Yesterday afternoon I was finally enjoying the Dublin rain, as it had granted me a lazy Sunday watching Wimbledon. I'm betting it was all replays of the previous week's matches, but with the television on my roommate's side and a roommate that never leaves (Belfast finally broke her), I was content. Sharapova easily beat a whiny Sugiyama. I love to hate the pretty girl as much as the next person, but whiners are even worse. Manresmo handled Santangelo no sweat, which is odd, because usually testosterone knocks those glands into overdrive. My intention is not to mock players whose talent I will never possess though, so enough digression.The commercials pass without much note, I twittle away on my laptop until match play resumes, and then I hear Jon Brion. He is the composer behind the score for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Charlie Kaufman and Michel Gondry's 2003 cinematic lovechild. As if Gondry's surrealistic world of erasable memory is not breathtaking enough, the film has an equally stunning sound track, combining Brion's original pieces with the likes of Beck, the Polyphonic Spree and the Willowz. I lift my head expecting to see an advertisement for some sort of criterion collection now on sale, and images of the women's gaelic football championships are all that appear.
The song is a particular favorite of mine, a take on the film's recurring instrumental theme that plays in the background of Clementine and Joel's night-walk on the ice. I've dealt with the frustrating commercialization of songs before, from Outback Steakhouse's complete massacre of Of Montreal to the NBA's playoff-geared rendition of RJD2's "Ghostwriter", and those are just two of many. I usually shrug it off as poor, helpless band members swindled by greedy, tone deaf corporate execs, but I'm only kidding myself. I'm sure there is serious money to be made in these advertisements, even if it's at the expense of the musicianship.
While the use of songs in ads can be great publicity for a band, this requires a very specific sort of format, i.e. artsy. Long, long ago, Volkswagen Cabrio's were actually cool, and you want to know why? The commercial for the line featured four young folks driving beneath a perfect, star-laden night sky with Nick Drake's "Pink Moon" humming out the dash. It had me sold, and it pushed the dusty Drake tune back into the deserving spotlight it failed to achieve on its initial birth. Jose Gonzalez owes his entire career to an ad, Sony's high profile commercial for its Bravia line. His cover of "Heartbeats", the original a fantastic dance number by Swedish breakout group The Knife, singlehandedly launched the U.S. success of both groups.
Brion's commerical was not so fortunate, however, the images of women's gaelic football poorly montaged and given a slow-mo at the end for good measure. What's worse, the men's gaelic football spot that followed featured a cheap Beach Boy's knock off highlighting the season's best fouls. I'm all for women in sports, but trying to play-up sentimentality as a way to attract fans? I'd rather see the football team protesting for better equipment or comparable salaries to men than banking off being girly, and even worse, pulling Brion into it. Would I have less qualms about the use of the song had it been a different ad? Yes, but not without some overlying reservations.
A film score is a unique genre of music in that it is created to enhance a specific image, emphasize dialogue or dictate the audience's mood (think Hitchcock without Herrmann). To listen to the music out of context is one thing, but to reapply the sound to a different image entirely? In what I'm sure would be Van Gogh's feelings if he could only see all the t-shirts Starry Night now graces, especially the Simpson's take, seeing Brion's work support gaelic football struck a seriously wrong chord. Half of the piece's beauty is its ability to draw a memory to the film, and when you begin to strip it of such, much of its character goes with it. I'm not saying the composition isn't impressive in its own right, but I wouldn't walk around with the Psycho sound track playing on repeat for a reason.
Scores help their films achieve a better connection with the script (sorry, Mr. Braff, Shins exploitation not welcome here), and thus elevate the overall quality. A good score can make or break a movie, so let's leave them on the silver screen where they belong. If Harley-Davidson wants to kill Guns n' Roses, live and let die, but you won't see me at a women's gaelic football match anytime soon.
