The Best Use of Classic Rock in Movies

Classic rock and American cinema go together like The Talking Heads and big suits. Maybe it’s because New Hollywood hit around the same time the Summer of Love came around. Maybe it’s because some of the best American filmmakers of all time love rock music themselves. Maybe it’s just a matter of technology: by the time hip-hop took over, the internet and TV were more popular than film

No matter why you think it is, there’s no better way to pump some hype into a scene than to blast some classic rock. Let’s take a look at some of the best uses of classic rock in movies. Comment your personal favorites below!

5. “The Man in Me” The Big Lebowski

The Coen Brothers don’t usually use rock music in their scripts. Most of their films feature scores by Carter Burwell (see the great score to Fargo), and their folk-driven musical projects are overseen by T Bone Burnett. But The Big Lebowski, as a stoner hangout noir, needs some rock to fit in with the slacker vibes.

One of the gimmicks of The Big Lebowski is that it constantly finds ways to make its extremely tropey story unique; one of those tricks is elaborate dream sequences. The first one happens right as The Dude (Jeff Bridges) is clocked in the face right as he wakes up from a nap, with the song kicking in just as he falls unconscious. The opening scatting Dylan does fits in perfectly as The Dude flies through the air to the song, working with the film’s loose quality.

4. “Starless” Mandy

Mandy is a film that builds a surreal revenge tragedy out of the images you find in heavy metal albums. It’s just as influenced by the history of cinema as it is by the things a kid would imagine while listening to early, fantasy, and occult-based metal bands like Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Zeppelin, Queensryche, and Iron Maiden.

Smartly, director Manos Cosmatos realized that putting actual heavy metal into the film would give it a campy tone, far from what he’s going for. Most of the film features a brilliant score that gives off the atmosphere of metal without falling into it.

There’s only one actual rock song in the film, and it’s King Crimson’s “Starless,” a mournful prog-rock tune that plays over the credits. Crimson is noted as an influence on the metal genre, but this is one of their gentler songs. Its use gives the viewer a sense of the strange journey to come.

3. “Round and Round” The Wrestler

Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler is about a washed-up wrestling star who’s now making his living doing local shows for hardly any money. His body is falling apart, his friends are few and far between, and we can’t even fully like the guy as he continues to screw over everyone around him. In one crucial scene, he goes on a date with an aging stripper played by Marisa Tomei and dances to “Round and Round” by Ratt, getting excited and singing along, eventually hyping her up to sing with him.

The choice of song is perfect. A lesser director would pick a more obvious hair metal song: maybe something by Def Leppard, Motley Crue, or Quiet Riot. “Round and Round” is far from obscure, but it’s no “Pour Some Sugar On Me” or “Kickstart My Heart”, which makes it genuinely believable as this guy’s favorite song. The moment is punctuated by the two talking about how much better 80s music was, an indirect way of them talking about how their lives aren’t what they wanted them to be.

2. “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” Mean Streets

Look. If I let myself do more than one needle drop per director, Scorsese would take up the whole list. There are a ton of iconic ones. DeNiro smoking a cigarette to “Sunshine of Your Love” in Goodfellas, in particular, comes to mind. The man is practically synonymous with rock and roll music in the movies. But one in particular, from his breakout film, strikes me as even better.

“Jumpin’ Jack Flash” isn’t the first song in Mean Streets, nor is it the first time you see DeNiro. But when an extremely young Bobby D walks through the bar in slow motion, bathed in red with this song playing, you know that this is a filmmaker/actor pair that means business. In one simple shot, you can see Scorsese’s style born.

1.”Jessie’s Girl,” Boogie Nights

Boogie Nights is perhaps cinema’s most flawed masterpiece. It’s long, excessive, shifts tone rapidly, and clearly apes Scorsese, but damn if it doesn’t come together for a good time.

This is especially true in the insane climactic scene, where broke, out-of-work pornstars Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg) and Reed Rothchild (John C. Reilly) find themselves involved in a drug trade between an anxious friend and an eccentric drug kingpin: a scene-stealing performance by Alfred Molina. Molina blasts music and sings along to it, boasting about his mixtape-making abilities while his “friend” Cosmo throws firecrackers in the background.

The scene is so absurd that two full classic rock songs get played while the tension builds. The way Molina sings along to “Sister Christian” by Night Ranger almost makes us want to put this one on the list. But the maniacal way he shouts out that he’s friends with “Ricky Springfield”, the long hold on Wahlberg’s stoned face as he slowly realizes the horrifying situation he’s in, and the eventual shootout to the song make it one of the wildest sequences in cinema, making this, for my money, the best use of classic rock in film.

-Christian Flynn

-Photo: Getty Images