Let’s Talk Highbrow / Lowbrow
Let’s say you’re a big time film director. Or maybe a lowbrow TV director. You want to create a bit of irony, a nice contrast. What do you do?
You overlay whatever lowdown stuff you’re showing on the screen with a classical music soundtrack. A classic example is Apocalypse Now and the scene of the Air Cavalry attacking to the sounds of Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries. Or monkeys bashing brains to the sounds of Also Sprach Zarathustra by Strauss.
But there are a lot more. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia often uses Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy when one of the gang launches an intricate and depraved scheme. Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony plays during a sequence of happy children playing outside instead of watching TV in The Simpsons episode “Itchy and Scratchy and Marge.”
So let’s share, Deadsplinterlisteners, some favorite mashups of classical music and movies, TV, or for that matter stage, radio or video games. To get you started, here are couple of lists:
10 Emmy-Winning TV Shows That Feature Classical Music
10 of the most iconic uses of classical music in film
And while you’re at it, did any of these clips lead you to listen to the entire work? After seeing The Exorcist, did you happen to find a complete copy of Carmina Burana? Maybe you became a fan of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony after watching Die Hard?
Or maybe it’s all indistinguishable Muzack to you, or you find the entire phenomenon pretentious and sad — no wrong answers!
metallica is classical right?
honestly i think metal is underrated….its some complicated shit
but for the sake of proper classical i will go with some bach
WB cartoons all the way.
Kill the wabbit aka Ride of the Valkyries.
The Barber of Seville by Chuck Jones
I’m in the minority, but I think Rabbit of Seville beats What’s Opera Doc.
Agreed, Rabbit of Seville is far better!
Don’t forget the Daffy Duck Rhapsody.
Leopold!
I love the image of the knuckle dragging.
PMJ’s Scott Bradlee has an amazing mash up…
I know it’s not actually classical, but the music box dancer song used in the beginning of Kill Bill vol 1 tripped me up real bad because my memory is being 12 yrs old and doing a ballet routine to that song.
Platoon Adagio For Strings
Excalibur the first modern use of O Fortuna in cinema now almost cliche.
Star Trek fight theme
Sousa’s Liberty Bell March will forever be associated with Monty Python.
It was years after I first saw that before I even knew who Sousa was.
That’s probably true for many people!
They found the shooter. He’d killed himself.
For me, it’s either the O Mio Babbino Caro in Room with a View or the Mahler in Death in Venice. Or maybe the Don Giovanni scene in Amadeus.
I have to get myself back to Florence one of these days.
Admittedly, they’re not all Classical, but they *are* Classics!😉😁💖