Movies and Music!

Patrin, Nate.  The Needle and the Lens: Pop Goes to the Movies from Rock'n'Roll to Synthwave.    

        Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2023,  ISBN: 9781517913243

How much does the soundtrack of a movie affect your enjoyment of a particular movie?  What about your memory of a movie, does a particular song stick in your head as emblematic of the movie?   That is the question Nate Patrin chose to explore in The Needle and the Lens.

Nate Patrin defines a "needle drop" as using a preexisting song to provide context for the film.  He takes sixteen movies that use songs not written/recorded for the movies and explores the interaction between the movies, the songs, and the audience.  Some of the combinations are very well known - Easy Rider/"The Pusher," The Graduate/"The Sound of Silence ," or American Graffiti/"Do You Want to Dance?"  Others are a bit off the wall (but then I have not seen all of these movies) such as Killer of Sheep/"This Bitter Earth," Blue Velvet/"In Dreams," or Drive/"A Real Hero."  Then there are ones I just had not thought of in this fashion - mainly Apocalypse Now/"The End" and Wayne's World/"Bohemian Rhapsody" that just work well. While individual chapters may be less of a treat, the book as a whole is a good read.

 

Nate Patrin enjoys exploring the intersection of movies and music and sharing his findings with an appreciative audience.  If you think you might be in that crowd, pick up The Needle and the Lens and join the conversation!