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Five Times the Soundtrack was Better Than the Film
It happens more often than you’d think
Some of the most popular movies of all time are known as much for their soundtracks as they are for the film itself. I’m not talking about the film’s score, which is something totally different and which Simon Dillon explores in pieces like this one about the score from Raiders of the Lost Ark. When it comes to a film’s score, you can pretty much say “John Williams” and be done with it.
Soundtracks, at least in the last four decades or so, are made up of the songs the filmmaker chose as an integral part of the movie, and I do mean integral. Try to picture for a moment American Graffiti without the non-stop early-1960s hits playing in the background of every scene. Or The Big Chill, where the hits from later in the ’60s are as much a character in the film as any of the actors. A great soundtrack simply goes hand-in-hand with a great film.
There are also times where an amazing soundtrack is actually better than the film it’s a part of. This can be true for a number of reasons, but it’s most often because the director or screenwriter did not have the talent to match the musical artists chosen for the film. There are even times, though not many, when an excellent soundtrack can actually make a film seem far better than it really is. Music has that…
