The Last of the Mohicans

"Music is life itself." ~ Louis Armstrong

Tonight, I am writing not of a book, and not entirely of a movie.  I'm once again writing about music.  

I can't remember the first time the music from a movie caught my attention.  Even as a very young child, if you liked a movie, you wanted the record album.  There were no video tape recorders yet (neither Betamax or VCRs), no DVDs, no streaming, not even really cassettes.  There were no repeats.  If you wanted to see a movie again, you generally had to wait until it came on network television.  If you wanted to listen to the music from a movie, you played the record album (and generally again and again).

I remember seeing Jaws when I was in 4th grade, which was probably too young to see something so scary, but I saw it, and in a classic "Cinerama" theater.  Jaws wasn't in Cinerama, but the theater used to play Cinerama movies.  Not only did the screen curve in a way I have never seen duplicated in any "modern" theater, but the speaker system was unparalleled.  I think the first movie I ever saw in the old Cooper Theater was Krakatoa, and I must have been 4 or 5 years old.  I don't remember the music.  I did notice the music in Jaws, but it was too scary to listen to a soundtrack.

When the music from a movie really captures your attention, it stays with you forever.  So in the old days, you lost count of how many times you played the record album.  I did this with Star Wars as a teen (also unparalleled in The Cooper Theater, which sadly no longer exists).  It didn't need to be Cinerama, either.  We stood in line multiple times, arriving early for the first morning showing to avoid the heat.  My favorite seat (which is why I stood in line so long) was in between a set of speakers and close enough to experience the curve of the screen.

On one of my recent "music nights", though it's unforgettable to me and thus not really "discoverable", I discovered a video with the music from The Last of the Mohicans, a haunting, poignant movie score, hinting longingly of untrammeled, disappearing beauty.  

I couldn't really tell you how much the story influences the power of the music.  Or does the power of the music influence the story.  Or both?