Oh those soundtracks: favorite soundtrack challenge

Singing Songs of Love

Listening to Zodiac

As I keep thinking about Christopher Robin and his Riff/Songstories challenge on soundtracks, I realize that a soundtrack that has haunted me ever since I first saw the film is David Fincher and David Shire’s collaborative playlist for the 2007 film, Zodiac. It never occurred to me to buy this album since I already had most of the songs in other forms.

Fincher is certainly prolific and is, of course, getting all sorts of attention from the Academy this year for his fairly incredible Mank. I don’t want to get lost in that film, and having seen it only once but being impressed by what I saw, I can’t do it justice. Nor do I remember its soundtrack (Music by Trent Reznor), partly because I was too riveted by all the homages to Mr. Kane.

Besides, it’s Zodiac I can’t and likely won’t ever quit seeing in all its strange and strangely understated obsessive glory. If you haven’t seen the film lately or ever, let me just say that you should beware of anyone who drives a Karmann Ghia.

Standing on the wet-streeted corner of Washington and Cherry in San Francisco, what a casual viewer might observe is nothing so extraordinary for a big city. Out there, however, we know anything could happen, and one of the most numbing facts about the film and the “Zodiac” killer-case is that Zodiac likely killed five people. And in the time he went missing or dormant, 3000 murders occurred in the city, of which most people were unaware or unconcerned.

I’m not sure, even, how concerned most of the city’s dwellers were concerned about this serial killer either. I’ve tried reading Robert Graysmith’s book — he’s the obsessive character played by Jake Gyllenhaal who basically proves “who done it” — and after getting through 100 pages or so, I understood better why Graysmith’s main gig was as a political cartoonist.

I know that many of us are fascinated by serial killers, and isn’t there an entire network devoted to such things?

I also love the films-within-films-post-modern look at true characters from Zodiac — including the reporters and police investigators — going to see the premiere of a film about the Zodiac killer (Dirty Harry, in which the killer is called “Scorpio.” Homicide detective Dave Toschi is referred to as “Bullitt,” too, so enjoy the fun!). We watch a narrative film about real-life events in which characters in that film watch themselves be fictionalized in another film about the events that have just transpired and for which there are no answers, all the while, Armistead Maupin is also writing about all of this, and so it’s no wonder we have difficulty deciphering the truth of a “date that just didn’t end.”

But back to the soundtrack. It includes some real gems, like Santana’s “Soul Sacrifice,” which underscores a very long tracking shot near the film’s beginning, and “Bernadette,” which you have to strain to get at some point in a bar or on SF Chronicle writer Paul Avery’s houseboat. Then, there’s Lynn Anderson’s “Rose Garden (I Never promised you a)” which finds us on a lonely road, if by “us” I mean a young woman, her female child, and the Zodiac who offers his unneeded assistance.

But more than anything else, of course (of course, it had to be) is Donavan’s “Hurdy Gurdy Man.” I’ve said often that I find it a very fine art: selecting just the right song to send a message for your film and to all those who maybe aren’t already mesmerized by the screen’s images. So listen here:

It’s not just the lyrics, though they make me want to hug my dog and check him for mysteries:

“Histories of ages past Unenlightened shadows cast Down through all eternity The crying of humanity…”

Listen to the lead guitar and the echoing of Donavan’s voice. Can you tell what’s happening in the song, and do you know where in the film the song is placed?

I won’t spoil it, but watch the film, at least to this point (but why would you stop there?), and tell me that you’ll never park your car again on a lonely nature’s point.

So though I don’t own the soundtrack, I do own the film. I can’t help it.

I had to look it/him right in the eye, so I would know.

Enjoy.

Thanks again, Christopher for the prompt, and here’s a link to it via another offering of mine on Songstories:

How about yours: Noah Levy, Samantha Drobac, Jessica Lee McMillan, Kathryn Dillon, Rob Janicke, Normal Earthling, Harry Male, Mike Marolla, Nia Simone McLeod, Kevin Alexander, Steven Hale, MDSHall, and Gary Chapin.