Classical movie magic

Sometimes the underscoring you hear in a flick can be just the added shot in the arm that really gets your blood pumping. Classical music, especially, can be some pretty powerful stuff. By no means a master list, here are five instances of movie magic that can be directly attributed to some dead guy’s musical machismo. Got it? Good.

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1) “Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1” — Elgar: While it’s been used to great, awkward effect in graduation scenes ad infinitum (Reality Bites is a winner), it’s hard to see anything the same after the composition added color to A Clockwork Orange.

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2) “Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta” — Bartok: Kubrik strikes again incorporating this rollicking piece into “Johnny’s crazy-land adventure!” (aka The Shining). Further proof this is a crazy must: See Being John Malkovich.

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3) “Night on Bald Mountain” — Mussorgsky: You’ve heard this piece before, even if you don’t know it. And Natural Born Killers will burn it into your brain.

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4) “Adagio for Strings” — Barber: One of the most simultaneously spare and lush selections of music ever written, its brilliant juxtaposition against a slow-motion hail of bullets and bodies in Platoon remains singularly stunning.

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5) “Ride of the Valkyries” — Wagner: The grandaddy of all musical coups, everyone knows that you have to “love the smell of napalm in the morning” during Apocalypse Now.






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