Classical Music and Cinema: Mozart and 'Trading Places'

Location isn't usually important in film comedies the way say, Los Angels is vital to dramas like Chinatown or Chicago to action-thrillers like The Fugitive. Comedies trade in laughs and laughs come from people and situations and animals with digestive ailments. Places don't crack us up. 

Then why do I never forget that one of my favorite comedies--Trading Places (1983)--takes place in Philadelphia? We can thank its unforgettable opening flipbook of the city's icons next to images of ordinary people going to work and the city's poor not having any. The montage is set to Mozart's 'Overture to the Mariage of Figarro,' which we've heard a million times but never quite like this--as an argument for the artistry of comedy rather than an affirmation of its frivolity. Listening to Mozart does not make you smarter. But in Trading Places, Director John Landis and his composer (the legendary Elmer Bernstein) use Mozart as a shorthand reminder that comedies need not make you dumber either. 

The plot of Trading Places has been called a modern update of Mark Twain's "Prince and the Pauper." A rich stuffed shirt (Dan Aykroyd) and a street hustler (Eddie Murphy) are made to switch social places by Ackroyd's conniving uncles who like to conduct social experiments of such things. When the two uncover the uncles' sneaky plan to game the commodities market, they strike first, beating them at their own scam and getting rich in the process. It being the early 1980s, defeating old, inherited money through fleet footed stock trading was seen as the rebellion of youth, blows against the empire, a victory for tweed over eh, tweed. 

Trading Places did great with critics and has endured mostly because its a fantastic silly comedy (SNL veterans Ackroyd and Murphy and a sequence with a horny gorilla made sure of that) that doesn't scrimp on the fundamentals. The supporting cast bench--Jamie Lee Curtis, Ralph Bellmany, Don Ameche and Denholm Elliott--is embarrassingly deep. The script has nary a wasted line. And hiring Elmer Bernstein to score a summer comedy is like hiring Steve Jobs to oversee the launch of a lemonade stand. 

It's in his choice of Mozart to open the film that we see that Landis is up to more than talent overkill. Once you've seen the film (and have a modest knowledge of opera) the choice of 'Overture' is a cheap gold star for the viewer. 'Figarro' is a comic morality play about a servant outwitting an aristocrat, a nod at Trading Places's gentle theme of money not equalling intelligence or even refinement. But one level deeper is Landis's bigger goal: an unsmiling reminder that comedy has as gloried a cultural history as classical music and the grandparents of Trading Places are not pratfall artists and music hall crass but  great cinematic comedians like Billy Wilder and Ernst Lubitsch from a generation before. 

Of John Landis's first 10 films (1977-1988) 6 can fairly be called classics. One (National Lampoon's Animal House) is in the Library of Congress, an honor also held by his contemporary Harold Ramis (Groundhog Day). Throw in the best work of Ivan Reitman from that time (Stripes, Ghostbusters) and you have a body of comedy movies that not only crack you up but used legendary composers who created memorable themes, made room for 40-year veterans in the supporting cast and had stars that later were nominated for Oscars and had 20-30-year careers ahead of them.

This was broad comedy given the time, care and resources of high art. I've no idea if in hindsight we'll regard contemporary laugh factories like the work of Judd Apatow and the Frat Pack the same. I tend to doubt it. 

Musically speaking Trading Places starts big with an iconic Mozart piece. Afterward, Bernstein's score is restrained and sober. There's no lining the atmosphere with pop songs that would dominate the later years of the decade and few memorable musical passages beyond the opening. Mozart is what we're supposed to remember, its inclusion a wink without a smile. Its as though opening a comedy with more than enough fart jokes and gratuitious nudity with the ultimate icon of high culture was a way of saying "Pay attention. What we're doing here has the same craftmansmenship and dedication as when young Wolfgang sat down at the piano." 

 

Music Monday: Willie Nile.

I discovered Buffalo, NY's Willie Nile when a track of his called "Best Friends Money can Buy" appeared on a Paste Magazine compilation a few years ago. I liked the jangle, the crisp, singalong chorus, the falling-water harmonies backed by a scruffed-boot guitar. He reminded me very much of Marshall Crenshaw, another singer/songwriter I like a great deal. Both seem heavily influenced by the Byrds (choral harmonies, crystalline melodies) but have also spent some time with music by black people. The vocals here are a shouty gospel instead of technical perfect college a capella band.

Nile (real name Robert Anthony Noonan) is a slow but consistant musican, releasing seven studio albums since his debut in 1980. That self-titled debut is apparently caught up in some record label shenanigans since its both the most highly regarded of Nile's work and not available digitally anywhere. 

Since I already own it on vinyl, I just torrented the thing. I give you permission to do the same.

In the meantime (or before your conscience kicks in) I'd go to YouTube and give the leadoff track "Vagabond Moon" a listen. It'll give you a sense of what the man can do and if you can flow with it. If so, I'd jump straight to his 2004 album "Beautiful Wreck of the World," which is available just about anywhere your mouse will take you.

Classical Music and Cinema: Wagner and Apocalypse Now

I'm going to be writing occasional short pieces on classical music in cinema for Salon97.org. The first one explores the use of Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" in Francis Coppola's Apocalypse Now.

 

In his 1979 review of Apocalypse Now, Roger Ebert called the scene above “simply the greatest movie battle scene ever filmed.” I’m with him on that one and not because of its pacing, photography or that you could watch it 15 times in a row and not bore once. Try muting the sound and it’s still great cinema. Now turn it back up and the music takes a great battle scene and gives it another life–as historical double entendre and a microcosm for the film’s thoughts on war itself. In a hail of strings we all recognize, the triumphant arrival of our military becomes a ironic anti-climax, a white horse dragging a chariot piled with corpses.

Full post at Salon97.org

We Journey Fans Never Stopped Believin'...

So yesterday I heard that Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" is the most downloaded catalog song on iTunes. Sources speculate that the song has received added boots from a) Being the victory song of the 2005 World Champion Chicago White Sox and b) the music choice for the closing scene of the series finale of "The Sopranos."

My opinion? Because it is perhaps the greatest singalong rock song in history, that's why. Its 27 years old and still as joyous, fun and triumphant as ever. And have you ever heard a piano opening that wonderful. No, you haven't. There isn't one.

Journey gets a lot of hate. They're silly, they're lame, they've got bad hair, they beat up my girlfriend, whatever. You don't like DSB, the fault lies with you. The proof is in the numbers, haters. I say suck it.

And now we sing.

Classical Music as Punishment?

The Associated Press reports that a judge has sentenced a hip-hop fan, cited for paying said music too loudly, to a 150$ fine or 20 hours of listening to Bach and Beethoven.

Andrew Vactor, 24, lasted only about 15 minutes, a probation officer said.

It wasn't the music, Vactor said, he just needed to be at practice with the rest of the Urbana University basketball team.

"I didn't have the time to deal with that," he said. "I just decided to pay the fine."

So it probably wasn't the music itself but being forced to sit and do anything against your will for 20 hours--even eat chocolate, pet kittens or deflower virgins--probably gets old fast.

It did compel me to ask however...

What would be my own sonic torture?

No one musical genre offends me enough that i couldn't hack 20 hours of it (blues isn't my favorite, say. But after a day's worth, I'd probably don a somber expression and a twelve-bar scale my damn self). My issue is sound quality not sound type.  Even my favorites played at a screeching volume or through static would drive me batty after maybe 15 minutes.

What is the soundtrack to your musical nightmare? Lay it on me down below.

One More Time: Like Seeing God

I can't quite put my finger on why but I find this video indescribably moving. I wasn't there. The lyrics hardly stirr my soul. Its as best a catchy dance number. Then why does it make me tear up?

Maybe it's the unity of spirit, how everyone seems be giving and receiving, the band the music, the crowd their excitement and how the two compound each other. Maybe it's as simple as the dorky way one of the member of Daft Punk claps his hands as the song opens (as if that's necessary. The song is already 90% beat). Maybe there's something quasi-revival tent about the proceedings, which the gaudy lighting and the arms thrust upward of the audience.

Or maybe I just have a week spot for "Let's throw a worldwide party" songs (See Madonna's "Holiday" or Kool and the Gang's "Celebration"). That's a muxtape in the making.

Not sure. But God, would I love to see this band live sometime. It looks better than chocolate.

Song of the Week: "Heydays"

Song: "Heydays"  (video)

Artist: Great Lakes Myth Society

Sound: Epically sad, college rock. Semisonic with backbone. 

Source: Heard at SXSW.com as part of prep for 2008 SXSW Music Festival. Band is from my hometown. Didn't get to see them but this song, about nostalgia, longing and regret, couldn't have arrived at a better time. 

Listened to: In my rental car, a lot, combing the dark streets of Austin in the days immediately before the festival and everyone's arrival.

Important Lyrics:

" Uncertain the future,
Nostalgic the past.
Unable to recognize,
Moments that pass.

Heydays are passing.
Friendless and thin,
From back doors of cafes,
Hid by the din.

But don't hold a candle,
Don't carry a torch.
Those are for castles,
And you are long from their court.

But lift up a bottle,
And put back a glass.
Some years from tomorrow,
With your gut you'll look back."

Actions: The aloud conclusion, parked one late night beside the Alamo Cinema and Drafthouse.

'Some things we can hold onto forever. Most we can't. And we rarely get to choose which."

The Band Comes Home: (Sigur Ros' Heima)

Sigur Ros is a dreamlike mostly-instrumental band from Iceland. Several of their songs are on a playlist I listen to while writing. 

Last year, after a long time on the road, the band decided to play several free shows in their native land, concerts in parks, schools, mountainsides and public fairgrounds. They called the documentary they made of the short tour Heima, the Icelandic word for "home."

I think this is such a neat idea that it got me to wondering where I would stage concerts in my home town should I ever return as a giant rockstar. Probably at the Cube, Michigan Stadium, Gallup Park and my elementary school.

Where would you?

Heima is available for rental and purchase (via James McNally).

UPDATE: Mr. McNally's review of Heima.

'Shot in the Dark'. *Sigh*

They don't do demonic possession in music videos the way they used to. Just sayin'.

Heard About at SXSW: Songza

First day of SXSW 2008: Some guy in the hallway gives me a pin that says "Songza." When I go look, I'm met with a brilliantly simple concept. Search for a song. If its anywhere on the internets, Songza finds it. You can then listen to it or be sent somewhere to buy it.

Here's what I happened when I searched for "Safety Dance"

And when I wanted to listen to it.

That little "share" link let's you Twitter the song, email it to a friend or link to it in a blog post.

That's just plain slick. Simple, effortless and slick. If only all software were this well designed.

Go Songza!