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Most of us have a favorite tune that we claim as `our song' because of its sentimental associations with a romantic relationship, a time period, or a particularly meaningful event in our lives. These personal anthems of the heart are, of course, usually pop tunes whose associations are also shared by large segments of the general populace. It's fairly easy, then, for filmmakers to rely on the resonance of such songs to transport viewers back emotionally to another era, whether it's the "Summer of Love" or "The Summer of Sam." The person responsible for providing this sort of sonic set decoration is the film's music supervisor, someone like Bonnie Greenberg, for example, who, when she wants us to feel the passage of time in Dead Presidents, a film set during the Vietnam War, may move from Stevie Wonder's "I Was Made to Love Her" (1967) to the O'Jays' "Love Train" (1973).
As Alex Steyermark, who has worked with Spike Lee (Summer of Sam, Bamboozled) and Ang Lee (The Ice Storm, Ride with the Devil), points out, more than just a recollection of a person or an event, a carefully chosen song can evoke a sense memory of a bygone era, one which bypasses the conscious mind in the same way the smell of freshly-cut grass can in a more complete and immediate way return us to a time in our youth. "That is why Spike and I got the original analog master tapes for songs in Crooklyn," Steyermark explains, "because we found you even remember the hiss of the tape. Once you are there mentally, the score then further clarifies the dramatic elements of the story."
Movies can also create their own specific, very powerful, and enduring associations. Whether you saw Casablanca in 1942 or 1992, when you hear "As Time Goes By," along with a mood of melancholy, a picture of Bogie and Bergman, and the words "Play it again, Sam," come floating up unbidden from your unconsciousness. Years from now, anyone who saw Titanic and hears Celine Dion singing "My Heart Will Go On," will likely picture Leonardo Di Caprio slipping into the icy North Atlantic.
In the case of the classic movie Laura (1944), it was a song created from composer David...