Day 22: Soundtrack

Original Soundtrack
Jackie Brown: Music from the Motion Picture

Unlike most of the idioms explored in this blog, "soundtrack" isn't a genre or a style. The soundtrack is, however, a significant mode of musical expression, and for that reason, it qualifies for discussion. Since 1955, when Blackboard Jungle became the first movie to feature rock 'n roll music--technically just one rock song, "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley and his Comets--American vernacular music has played an integral role in film. It's no coincide that nearly all of my favorite directors--Martin Scorcese, Woody Allen, Jim Jarmusch, Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, and Wes Anderson--have paid close attention song selection for their movies, noting the precise effects different songs create. Many of the soundtracks to these auteurs' films are worthy of examination, but I will touch on the music from Tarantino's Jackie Brown for two reasons: first, I previously referenced the soundtrack in my post on Major Harris ("Day 13: Philly Soul"), and second, I happened to watch the movie this past weekend.

Stylish but also warm, the movie in an underrated piece in Tarantino's oeuvre. By the time of Jackie Brown's release, Tarantino had already built a reputation for himself as a director keenly attuned to the power of music in film with Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. Music plays a more significant role in Jackie Brown than in either of those films, however, both in terms of creating a general aesthetic and advancing the plot. A number of stirring 70s soul tracks--including Bobby Womack's "Across 110th Street," the title track to a movie from 1972, Bill Withers' "Who is He (And What is He to You?)" and Randy Crawford's "Street Life"--set the tone of the film and link it to the uber-stilized blaxploitation flicks of the decades earlier. The musical centerpiece of the film is the Delfonics' "Didn't I (Blow Your Mind This Time)" a bona fide classic of 70s soul that perfectly captures the central relationship in the movie--the pseudo-romantic partnership between middle-aged bail bondsman Max Cherry and stewardess/smuggler Jackie Brown. Jackie plays the song on vinyl and the awed Max purchases the tape and plays it on his car stereo throughout the film. The song title alone encapsules both Max's reverence of Jackie, and the way Max eventually surprises Jackie with his own strength, but it doesn't hurt that the song is utterly gorgeous.

The Delfonics - Didn't I (Blow Your Mind This Time) [LIVE]