You'll always remember the first time you got pinned to your seat with Kavinsky's haunting electro anthem "Nightcall" as Ryan Gosling's sullen getaway driver coasted the streets of Los Angeles in Drive, or the first time you melted into a puddle during the "Falling Slowly" duet between Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová in Once.
In a cruel coincidence, two of the musicians behind two of the most evocative musical moments in movies in the last 20 years have died. Vincent Belorgey (Kavinsky the stage name) and Hansard have both tragically passed on, leaving behind towering music careers, yes, but also essential contributions to film's greatest secret weapon.
Needle drops get thrown around a lot; auteurs like Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Sophia
Coppola and Wes Anderson effortlessly weave in well-known and obscure songs into movie moments you can't help but replay over and over again in your head. Music gives movies their wings; they can't soar as high without sonic intervention.
Drive's "Nightcall" needle drop during its opening credits plunges you into such a precious headspace, the song luring you in with a firm techno chill into the violent, hard-charging underworld where The Driver lives. It's a great song on its face, a slowed-down slow-club anthem that's more for icing the vibes than heating them up. Nicolas Winding Refn giving his best film such a lightning strike of an opening sets the stage so brilliantly; the song echoes like a distant dream in your memories, just like the movie does. It's a masterclass in establishing tone and tenor.
John Carney's Once is his best music-backed movie in a career of impressive music-backed movies, no moment in Carney's filmography as genuinely devastating as "Falling Slowly." Making people fall in love on camera is pretty common, rarely is it convincing. During "Falling Slowly," you actually see it happen in real time. Film stars Hansard and Irglová were together for a couple of years, and you can see the beautiful ache of real love in discovery flowing through their swooning performance in a music shop. It's an actual show-stopping number; one that grabs your heart and pulls it out of your body for a brief moment as the only thing that matters in your world is these two folks falling in love right in front of you. Hansard's performance in particular adds such a gentle warmth and vulnerability.
Hansard and Irglová rightfully won the Oscar for the song, giving that awards show one of its sweetest moments.
The beautiful thing about art is, even when the artist moves on to the great beyond, the art stays. These great songs will live eternal in these great films, standing watch to preserve the artist's memory. Perhaps you should give Drive and Once a spin this week; soak in these moments more than ever.
They remind you why film is the grand culmination of all the arts into something so vital, so human, so enduring.
This article originally appeared on For The Win: Glen Hansard and Kavinsky proved the power of music in movies
