewers need no knowledge of the genre to instantly recognize that spaghetti western feel. It’s that famous mix of Spanish guitar, orchestra, whistles, cracking whips, trumpet, flute and sometimes chorus that recalls images of Clint Eastwood clad in a green poncho and cowboy hat as the iconic Man with No Name.

The Bride/Beatrix Kiddo (Uma Thurman) in Kill Bill Vol. 1 and The Man with No Name (Clint Eastwood) in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly — The Bride/Beatrix Kiddo (Uma Thurman) in *Kill Bill Vol. 1* and The Man with No Name (Clint Eastwood) in *The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly*

This guest post by Rhianna Shaheen appears as part of our theme week on Movie Soundtracks.

I was obsessed with Kill Bill in high school. While other kids from school went to see John Tucker Must Die (not that there’s anything wrong with that) I stayed home jamming out to the “Malagueña Salerosa” from the Vol. 2 soundtrack. I legitimately thought I was Beatrix Kiddo.

Music is a hugely important aspect of Tarantino’s directorial style. In interviews, he often describes his creative process, which largely consists of writing scenes with a specific song in mind. It is how he defines the mood and rhythm of a film. He makes a song feel so organic to a scene that we forget its original source. I honestly can’t hear Nancy Sinatra’s “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)” without associating it with Kill Bill.

Tarantino enjoys honoring his film inspirations and obsessions by making countless references to them. However, his use of spaghetti western music is much more deliberate and masterful than just calling attention to older work. Through music he creates a mythology surrounding his heroine.

Bill: “I find the whole mythology surrounding superheroes fascinating. Take my favorite superhero, Superman. […] The mythology is not only great, it’s unique. […] Superman didn’t become Superman. Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he’s Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red “S”, that’s the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears – the glasses, the business suit – that’s the costume. Sorta like Beatrix Kiddo and Mrs. Tommy Plympton. […] You would’ve worn the costume of Arlene Plympton. But you were born Beatrix Kiddo. And every morning when you woke up, you’d still be Beatrix Kiddo.” (Kill Bill Vol. 2)

In the above quote, Bill argues that Kiddo is a “natural born killer,” making her no better than the clean slate she strives to achieve for herself and her daughter. Whether or not she indeed fits the anti-hero role in this story is arguable. Yes, the means to her ends are violent and ruthless, but the film does not exactly take place in the real world. It’s an ultra-violent world of revenge and vengeance where Beatrix Kiddo is the hero. She could have fled her assassins after waking from that coma but instead she decides to go on a “roaring rampage of revenge” for the sake of her daughter.

In Vol. 2, music becomes the climactic expression of Beatrix Kiddo’s heroism.

Where Vol. 1 is driven by action-packed fight scenes, Vol. 2 is driven by emotion and reflection. Through music the film delves much deeper into the transformation of Beatrix Kiddo from passive victim to active avenger. For me, this is really what makes it the stronger half of the story.

During her quest, Beatrix tracks down Bud, Bill’s brother and former assassin. She arrives at his trailer ready to ambush him when he thwarts her attack and shoots her in the chest with rock salt. He was expecting her all along. As an act of his own revenge, Bud seals her in a coffin and buries her alive for “breaking [his] brother’s heart.” This seems to be the end of the road for Beatrix Kiddo.

After a flashback to her master’s training, we return to her present state six feet underground. She lays there in complete darkness awaiting her Texas funeral when Ennio Morricone’s “L’arena” chimes in. The track was originally used in a duel scene from Il Mercenario (1968). Here it is repurposed to a similar effect. As the music swells and Beatrix slams her fist into that pine wooden box the scene becomes a showdown of epic proportions. The guitar and snare drum charge on and we think she has a chance. This song exemplifies Morricone’s “heroic style” that carries our character through the action. This scene is not action-packed with a ton of kung fu moves but the music makes this scene just as gripping if not more. It encourages us to spur on our heroine.

The Burial scene is a defining moment for our character in which we as audience witness her willpower and perseverance even on the verge of death.

After her escape, there is a short sequence of The Bride, worn and sand-ridden as she treks across the vast desert. She has come a long way on her journey. While this bit is not necessary to our understanding of the plot it is stylistically significant to our understanding of the character. A sun flare introduces the track “Sunny Road to Salina” from La route de Salina (1970) as a blurry haze of Beatrix emerges. The music is epic and grand, telling us that nothing will stand in her way in the final stages of her quest. This use of this soundtrack and this shot mirrors a similar long walking scene in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (1966) in which the Man With No Name is dragged and tortured across the desert by his adversary. Similarly, this is seen in the final scene of A Fistful of Dollars (1964) as the Man with no Name returns to confront the bad guys in the final battle.

Beatrix makes her heroic return in Kill Bill Vol. 2 — Beatrix makes her heroic return in *Kill Bill Vol. 2*

The Man With No Name returns in A Fistful of Dollars — The Man With No Name returns in *A Fistful of Dollars*

Throughout the film Tarantino makes inter-textual references to Dollars trilogy, often comparing Beatrix Kiddo with the Man With No Name. Clint Eastwood’s iconic character is the stoic good guy with a strict but unorthodox sense of justice, a trope that has been repeated countless times since. These musical references not only make The Bride’s action sound absolutely badass but they also elevate her story to an equally heroic status as that of the Man With No Name. This is not to say that her story relies on his validation. That’s certainly not the case. I would argue that she is superior. While the Man With No Name is a mysterious trope Kiddo is much more three-dimensional. She has something worth fighting for. These musical choices only reinforce the mythology that Beatrix Kiddo’s story enters.

In the film’s final confrontation Beatrix must cut herself away from Bill for good. After giving each other their last words, they fight while their daughter sleeps. To Bill’s surprise, Beatrix uses the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique, resulting in his fated death. Morricone’s “The Demise of Barbara and the Return of Joe” from Navajo Joe (1966) enters as an emotion outpour from The Bride.

Although Beatrix’s intense resentment for Bill drives the series what it has all built up to is in fact bittersweet. This is not an act of hate. Beatrix does this as an act of love for her daughter who should never have to live in a world of bloodshed and deceit. This moment is the ultimate catharsis for Beatrix Kiddo. As Bill walks to his death the song’s vocal rings like a heartbreaking cry, perhaps it is that of The Bride. Her journey has come full circle.

Rhianna Shaheen is a student filmmaker and artist with hopes of writing more in the future. She recently graduated from Bryn Mawr College with a BA in Fine Arts and Minor in Film Studies and Art History. She currently spends most of her time on an epic quest for a full-time job. Check her out on twitter!

Take Away This Lonely Man: ‘(500) Days of Summer’ and Musical Storytelling

This guest post by Victoria Edel appears as part of our theme week on Movie Soundtracks.

“This is a story of boy meets girl.”

It’s the first line of (500) Days of Summer and also the first line spoken on the soundtrack. Both, then, begin with a summation of our two characters. There’s Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), the hopeless romantic who doesn’t understand the point of The Graduate, and Summer (Zooey Deschanel), who doesn’t believe in love. By beginning the soundtrack with this summary of the movie’s central conflict, (500) Days of Summer posits that the soundtrack is just as much of a storytelling tool as the movie is.

And it is.

(500) Days of Summer is a profoundly misunderstood film. I’ve spoken to many people who claimed Summer was the villain, or, perhaps even worse, just a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Even Joseph Gordon-Levitt has had to explain that Tom is selfish, not a romantic role model, as some misguided people have interpreted him .

Like the narrator says during Track 1, this is a story of boy meets girl, but this is not a love story. Instead, it’s a story about obsession, about idealizing other people, and about having the strength to rebuild after your worldview is shattered. Its message would be impossible without the soundtrack, which places us in Tom’s obsessive mind, music conveying the depth of his feeling. And then, it helps us understand his recovery.

The movie lulls us in with the sweet sounds of Regina Spektor’s “Us,” a song about a monumental love. Accompanied by photos and videos of Tom and Summer growing up, it’s dreamy and romantic, just like Tom when he meets Summer.

A quick plot summary to refresh your memory: Tom meets Summer. Tom wants to date Summer. Summer explicitly does not want a relationship. Tom and Summer embark on something more than friendship, but less than a relationship. Tom thinks he loves Summer. Tom insists that this is, in fact, a relationship. Summer calls the whole thing off. Tom is angry, until he realizes he was wrong.

Music is essential to the audience’s understanding of Tom’s feelings for Summer. The duo originally bond over their mutual love of The Smiths. Cue “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out”: “And if a ten-ton truck killed the both of us / to die by your side / well the pleasure and the privilege is mine.” That’s an intense feeling to have about anyone, let alone someone you just met. The song is about longing, about abandoning everything you have to.

The movie only works because while Tom is in the over-the-moon, in love stage, the audience is brought there with him. And the music is essential to creating this loving feeling. As they spend time together, we hear Carla Bruni’s “Quelqu’un M’a Dit,” so breathy and romantic and French, and “Sweet Disposition” by Temper Trap, excited and airy.

Then, after Tom and Summer finally have sex, he leaves his apartment and participates in an impromptu dance number to Hall & Oates’s “You Make My Dreams Come True,” complete with friendly strangers who join in and some animated birds. But this isn’t Tom celebrating getting laid. The lyrics give us his feelings: “You make my dreams come true.” Summer, he’s decided, is the culmination of the girl he’s always dreamed of, the true love he’s always wanted. With just music and dance, (500) Days of Summer tells us everything we need to know about Tom’s quick, rash, all-encompassing feelings.

When he describes how Summer makes him feel, he says every time he thinks of her he hears “She’s Like The Wind,” in his head. The Patrick Swayze song was recorded for Dirty Dancing, and used when Baby and Johnny part ways for what they think is forever. It’s a sad song to remember when you think of someone you love, but it does inform the way Tom sees his story. It’s romantic and dramatic, as classic as Baby and Johnny’s.

Until it’s not.

Thankfully, things are brighter by the end. Tom realizes that he tried to use Summer to mask his unhappiness, instead of changing his life. He finally dedicates himself to architecture — his original love — and we experience it in montage, accompanied by Wolfmother’s “Vagabond.” The lyrics: “Take away this lonely man. / Soon he will be gone.” The song is loud and sprawling and rhythmic, in sharp contrast to the romantic, soft songs from earlier in the film. Tom’s finally started to change.

This isn’t to say that Tom at the movie’s end doesn’t love the Smiths or believe in love; in fact, quite the opposite. Instead, he’s realized what a horrible thing it is to idealize another person, to project your hopes and dreams onto them without getting to know them. If we don’t know much about Summer by the film’s end, it’s because Tom didn’t learn that much about her either. He saw her as much as he wanted to, ignoring everything that didn’t fit into the picture.

And in the end he learns from his mistakes.

This is not a love story. It’s better than that.

Victoria Edel lives in Brooklyn, NY, but not the trendy part. The sitcoms is her one true love, so she’s currently watching every episode of 30 Rock and blogging about it here. Follow her on Twitter @victoriaedel.

Love It or Hate It, Emotions Served Raw in the Music of ‘Les Misérables’

Written by Katherine Murray.

Ugly singing; ugly make-up. Les Misérables is deservedly known as the film that tried too hard to bum us out, and Anne Hathaway is known as the actress who tries too hard to be liked. But isn’t it nice, sometimes, when somebody makes an effort?

Tom Hooper’s 2012 film adaptation of Les Misérables is either an exercise in profoundly committed, sincere expressions of raw emotion, or a hammy, emotionally manipulative attempt to win Oscars. In fact, it’s probably both of those things at different times, but it stands out due to Hooper’s unusual choice to record the actors singing live.

Pitchy, breathy, raspy, screamy – all the notes are there as A-list Hollywood actors hurl themselves at the camera, relishing the chance to look and sound as ugly as their quasi-operatic characters feel. The soundtrack is probably not going to go on your iPod.

That said, there’s something amazing about the pitchiness / raspiness / screaminess / ugliness that serves to draw us in. When the cast list was announced, it seemed strange, because many of the actors were not really known as great singers, but the movie isn’t about singing an ear-pleasing song. It’s about letting the actors emote in the moment, having their voices sync up with the other acting choices they make in the scene – the result is something that seems so authentic and raw that it starts to go the other way and seem manipulative again.

The standout number in the film, and the one you would cite, were you trying to convince someone it’s awesome, is, of course, Anne Hathaway sobbing her way through “I Dreamed a Dream.” She won an armful of awards for it, including an Oscar, and deservedly so. There’s something beautiful and unselfconscious about the way she just lets herself go in that scene – a kind of emotional nakedness, where we believe the despair that she’s feeling. We can see that she’s let herself disappear inside the character, and invited us to see her in this dark, vulnerable moment, without any fear that she’s going to look stupid. That’s rare, and it displays a type of courage and skill as a performer that should be rewarded.

It’s also reminiscent of Jennifer Hudson’s standout performance of “And I am Telling You I’m Not Going” in Dreamgirls. That performance similarly made the whole movie, and led to an Oscar win for the woman screaming her pain to the camera.

Hudson doesn’t go to the ugly place in Dreamgirls. The studio-recorded track sounds beautiful, and the makeup department isn’t trying to make her look diseased. What makes the scene stand out, though, is still the amount of raw emotion she pours into it. A more gifted vocalist than Hathaway, she uses her voice to convey a torrent of rage, despair, and desperation, which she then telegraphs through her body language and facial expressions on screen.

We’re drawn into her performance, and it conveys the most important emotional truth of the scene – that, even though her character’s words sound powerful, they’re being shouted from a place of total loss. She says, “I am telling you,” but there’s no one to tell. She’s lost her partner and her friends — she stands alone on a darkened stage without even the audience she hungered for. And, into the darkness, she orders, “You’re gonna love me, yes you are!”

It’s a powerful moment, and Hathaway’s performance in Les Misérables is like that, with the additional layer that Les Mis is so proud of her suffering.

Whereas Dreamgirls is a pretty standard and standardly-shot movie musical – enlivened by outstanding vocals from Hudson and co-star Beyoncé — Les Misérables is really reaching for the brass ring. It has a take-no-prisoner’s approach to engaging with the story’s pathos, and an awkward kind of delight in making everyone seem plague-ridden and miserable.

Don’t get me wrong – I love Les Misérables. I had low expectations, but I was less than ten minutes in before I felt that special shiver of delight that tells you you’re watching a kick-ass movie. I would much rather watch a film where everyone really goes for it, even if their reach sometimes exceeds their grasp.

At the same time, I completely understand why some people found it annoying.

The annoyance comes in part because you’re watching people who do not live in poverty pat themselves on the back for how poor they’re willing to make themselves look, and how deeply they’re willing to crawl inside the suffering of others. The ugly singing and the ugly makeup can be read as self-congratulatory – “Look how much I’m willing to debase myself for art! I don’t care if I look pretty; I just care if I’m authentic.” After a certain point, it comes across as trying too hard – of actually being inauthentic, since the attempt at authenticity feels so calculated.

It’s the same criticism that’s followed Anne Hathaway, herself. Whereas Jennifer Hudson came across to us as a spirited American Idol reject, who made good on her big dreams of stardom by signing her heart out in Dreamgirls, Anne Hathaway has been criticized for coming across as fake during public appearances. In fact, the backlash against Hathaway reached a fever pitch just as she was accepting her slew of awards for Les Mis.

No doubt, there’s a sharp contrast between the vulnerability she shows in “I Dreamed a Dream,” and the polished, eager-to-please persona she throws on in public. (Though I hasten to add that a lot of celebrities seem self-conscious in managing their public personas; for people who want to be liked, there’s nothing better or worse than having millions of people stare at you).

The general reaction to Les Misérables seems to fall along similar lines. The raw, ugly, emotionally intense performance is either touching because it seems authentic, or it’s disgusting because it seems crass and manipulative. We all agree that the emotions, like the vocals, weren’t cooked and seasoned before they were served, but we don’t agree about whether that’s fresh and exciting, or lazy and self-involved.

Like Anne Hathaway, the movie is trying hard. Like Jennifer Hudson, it’s screaming, “You’re gonna love me,” into the darkness. One cannot dare to be loved without risking rejection, and Les Misérables invites both love and rejection from its audience – but, isn’t it beautiful to see – and to hear – someone try?

Katherine Murray is a Toronto-based writer who yells about movies and TV on her blog.