----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Seeing the post on the Eisenstein/Shostak. was a real exercise in forest for
the trees.  Maybe it's hard answering this question because the big pieces are
so obvious that we don't remember them.  But Alexander Nevsky was responsible
for Prokofiev composing the AN cantata, which has now turned into a big concert
piece and back into live background music for gala showings of the film--the
movie stops, the camera pans the battlefield after the battle on the ice & the
mezzo sings the big aria about life, death & Russia.
 
In Impromptu, Georges S. works very hard to land Chopin, all the while working
hard to make it look effortless--impromptu--while Chopin & Liszt are doing the
same kind of invisible hard work to write an impromptu.
 
There's using the slow movement from the Appasionata as the "key" that cuts
through the Seventh Veil in Anne (?)'s mind &  James Mason stops hitting her
hands--that made Beeth. big.
 
There's seducing Monroe in different styles according to the different pieces
playing in the background in the 7 Year Itch and Rex Harrison murdering Linda
Darnell in different situations in keeping w/the styles of music he's conduc-
ting--Tchik. etc. which goes w/Preston Sturges love/hate relationship w/clas-
sical music.
 
But one of the granddaddies of "making" a piece w/a movie is the Mozart piano
concerto that   was used in Elvira Madigan & was subsequently identified as the
Elvira Madigan concerto because knownothings like me don't know their concerto
nos.
 
And then the use of the big aria from La  Walli in Diva turned the aria into a
hit and brought the opera back.  Using Nesum Dorma in the Killing Fields was
honest, unspoken commentary on the action.
 
 
But what about the "serious" acted out films of operas?  If people go see the
Magic Flute because Bergman made a movie of it who wouldn't normally go near an
opera, how does that fit?  Did anyone go see the all dancing, flamenco Carmen
and then like the music so much that they went & saw the all singing Carmen?
Did people go see Don Giovanni because it was filmed by the man responsible for
Ratso Rizo? There is of course more, the Mozart Brothers, using Ravel in Rasho-
mon but the list is endless.
 
o