Music has always played an important part in film. Before even the actors could be heard, an earnest pianist was playing his heart out to lend many emotions to the scenes on screen. Today music still plays that emotional role but classical music in particular has expanded its uses hugely. It’s fair to say that most people will know about the famous collaborations such as Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann, or Steven Spielberg and John Williams for original scores and even non-fans of classical music will still recognise Wagner from Apocalypse Now or Rachmaninov in Brief Encounter where the music became so much part of the film that it’s almost a character itself.

Who could separate Russell Crowe’s Gladiator from the ferocious Hans Zimmer score? And who doesn’t immediately think of Clint Eastwood when they hear those desert tones from Ennio Morricone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly? Newly composed or not, classical music enhances a film in all aspects and a recent survey for a music magazine suggested that the top ten favourite classical soundtracks were an equal mixture of both.

Cinematic Baddies and Classical Music

While recently watching The Godfather Trilogy, I spent most of the time praising the fantastic original score by Nino Rota, until the final scene at the end of the third film really caught my ear. What else could be suitably epic to finish this trilogy than a night at the opera? Cavalleria Rusticana (by Mascagni) plays out to Al Pacino et al with its tragic scenes seeming all too similar to what is going on in Don Corleone’s life. Surely only the emotion and vastness of opera could do justice to Francis Ford Coppola’s epic masterpiece? The last scene when his daughter is dead on the steps, where the music (the Intermezzo) takes over completely and we just watch Don Corleone’s silent scream is perfect.

Pietro Mascagni adds dramatic depth in The Godfather

But it also got me thinking, why do gangsters love opera? Is it the Italian connection; it is part of their culture? Or is it the only kind of music that can really match the glamour and tragedy of these people? But then, bad guys and psychotic murderers always listen to classical music, and when I thought about it, the examples came hard and fast. Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, Kevin Spacey in Superman, Kurt Jurgens in The Spy Who Loved Me and practically all the Die Hard baddies to name but a few. So why is it that classical music’s most famous role is that of the villain?

Let’s face it, to be an evil genius, you do need to have a decent education and a high level of intelligence, otherwise you’ve no chance of taking over the world. So perhaps you went to a fairly posh school where you were exposed to a lot of classical music, and you just grew to love it at a young age. Or maybe you’re well-educated; Hannibal Lecter was a doctor after all.  There is an element of snobbery to these bad guys; they’re slightly aristocratic, not your average Joe. It would make them too accessible if they sat around listening to U2 and I don’t know anyone who would be scared if Gary Oldman (in Leon) shouted ‘I love Kylie’ instead of Mozart. Perhaps there is nothing that can quite match the depth and complexity of classical music in the pop world and the director wants his villain to be taken seriously; a force to be reckoned with.

In Léon, Gary Oldman’s Norman Stansfield is a Mozart fan…

But then what about the just plain crazy villains? Why does Malcolm Mc Dowell (in A Clockwork Orange) insist on playing Beethoven while he beats people to death? This is one of the most sinister scenes in film history and the music is no small contributor (though strangely it is not a particularly sinister piece of music). Similarly in Fatal Attraction, Glenn Close is listening to Madame Butterfly whilst hatching her revenge on Michael Douglas and his family. Is it the stereotype that opera is for the elite, that ‘normal’ people don’t listen to classical music, so this somehow enhances the fact that the villain is the outsider and we the ‘normal’ viewers are not to side with them? Or is it just the simple answer of dramatic impact.

Classical music can be all things, all emotions almost at once. It’s unpredictable, uncontrollable and delicate. It can draw you in to hear the softest violin solo or blast you with its full symphonic force. The villain himself is the very embodiment of classical music; calm as a meadow and wild as a storm. Al Capone (who is arguably both a gangster and psychotic) goes to see Leoncavallo’s I Pagliacci in The Untouchables, and the fact it draws a tear from his eye makes him human, cultured and even more frightening than before.

The Untouchables go to the Opera