CHATSWORTH, Calif. — Let's talk music. Looking back at Paul Thomas Anderson's classic movie Boogie Nights 10 years later, it's easier to notice the movie's pervasive soundtrack. Pop and rock songs compose most of the soundtrack, which includes very little orchestral score.
This is immediately problematic, because great movie soundtracks, while fun, can often bear the expressive and dramatic load for an inferior movie.
Josh Levin over at Slate.com mounted this argument against Zach Braff's drama Garden State. Disclosure: I've never seen anything Braff's done, so I don't know if Levin's critique is fair.
In any event, Levin argued that all the pop songs in Braff's movie bore the brunt of the movie's dramatic load, and in the clip to the left, Levin shows what happens in one scene when you replace a romantic song with something else.
This leaves us wondering if Boogie Nights is guilty of the same crime. I say no, and as evidence, I submit the movie's famous drug-deal-gone-bad scene with Mark Wahlberg, John C. Reilly, Alfred Molina, Tom Jane and that kid throwing firecrackers around. During this scene, Anderson focuses on the jonesing trio of Wahlberg, Reilly and Jane as Molina (their drug hookup) blathers on and his boy-toy/houseguest lights firecrackers and chucks them around the room.
Right there we see that Anderson has done some heavy lifting to increase tension in the scene -- the firecrackers are a brilliant, jarring device -- but his choice of music confirms it. Two songs play during this disastrous drug deal: Night Ranger's "Sister Christian" and Rick Springfield's "Jesse's Girl." The first is a croony rock ballad, the second a maudlin love song (perhaps the ultimate maudlin rock song).
Using music that stands in contrast to the tone of a scene has become more popular in recent years, and I'm happy to see it. It adds a sweet-and-salty surprise to the proceedings and emphasizes the strength of the storytelling. To be fair, I don't think every song in Boogie Nights is used with the same skill as these two, but for the most part, I think the music is as strong as the movie.
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