“Gloria” by Umberto Tozzi from “The Wolf Of Wall Street”
2013 saw Tozzi’s Italian disco semi-classic “Gloria” having a moment —the recording memorably scored and shared a title with Sebastián Lelio’s excellent Chilean coming-of-middle-age drama and proved one of the most memorable cuts in Scorsese’s most recent picture. The music kicks in as Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) and gang come close to dying after their yacht is caught in a storm: it turns out it’s being used diagetically, as they’re rescued by the Italian authorities and proceed to party hard with the sailors. It perfectly doubles as the grand disco excess of almost dying on a yacht, and, through its religion-evoking title, as the “sign of God” that Belfort (very briefly) takes his survival to be.
“Whiter Shade Of Pale” by Procol Harum from “Life Lessons”
Scorsese’s segment of “New York Stories” (a triptych with Francis Ford Coppola and Woody Allen) is a loose version of Dostoevsky’s “The Gambler” with Nick Nolte as a blocked painter living with his ex-girlfriend, and “Whiter Shade Of Pale,” the trademark hit by early prog-rockers Procol Harum, is its recurring theme. Most effectively used in the opening andthe loosely psychedelic feel neatly matching the abstraction of Nolte’s art and his general creative process, the track (and one other Harum cut) also recurs throughout the movie, and each time is a lovely, lonely evocation of its central character’s state of mind.
“Paddy’s Lamentation” by Linda Thompson from “Gangs Of New York”
Even Scorsese’s period pics utilize music in evocative ways, and along with Robertson he curated a collection of wonderful folk music (U2 track aside) for ‘Gangs.’ The undoubted highlight of the film comes with Linda Thompson’s recording of Irish-American folk song “Paddy’s Lamentation” over a breathtaking tracking shot following immigrants coming off the boat, being immediately press-ganged into the Union army, and being put straight on another boat to Tennessee just as coffins are taken off it. The film’s not what it could have been, but in this moment it bespeaks its potential.
“Jump Into the Fire” by Harry Nilsson from “Goodfellas”
Scorsese own rule about only using music that would have been available during the film’s period is the reason he couldn’t go with his reported first choice for the climax to the iconic extended cocaine paranoia/helicopter scene, which was the Stones‘ “She Was Hot.” So in a move that validates that rule entirely, he chose this Harry Nilsson track instead, which is less jaunty than nervy, with its shifting beats, almost animalistic shrieks and most of all its ominous opening which sounds quite a bit like the blades of the chopper hovering over Henry Hill’s sweaty, paranoid head [only an edited version available online, sorry].
“Please Mr Postman” by The Marvelettes from “Mean Streets”
Reprising the use of candy-colored 1960s girl-group pop in his breakout film, but counterpointing it here even more thoroughly with images of violence and youthful masculine machismo, the Marvelette’s debut confection seems an unlikely choice to score one of the best, rawest fight scenes of Scorsese’s (or any) career. But while “Mean Streets” is neither a funny nor a joyous film, here as elsewhere, the soundtrack adds an entire layer of ironic counterpoint to the inexorable downward spiral of the narrative, punctuating the self-loathing with moments of jolting energy as gleefully as Johnny Boy karate-kicking the air from that pool table.
