Prog rock is the bane of many peoples’ existence.
Personally, I love it.
The good stuff, anyway. Early Genesis. Yes. King Crimson. Even some ELP. (Not all. God, no. They’re the noodliest.)
One thing that prig rockers know how to do is score a horror, sci-fi or just plain trippy movie.
From Pink Floyd (More, Osbscured By Clouds, etc.) to Rick Wakeman (The Burning, about 100 more), from Tangerine Dream (Sorcerer, Legend, etc.) to Peter Gabriel (Birdy, Last Temptation Of Christ), prog rockers have been tickling the synths for movies for a long time.
Here are just two.
One represents some great music that stands alone and the other is a great movie that is made even better by some great music.
SUSPIRIA (1977)
Directed by Dario Argento
Written by Dario Argento/Daria Nicolodi
Music by Goblin
Argento and Goblin go way back.
All the way back to what was basically their second album in 1976. Their first one in 1975 was put out under the name Cherry Five. It was a proggy affair with vocals that went nowhere but Dario Argento’s ear. (I’ve heard it. It’s ok. Kind of an Italian Deep Purple, but even proggier.) Argento heard something in the album and asked the band to re-score his movie Profondo Rosso (aka, Deep Red). The band changed their name to Goblin and a collaboration was born.
Goblin has put out stand-alone albums along the way, but most of them have been soundtracks…and most of those have been for Argento movies.
Goblin and Argento hit their stride just a year later with Suspiria. Even without the super-creepy visuals of the film, the soundtrack brings to mind witches and murder.
Suspiria is the story of a young American dancer named Suzy (Jessica Harper from Phantom Of The Paradise). She is admitted into the Tanz dance school in Freiberg, Germany. When she gets there, she sees another young woman running from the school. Later, she finds out that the woman was murdered in a horribly grisly way. (One of the best murder scenes in the history of murder scenes.)
Suzy investigates while she learns to dance and finds out that Tanz holds secrets that could be dangerous for the entire world.
Suspiria is unsettling, to say the least. One of the most subversively unsettling things is the fact that everything seems to be…off.
Just, ya know? Off.
That’s because Argento initially wanted the film to center around young girls. The Tanz school was to be for children. The studio vetoed that (after the first five minutes you’ll see why), but Argento didn’t take it lying down. He didn’t change a word of the dialogue AND he had the sets built just slightly larger than life size, so the women would have to reach up a little bit for door knobs and light switches. So, yeah. This film is STILL about children. It just stars actresses who are of age.
This is one of my favorite horror films of all time and Goblin’s pulsing prog-metal score just sets it over the edge.
Watch it. Watch it often. Then buy the album.
ZABRISKIE POINT (1970)
Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni
Written by Michelangelo Antonioni/Franco Rosetti/Sam Shepard/Tonino Guerra/Clare Peploe
Music by Pink Floyd/The Grateful Dead/Kaleidoscope/etc
Ok, so here’s the deal with this one: I almost want to tell you to not bother with the movie. It’s really not very good. I watched it with a couple of friends and all we could get out of it was the music and the fact that there were naked people every once in a while. Supposedly, it’s about a couple of flower children who are trying to help build a commune in the middle of the California desert.
And then there’s an orgy.
What it’s really about is the death of the hippie movement and the end of the 60s…and an orgy.
Of course, you could get that from watching the film, but it’s nearly unwatchable. It’s seriously only remembered because of the music and the fact that it was directed by Antonioni, who directed classics like Blow Up and L’Avventura.
It was pretty controversial on its release and, in fact, almost didn’t get released at all. MGM president, Louis F. Polk, cut so much out that the studio decided that it was unreleasable. When Polk was fired, the film was restored (mostly) and released to a government that wasn’t ready to be criticized the way the movie did. (During filming, the cast and crew were followed around by the FBI. Sometimes the paranoid are right.)
But it is kind of worth checking out just because it’s so freaking weird. And then there’s the music.
Early stuff by Pink Floyd and The Grateful Dead make the soundtrack everything you want from a trippy 60s movie. In fact, it probably makes it better than you would expect from a trippy 60s movie because it’s REAL trippy 60s music as opposed to a studio’s version of it. Not only that, but it has music that trippy 60s people were listening to.
Check out Roscoe Holcomb’s I Wish I Was A Single Girl Again or Pattie Page’s Tennessee Waltz. When people like Bob Dylan and The Grateful Dead started making cosmic cowboy music, a lot of their fans started to look back at what influenced their heroes. Hence, a renewed interest in classic country music in the late 60s and early 70s and the popularity of bands like Poco and The Eagles.
So, yeah. Take this movie with a HUGE grain of salt if you decide to actually watch it. Some people think it’s brilliant. I am not one of those people.
And an orgy.
1 Comment