We just got out of a screening of Todd Solondz’s “Life During Wartime” — perhaps not the return-to-form you’ve been hearing about, nor that much more mature, but a bit of a devilish delight nevertheless. It did just win a screenwriting award in Venice.
But anywho, Solondz evidently wrote a song called, “Life During Wartime,” that’s performed twice during the film. Once acoustically by Shirley Henderson (taking on the role of Joy, once played by Jane Adams in Solondz’s 1998 film, “Happiness”) and a second time in the credits, performed this time by Beck and his buddy Devendra Banhart. This version is a bit more upbeat (Banhart’s song “Heard Somebody Say” is also featured in the film) with some subtle electronic beats, but it’s still pretty much a low-key affair.
Will it hit on the soundtrack? Considering ‘Wartime,’ doesn’t even have U.S. distribution yet as a film, a soundtrack is probably pretty far off. Beck’s been a little soundtrack happy these days having written the music for Michael Cera’s Sex Bob-Omb in “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World,” and well, that’s it so far this year, but he definitely has an affinity for including songs in films by interesting filmmakers (“Moulin Rouge,” “A Life Less Ordinary,” “Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind,” and he also partially scored “Nacho Libre”). What’s in store next? The perennially busy songwriter always has something cooking and his current Record Club series is pretty great. The song isn’t out there yet, but here’s the other Banhart song featured in the film.