Posted by TheMojoPin at 208.1.219.2 on September 21, 2001 at 10:28:04:
Question for The Man...if he be dwelling here...
So what's your official stance on music in films? When making your's, when do you decide to go with the more soundtrack-type route, packing the film with commercial tunes, or a more score-driven piece? Granted, "Dogma" really is the only one of your's so far that's dominated by an orchestral score, but when did you decide to go that route? And which do you prefer? As guys like Scorsese have proven, it's not necessary to go with a score to be a "legitimate drama," so how do you see yourself framing the new fatherhood film? Or "Fletch"? And when does a soundtrack come into play for you? Half of my film ideas stem from songs or pieces I'll hear, and then I'll start setting random scenes to those tunes, sometimes building an entire film or idea out of that...
And when you are putting together a soundtrack, are the songs supposed to be strongly related to what we're seeing on screen? "Clerks" songs are very much tied to their perspective scenes, whereas "Mallrats" is just sort of a hodgepodge of songs, like that "world's bitchingest mixtape" formula Tarantino always seems to work by, when he's working at all..."Amy" is sort of half and half when compared to both "Clerks" and "'Rats", and seems to be the first one to feature instrumental pieces, which, in my opinion, work better than any of the commercial tunes used in the film..."Dogma" is then dominated by orchestral pieces, which, to be frank, didn't really do it for me. Most of the time they just felt like generic film mood pieces, and din't really contribute to the film. "J&SBSB" was a trip back to the "'Rats" formula, though for some reason, it just felt a lot more tacked on than "'Rats'" music did, and I'm not even sure why...
Anyways, that's a ton a questions up there, so if you can shed some light on 'em for me, well, rawk on, tiny dancer...
-TMP