bruno
est malade
i suppose it's difficult to separate the images from the music in the case of soundtracks, more so when the images burn into your retina. that is the case with cat people, and here sound and image are inseparable. which isn't to say the sound is lacking. it's giorgio moroder at his finest, and on one track david bowie at his most bearable, for those of us that don't tolerate him.
the music encapsulates what i love about the early 80s aesthetic, which is halfway between the rotting corpse of the late seventies and the more polished (and leaning towards bland) mid 80s. synths are melancholic and have a tendency to stretch out forever in a way that the more attention-span challenged synths of the mid 80s do not. so giorgio moroder carries the baggage of a dead era into a new one, and like john carpenter and vangelis reinforces memory. but it's clearly a new era, cold and emotionally detached.
the music brings to mind vivid colours, rain, wet skin, neon lights.. and on an emotional level uncertainty, sadness, anxiety, erotic tension. the same elements that make up blade runner and (visually) sans soleil, my other favourite films of 1982.
i can't help but associate these sounds and images to my own 1982: visiting a holograph museum with my father, the hum and glitter of the city from a rooftop at night, a newsstand displaying a woman's pubic hair in flames on a magazine cover (an image which haunts me to this day, damn you art directors).
everything is half-way. tense, dream-like, ambiguous. it's a twilight music. a track with the title 'transformation seduction' would suggest to you erotism, but instead it's a moment of horror, of tension. both in the original 1942 and in the 1982 version there is this fear of sex, and each version is a reflection of the times: strict morality-tainted 40s and aids-tainted 80s.
to be fair the soundtrack has a few low points, but nothing a lifting of the needle or a press of a button won't fix. and some of the tracks are different and longer in the film. and some are only to be heard in the film. but staring back at me from my battered lp is the savage beauty of nastassja kinski. i personally couldn't ask for more.
the music encapsulates what i love about the early 80s aesthetic, which is halfway between the rotting corpse of the late seventies and the more polished (and leaning towards bland) mid 80s. synths are melancholic and have a tendency to stretch out forever in a way that the more attention-span challenged synths of the mid 80s do not. so giorgio moroder carries the baggage of a dead era into a new one, and like john carpenter and vangelis reinforces memory. but it's clearly a new era, cold and emotionally detached.
the music brings to mind vivid colours, rain, wet skin, neon lights.. and on an emotional level uncertainty, sadness, anxiety, erotic tension. the same elements that make up blade runner and (visually) sans soleil, my other favourite films of 1982.
i can't help but associate these sounds and images to my own 1982: visiting a holograph museum with my father, the hum and glitter of the city from a rooftop at night, a newsstand displaying a woman's pubic hair in flames on a magazine cover (an image which haunts me to this day, damn you art directors).
everything is half-way. tense, dream-like, ambiguous. it's a twilight music. a track with the title 'transformation seduction' would suggest to you erotism, but instead it's a moment of horror, of tension. both in the original 1942 and in the 1982 version there is this fear of sex, and each version is a reflection of the times: strict morality-tainted 40s and aids-tainted 80s.
to be fair the soundtrack has a few low points, but nothing a lifting of the needle or a press of a button won't fix. and some of the tracks are different and longer in the film. and some are only to be heard in the film. but staring back at me from my battered lp is the savage beauty of nastassja kinski. i personally couldn't ask for more.
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