Inglourious Basterds

If Tarantino's use of music in Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown and the 2 Kill Bills was anything go to by, his new black war comedy Inglourious Basterds was going to a musicinthemovies event. So I made the most of it and went to Leicester Square Odeon big screen in anticipation of getting my socks blown off.

In a TV interview Tarantino recently said something like (and I paraphrase here slightly), 'I was going to get a composer in for this movie but I decided not to because who wants someone putting their s**t all over your movie'.

That's one way of expressing his particular type of creative control, which is to use classic music to enhance the meaning of his movies and heighten the viewer / listener experience. Who could forget the ear-slicing scene in Reservoir Dogs without humming Dylan rip-off 'Stuck In The Middle With You'. Who rushed out and bought the Delphonics back catalogue after Jackie Brown? If you understand the music you get more out of the film.

I knew this new movie had 'old' or 'pre-existing' music rather than specially composed (which had been previously hinted at), alongside a couple of smash hits. Well, one smash hit, actually, Bowie's 'Cat People (Putting Out The Fire)'. So dig this. The movie is full of old (or pre-existing) movie soundtracks by (especially) Morricone. This is a neat swerveball by T. We get a new twist on movie scoring, he gets control over what music he uses (no pesky composers to contend with, spreading their s**t on his movie), and his music budget probably comes in under, enabling him to wack on the stupendous 'Cat People (Putting Out The Fire)' (and the word 'fire' is key here, go see the movie) and pay off Senor Bowie as handsomely as he deserves.

Unfortunately this strategy is limited in successfully communicating extra meaning to viewers unless they know the original sources of the pre-existing movie scores. A meaning that requires film-buff knowledge rather than the pop-culture knowledge required to appreciate the value of, say, Chuck Berry's 'You Never Can Tell' in the junked-up twist scene in Pulp Fiction.

In other words, if your audience is full of film-buffs they'll get the gig. Quentin's probably walking on the right street for this type of approach and knows that's who's taking notes during his films nowadays while the mainstream have probably bought 'Beatles Rock Band' with their pocket money and are not too bothered about a new Tarantino movie. In this respect, hats off to a master of the unexpected. Long may he do crazy stuff.

Music In The Movies

This blog is a notepad relating to my research into how large collections of music are organised by record companies and music publishers so film makers can easily find what they're looking for.


Using music in films, tv shows, commercials, computer games is known as synchronisation, or synchronization depending on whether you're from Covent Garden or Hollywood. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer synchronisation with an 's'. But to make it easier I'll just call it synch.


Finding music in large collections is called Music Information Retrieval. There are some very talented people working on some amazing tools to help find stuff you like. I'm hoping to help them with my research into how real professionals search for music.


Every now and then I will be writing about some great use of music in a movie etc. It may be Super Freak by Rick James in Little Miss Sunshine or Bellamy Brothers 'Let Your Love Flow' in the Barclaycard commercial. Whatever rises to the top (or sinks to the bottom) is worthy of comment.


Tonight I go see Tarantino's 'Inglourious Basterds'. If his music use in Jackie Brown, Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs and Kill Bill 1 and 2 is anything to go by there's gonna be something worth listening to.