Film music for freezing cold?
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Temperatures in Oslo have hovered well below zero for a while now, and will continue to do so. -5 to -10 C, plenty of snow, only the fattest jackets will suffice if you venture outdoors.
So wanted to do a companion piece to the Film music for sweltering heat? thread.
I have some picks of my own, but I open the floor to suggestions first.
Since we have some heavy snow with some medium storm here today as well, the most obvious ones:
– Vaughn Williams SCOTT OF THE ANTARTIC
– Vangelis ANTARCTICA
– Bruce Smeaton ICEMAN
– ICE AGE scores
– Bruce Broughton ICE PIRATES
– Marvin Hamlisch ICE CASTLES
– Mychael Danna THE ICE STORM
– Murray Gold DOCTOR WHO – THE SNOWMENAnd a special probably less known Norwegian mention I just had to think of somehow ;-):
– Magnus Beite COLD PREY (FRIT VILT) (not released I think)We could list some CHristmas scores 😉
Nice selections! Did you just do a search for ‘ice’ in your digital collection? 😉
Just to check if I remember the titles correctly or if I missed any 😉
Missed some more more or less obvious ones;-)
– Hans Zimmer SMILLA’S SENSE FOR SNOW
– Morrione THE RED TENT (no ice in the title ;-))
– Legrand ICE STATION ZEBRA
– Carpenter/Morrione/Tiomkin THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLDMorricone’s The Red tent would be my go-to score if I really wanted to reflect the freezing temperatures we’re told to expect this weekend.
When the future Mrs TG and I first lived together in a little flat, we rented the video of Die Hard 2 from Blockbuster to watch during a particularly cold snap. Unfortunately our boiler chose that weekend to pack up, so we watched the shenanigans unfold at a snowy airport with the climatic equivalent of sensurround.
Things like that they tried cinema for ages! Smell etc such. We got a new cinema here that has “shaking seats” for action sequences as an extra (expensive and to me really expandable) gimmick now.
I was under the impression that TG experienced the real deal, in a real airport, similarly to the plot of DIE HARD 2. But yes, those 4DX cinemas are annyoing. I’ve seen one film in that format, KONG: SKULL ISLAND, and that was enough for me, between the jittery seats, water splashes, wind in your ears and what-have-you. Never again. It’s like an amusement park attraction that isn’t quite an attraction.
I wouldn’t be surprised if freezing cold is what they add next. Seriously, I’d rather just go outside.
By the way, Karasjok in the north of Norway measured -41 C today. -41! Crazy. My mother had her teenage years in Karasjok, and says she remembers some winters with temperatures close to -50 C, when they had to stay home from school. Well duh! Obviously.
There was an amusing news report about a café in Karasjok having to stay closed today. They’re usually open to 3 at night. They were worried that there were not enough taxis home for people, and that some would stumble home inebriated and basically die.
For the avoidance of doubt, Die Hard 2’s shenanigans take place at a snowy airport; we were watching on a sofa under a duvet in a freezing flat. Things like that bring you together – we were married later that year. In the Summer.
Ah, OK. I misunderstood. I read it as fleeing from a broken boiler, and experiencing a real-life blizzard whilst in transit at an airport. Your version, however, sounds cozier.
We could list some CHristmas scores 😉
Yes, but let’s keep them out it. That’s a separate topic, really.
Alan Williams has done a lot of documentaries, set in all types of climates. His best remains AMAZON, but he also has a good one called CONQUERING THE ARCTIC TUNDRA (2001) that is filled with chords connoting vast, open, chilly spaces. In a similar vein is Alex Heffes’ THE ARCTIC: OUR LAST GREAT WILDERNESS (2021).
I would assume Morricone’s IL GRANDE SILENCIO would be an alternative go-to for his chilly winter sounds, maybe even Tarantino’s THE HATEFUL EIGHT? Of course, the chilliest part of THE HATEFUL EIGHT is not the opening wagon theme, but the use of THE THING for that outdoors toilet/blizzard scene. For some reason, I consider these more wintery than THE RED TENT, but maybe that’s because I only listen to the beautiful first part of that album, and not the scatching dissonance of that last mammoth track.
I was clearly making fun regarding Christmas scores 😉
I would assume Morricone’s IL GRANDE SILENCIO would be an alternative go-to for his chilly winter sounds, maybe even Tarantino’s THE HATEFUL EIGHT?
Indeed, very fitting ones!
The question is are we talking about cold feeling or sounding music or films that are just set in the cold. Not necessarily the same I think.
A very cold and icy sounding score is Goldsmith’s COMA for example.The question is are we talking about cold feeling or sounding music or films that are just set in the cold. Not necessarily the same I think.
A very cold and icy sounding score is Goldsmith’s COMA for example.Both could work.
Massive amounts of snow in the last few days are thawing today — it’s like a watery Pompeii i Oslo as rivers of melt water fill the streets. But soon, it’s back to freezing again.
One would think a score like WHITE FANG (both the Poledouris and Zimmer) capture freezing cold, but they’re more adventurous. Same with Broughton’s GLORY & HONOR. And a score like Beck’s FROZEN – despite its name – is more “cozy wintery” than freezing cold.
Biosphere’s INSOMNIA (the original Norwegian film that Chris Nolan based his film on) has a very chilly, electronic, abstract soundscape, for the far North.
Some of Eduard Artemiev’s scores for Andrei Tarkovsky have a very chilling effect. Especially, perhaps, STALKER. The uneasy synths.
Enya’s AND WINTER CAME, but that’s not a score.
Gabriel Yared’s MAP OF THE HUMAN HEART (1992) deserves a mention. They did an orchestral rearrangement of that for the WSA album, but it’s the original – with the synths alongside the orchestra and organ and what-have-you – that packs a chilly punch.
(by the way, it’s still minus degrees in Oslo, and expected to last for a while yet).
While at daytime we are around 0 degrees – we even got a bit snow again last week after we had unexpected 15+ cm two weeks ago – we have -2 to -5 at night currently and it will also last.
Temperatures keep holding at considerable zero degrees up here.
Norwegian legends Geir Bøhren & Bent Åserud have done some that would qualify, like IS-SLOTTET (ICE CASTLE) from 1988, but also the socalled helicopter films of the 80s – THE DIVE, AFTER RUBICON and ORION’S BELT with loads of chilly textures.
Temperatures have risen slightly in the last couple of days, but still plenty of snow and ice around. And still below zero.
A shout-out to George Fenton’s FROZEN PLANET from 2013, about the arctic and antarctic – one of his many great nature documentary scores.
We left the ice cold temperatures and had around 5-7 degrees today. Now it’s raining and almost all snow is gone already. Probably that was it for this winter but we had more snow than the last years.
Slush weather now, around 0 C, perhaps slightly above. I hate it.
But I’m sure the freezing temperatures will return soon. So what else do we have?
Harold Kloser’s THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW is more anthemic/downbeat/muscular than connoting freezing cold, even though that is what the film is about. Howard Blake’s THE SNOWMAN is too cozy.
I think I’ll go for James Horner’s IN THE NAME OF THE ROSE next. Although it takes place during winter in medieval times, that’s not the main focus. Yet the chilling electronic textures still connote freezing cold more than the story does.
Winter seems to be thawing now, even up here in the Arctic. Pretty spring-like today, and no snow here downtown, some up in the slopes surrounding Oslo. Of course, I know March is a fickle month — winter can come back any moment. But still time for a few freezing scores to score our season.
Johan Söderqvist is a master at chilly landscapes. LET THE RIGHT ONE IN is a good example, but an even better example, IMO, is KING OF DEVIL’S ISLAND (2010). Those string/cello fluctuations, gorgeous. It’s all very blue and bleak and frosty. (I actually did an audio commentary/Q&A for the Caldera CD release of this, as a bonus track).
The late, legendary synth wizard Klaus Schulze wrote the score for a Norwegian film in 1985, called HAVLANDET – a rural drama set to the North of Norway during the late 1800s. A bone-chillingly gorgeous score that captures freezing cold very well on several occasions. Sadly, it has not had a soundtrack release, but almost half an hour was released in a Schulze box set some years ago. And now it’s all up on YouTube, for anyone interested:
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