13. Planet Of The Apes
This is a very odd soundtrack and that’s why I love it. It kind of doesn’t fit the film, in an odd sort of way. Because of the themes you would expect the film to have this huge orchestral score and if it was made now it would have this horrible, overblown, everything and the kitchen sink feel, but it doesn’t. In fact it’s really sparse. It has weird instrumentation, it has weird time signatures on it. There isn’t a discernible, hummable theme and that actually suits the film. I think the music is an extension of the landscape, of the world in that film. I imagine if that landscape with the mountains could speak it would be that music. The music is disconcerting and it’s not the music that you would expect from a big budget film of that time and that’s great because if you put yourself in Charlton Heston’s shoes it reflects his experience. He doesn’t know where he is, he doesn’t know what the fuck’s going on, there are talking apes there – talking fucking apes man. His mind is blown. Your mind is blown. And the music adds to that. And I really love that score. Jerry Goldsmith did Logan’s Run. I almost chose that because that’s a mix of classical traditional soundtrack and electronics but I like the weirdness of Planet Of The Apes and it kind of shouldn’t work and I quite like that in a film and I like to be weirded out by music sometimes.
