There's film. There's music. And then there's the combination. Even in the earliest days of film, it was only a short time before directors realized that even a slight bit of piano music was better than no sound at all.
Today, with our sophisticated sound elements (Dolby 5.1, 7.1, HD broadcast sound, etc.), sound is perhaps as important as the film content itself - in fact, inseparable. The film that immediately comes to mind is Saving Private Ryan. A cacaphony of brilliant soounds makes this film impossible to watch on the small screen without the volume raised. Turn it on on a large screen in Dolby 5.1 or better, and you can smell the blood and feel the water splashing during the Normandy invasion. Imagine this film without sound.
Then flashback even further to the first Rocky movie (and for that matter the second one also), and remember how important Eye of the Tiger was to that film and how different the workout scene would have been without it (and in Rocky2, "Gonna Fly Now").
These intregral components have for so long been part of our natural movie viewing that we take it for granted. Join us on this site as we look at movies, sound, theme music and the combination.
And please, feel free to comment and let us know what you think!