A film’s soundtrack, arguably, can be just as revered as the film itself, particularly when it comes to indie cinema and its pop-score counterpart. Songs used on soundtracks are becoming increasingly more recognisable; gone are the days of Google-ing the song where the girl and boy kiss at the end of the film. The viewer is now encouraged to relate to scenes via songs and in turn relate those songs to real scenes in their own lives.
Take Peter Hedge’s quirky, kitsch 2003 film, Pieces of April, a witty and genuine underground hit with a delicious soundtrack featuring writing by Stephin Merritt and performances by guitar gurglers The Magnetic Fields and The 6ths. Whether title character April (Katie Holmes) is making place cards to the playful piano of ‘I Think I Need a New Heart’, or decorating the crooked, warped stairs to her rundown apartment to the tune of banjo’s and merry-go-rounds, this soundtrack is inspired. The string-led, brass infused tunes burst in and out of the narrative – the film and the music both awkward in arrangement – and it isn’t until the final scene of the film, punctuated by snap-shots of the family reunited, that the true class of the music is released through Stephin Merritt’s ‘One April Day’.
It seems that it’s these smaller, lesser-known films that are the real indie-gems, and here’s another fine example. From the hypnotic ‘Orange Sky’ (Alexi Murdoch) to the effortless electronics of Frou Frou’s ‘Let Go’, coming full circle to the dulcet drones of Lionel Richie, the songs featured in Zach Braff’s Garden State are in full bloom, but it’s all about simplicity.
Onto a real diamond from 2009 now: Greg Mottola’s Adventureland prepares both the characters and the viewers for the world ahead with a soundtrack that could set the world to right with a whopping 41 songs being used. Most of the music comes from diegetic sources: we hear Poison’s ‘I Want Action’ playing from a TV set, while Animotion’s ‘Obsession’ is danced to in a club. But the scenes are the real setters: Crowded House croon “hey now, hey now” on ‘Don’t Dream It’s Over’, set to a teen-angst fireworks display and Lou Reed’s ‘Satellite of Love’ provides the fun of the fair, quite literally, when James (Jesse Eisenberg) figures that he may be in love with Em (Kristen Stewart).
It’s not only the small unnoticed films that catch your ear, either. 2009’s Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist is perhaps one of the cutest, coolest music inspired films of the last decade. Okay, so the storyline isn’t much (boy makes ex mixtapes, new girl finds them, their lives intertwine, happy ending), but it brings the mixtape/CD to the forefront to show us that romance isn’t dead. The scene is first set to Devendra Banhart’s gut-wrenching genre-experiment ‘Lover’ that asks to “give this love a chance” as we see love-sick Nick (Michael Cera) making said mixes. Nick and Norah’s non-linear plot correlates against the mash of music choices. Dusty Springfield, Bishop Allen and Hot Chocolate give viewers one of the richest, most diverse and youthful soundtracks out there. You can even use the film’s retro pedal boat and blow-dryer dance moves. Then top it off with queer-core band The Jerk Offs and the fictional Where’s Fluffy? – plus the added twist of the sex scene being set in a recording studio. Clever, eh?
One film that topples this cleverness is Sofia Coppola’s feature debut The Virgin Suicides, which is full of dreamy landscapes and close-ups of angel-faced teenage girls. The soundtrack curls around the characters lives with the beautiful spine curling, stalker-induced ‘Ce Matin La’ from Parisian’s Air, providing an abundance of artistic ambience. Although it’s not all eerie electronics: Heart’s fast paced ‘Crazy on You’ during Trip and Lux’s (Kirsten Dunst and Josh Hartnett) car scene is so appropriate for the moment shared. And, just when you thought your ears had heard enough, the final scene of an asphyxiation party is accompanied by Air’s whistling and wiry whimsy ‘Empty House’. However, amongst all this, it is Al Green’s mesmerising melodies in ‘How to Mend a Broken Heart’ that really sets the Michigan mystery.
If you thought the music from The Virgin Suicides was dark and dreamy, you haven’t heard Eddie Vedder’s songs on Sean Penn’s 2007 classic-to-be Into the Wild. A film so full of life and yet so devoid of it, the soundtrack simply masters itself around the landscapes; it peaks at the Alaskan mountain tops and falls to the bottom of the Colorado River, as well as embodying Christopher McCandless aka Alexander Supertramp’s (Emile Hirsch), epiphany. Folksy and rootsy, with touches of rock and roll, Vedder’s ‘Guaranteed’ won the 2008 Golden Globe award for Best Song and it’s clear to see why; it’s elegant and poetic, heart-wrenching and sublime. It embodies the entire plot of the film: a young man trying to escape the confines of society, a modern day Catcher in the Rye, yet unknowingly leading himself to his death, and the lyrics “Leave it to me as I find a way to be, consider me a satellite forever orbiting. I knew all the rules but the rules did not know me guaranteed” ring very true.
Whether the songs we hear evoke pure fantasy or provide us with that knowing feeling, we are encouraged to relate to the indie soundtrack in some shape or form. We share moments of passion, mournings full of sorrow and experiences that are truly exceptional, but it all comes down to one thing: we are able to pinpoint a moment in time to a song that we heard at that time, and if no song is physically playing, we are singing in our heads or else humming along.
