Written by UTG critic Grace Duffy, Scene & Heard takes a look at the music that makes our favorite films so memorable. Whether it’s the 400-piece orchestra Christopher Nolan used for The Dark Knight, or the dozen or so bands that contributed to the soundtrack of Top Gun, there is no denying the impact music has on movies and this column hopes to highlight the best of the best.

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Despite recent rumblings elsewhere on this site about having to outgrow The Crow, I am firmly of the opinion that this film is one that should stay with you as you grow older. I can recognize that it’s all melodrama and darkness and actually rather thin on the ground in terms of plot, but for all its emo credentials it was made in an era when ‘emo’ was not a dirty word. Indeed, the world was likely largely free of this hateful adjective and it didn’t afflict descriptions of the film on its release. In any case, as far as I’m concerned, The Crow is an artistic triumph, a searing and haunting movie that ought to linger in your mind long after the credits roll. It’s also in possession of one of the most beautifully understated and yet magnificent scores in film history, and an artists’ soundtrack of equal merit. This makes selecting one or two tracks as standouts and suitably representative of the film a tad difficult but I do have two favourites that warrant discussion here.

From the score, “Devil’s Night” and “Inferno” are particularly striking, though it’s the former that’s the more memorable. Both differ from the other tracks on the album because they use instruments other than strings, though this is not to suggest that the other tracks aren’t compelling in their own way. They’re wispy, whispering, barely-there: stalking the film’s events like ghosts in the shadows, thereby aptly reflecting Eric Draven’s own supernatural presence. Composer Graeme Revell (whose composing CV is ridiculously impressive considering he’s not a household name) makes use of some intriguing instruments in order to capture this evanescent, yet atmospheric, sound – the Armenian dudek is prominent on several tracks, along with some ghostlike chanting. On “Pain and Retribution,” which accompanies Draven’s flashbacks to the night he and fiancée Shelly were murdered in the film, a willowy, mournful female vocal line adds an intangible note of hurt and anguish to the music, conjuring all the excruciating emotion we can’t see in Draven’s veiled face.

It’s carefully realized, minimal touches like this that render the harsh electronic sounds of “Devil’s Night” and the soaring guitar solo of “Inferno” all the more emphatic. The former is a master exercise in building suspense, as a cacophony of grim, desolate samples creep from the shadows to meet a pounding wave of percussion. Everything begins to converge over snapshots of a guitar solo, forming a vivid and memorable backdrop to the events depicted onscreen. The title refers of course to the night before Halloween, when the film’s gang of villains essentially go on an arson bender and set fire to several areas in the nameless city. The track manages to convey all the ferocity and brutality of their actions, a wanton and devil-may-care group of miscreants out to incite violence whatever the cost. And, for all that it may not be as emphatic as one would imagine given the atrocities committed, this allows it to blend with the film’s generally dreamlike quality while adding a certain nightmarish element.

“Inferno” begins as a powerful and moving guitar solo, used in a scene onscreen when Draven plays his recently recovered guitar on a barren rooftop before smashing the instrument and amp to smithereens. The scene is set, triumphantly, to the hint of a sunrise in the distance – an indication perhaps of the glory that might have awaited Draven had his life not been cut cruelly short. No one on this site should require an introduction as to why this brief flash of a solo is so good. It builds and bursts in a brilliant crescendo of intensity, alone and defiant against the ominous landscape just as Draven’s avenging angel is in the film. It’s as fleeting as his return to earth is, and cuts after about a minute to a lengthy spell of unsettled ambience just as vague and disquieting as the afterlife to which he was banished. That so much anger and pain, yet so much glory, should be evident in one short guitar solo is a feat that few bands manage to emulate, which makes its inclusion here all the more commendable.

The Crow may have been parodied to death by a bazillion idiotic scene bands attempting to recreate Eric’s make-up and the film’s lingering cult status, but it remains, in my opinion, an essential musician’s film. It’s gorgeously made and leaves a very fixed mark, something one should acknowledge even if you’re of the view it’s only famous cos of Brandon Lee’s tragic death on set. The music is at once poignant, jubilant, and harrowing, one of the more little known but truly memorable scores there is – and one of the many things the sequels failed to recapture. (It also goes without saying that the notion of an upcoming remake makes me want to stab kittens.)

Written by: Grace Duffy

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James Shotwell

James Shotwell is the founder of Under The Gun Review. He loves writing about music and movies almost as much as he loves his two fat cats. He's also the co-founder of Antique Records and the Marketing Coordinator for Haulix. You should probably follow him on Twitter.

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