Cannes film festival, one of the most significant events on the cultural calendar, is upon us. But Cannes doesn’t just spawn great movies. After all, music is as much a part of the cinema experience as the pictures – and some truly great songs have come out of film projects.
To mark the occasion, here is the Observer’s soundtrack for Cannes.
It’s the wide-open slide guitar of Thunderbird, written by Hans Zimmer and performed by Pete Haycock, that soundtracks Thelma & Louise’s dramatic final scene as Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon drive off the Grand Canyon. The beloved friends feature on the poster for this year’s Cannes festival. Â
I still get a shiver up my spine listening to the soundtrack for Lars von Triers’s Dancer in the Dark, which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2000. In the film, the multitalented Björk plays Selma, who has a degenerative eye condition that is leaving her increasingly vulnerable. And on I’ve Seen It All, an industrial-orchestral ballad featuring Thom Yorke, the Icelandic musician sings of Selma’s acceptance of her blindness – an early glimmer of brightness before the film’s desperately sad ending.
The South Korean director Park Chan-wook is chair of the Cannes jury this year. His latest film, No Other Choice, hovered between slick and slapstick, aided by intriguing song choices such as this captivating pop number that fizzes with melancholy. It was a perfect choice for one of the film’s silliest but most devastating scenes – the one with the oven gloves.
The simple yet haunting piano of this track sticks in the heart. Angelo Badalamenti was David Lynch’s longtime musical collaborator, and this spare instrumental features on neo-noir comedy Wild at Heart – starring Nicolas Cage, Laura Dern and Willem Dafoe – that won the Palme d’Or in 1990.
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And who could pay a visit to Cannes without a few romantic French whispers? Gainsbourg originally wrote this song for his then-girlfriend Brigitte Bardot, who begged him not to release it when her husband found out they had recorded it. It was finally released two years later with Jane Birkin on those stunningly high verses and more than a little heavy breathing.