I'm a goddamn marvel of modern science (Soundtracks part 4)

Woah, I just looked back over the last bunch of posts I put up here. Things got a bit a-creep on 'the heap in October. I probably indulged my weird inner-rabbit-at-the-controls a bit too much. It's time to put him back into hibernation until next October and let all the other animals take over again. Ribbit. Miaow. Oink. Me-eh-eh-eh. Whinny. Good to have yis back lads. Since I started writing here over year ago, I've spawned a bunch of abortive 'number-so-and-so-in-a-series' blogs. I'm not the only one. Lots of other music blogs do it too, and do it quite successfully. After thinking about it a bit, I think I know why bloggers love to write series blogs. I used to think that it was some sort of autistic music shit, an extension of the worship of the holy grail that is 'The List'. But now I reckon it's because lists and series often bring forth a nugget of creativity in a medium where (due to such self-imposed constraints as trying post regularly) the fruits of inspiration might not be hanging there all the time. So we bloggers often write a pile of meandering brain-chunder that we are half pleased with, and then hedge our bets by saying it is number 1 in a series. This, then, provides us with the blind hope that it will give birth to all the other numbers in the series. That's in an ideal world though. Like I said, most of my lists are abortive. I'm surprised I got past number two on this soundtrack list. I never sat down before and gave much thought to how much of my favourite music comes attached to moving images. Now that I have started this series I realise that there are a whole bunch of soundtracks I'd rate with some of my favourite albums. I've also realised that classic soundtracks are mostly a thing of the past. While the odd Hollywood movie still throws up a gem (i.e. the discordant menace of 'There will be Blood'), most cinema fodder these days consists of a completely unrelated tie-in pop track with a video consisting of distorted gooey clips from the movie playing through a phony waterfall or projected across an empty director's chair as Ronan Keating or one of his ilk do their gruesome thing in the foreground. Worse still, the original instrumental music in modern movies, which was once John Williams' famous BUH-DUM BUH-DUM in Jaws or Bernard Hermann's musical shower screeches in Psycho, is now replaced by a sorta generic quickly-repeating low end cello and rolling drums to signify tension. Or a twirly-whirly OTT excited bit involving all the people at the front of the orchestra, signifing the emotional climax. Modern soundtracks are also a very fertile breeding ground for rap-rock crossovers, which is as good a reason to hate something as I can think of right now. Anyway, the point. I found out that I love a lot of soundtracks. More than I thought. I'll be posting a few more fo' sho' and might have a think about what extent my love of this music is influenced by the respective films and vice versa. Today's soundtrack is Jack Nitzche's score to Milos Foreman's film of Ken Kesey's great novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a wonderful film adaptation in that the novel and the movie both stand on their separate and considerable artistic merits. The soundtrack does too. We're talkin' a veritable confluence of three different types of artistic achievement, and I hear the stage show is also good. Without wanting to blather on too much, or indeed spoil the plot, in OFOTCN Kesey (quite the character himself-read Tom Wolfe's 'Electric Kool Aid Acid Test') creates a modern parable set in a mental asylum where the playful idiosyncrasy of the human spirit has to face down authority in all its forms, both aggressive and, most pertinently, passive yet relentless. The wilder end of human nature is represented by Jack Nicholson, playing the free-spirited chancer Randall P. McMurphy in one of the most stirring turns in cinema. Authority is nurse Ratched. A bad act. Phil Spector's protege and multi-talented composer/producer Jack Nitzche scored this movie. He creates such a curious and haunting soundtrack. For a start, it is full of saw. Wibbledeewibbledeewoooooooooo.....like Mercury Rev's 'Deserters Songs'. Indeed, bits of the 'Rev's 'All is Dream' were the last tracks Nitzche produced before he died. The saw is such an American instrument. An everyday work tool turned into a mournful ghost. It is also a sort of proto-theremin; both instruments sound like they communicate a message from somewhere unearthly. The film is soaked through with the music, an elegiac, perfectly judged soundtrack that colours key scenes and adds to the sad, woody ambience of the institution where the characters live their lives (apparently somewhere real in Oregon). MP3: Jack Nitzsche-One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest-Closing Theme Here is the closing theme. Coupled with the ending of the movie it leaves a powerful impression. It expresses sadness, warmth, then finally hope over the course of its four keening minutes. The final scene of this film is burnt onto my retina. I wonder what images this music evokes for people who never saw the movie? I'll never know. Coming soon: Lolomix 11