(that last one's my favourite)
This type of idea was built upon by one Max Winkler who realised that classical music included such an abundance of styles that, if he were to submit them to a Becce style categorisation, then he would have a virtually inexhaustible library of incidental film music at his fingertips. Paul Glick, the director of Universal at the time, thought this was a great idea and hired Winkler to watch all the films Universal distributed and then provide the theatres with catalogue of classical extracts and relevant instructions (not a bad job!).
These days over-familiar classical pieces are left for the aftershave and car adverts and original compositions are more commonly used. Dip into the soundtrack section of your local HMV and you'll see track after track of bloated-orchestral pieces all unimaginatively named after the scene they accompany in the film: 'Battling with the Aliens', 'The Reunion' and the classic…'Main Theme (revisited)'. However, in our post-Star Wars age of cross marketing, incidental music can no longer be called a soundtrack.
Today major films are preceded by the release of at least one cash-in tune by a major recording artist which is inevitably followed up with a whole 'soundtrack album' released in the slipstream of the film's marketing hype. However, what part this 'soundtrack' plays in the actual film (as opposed to the media perception of the film) is dubious. Usually the main 'theme' (the major single that reaches around number 3 or 4) will play over the closing credits and, as this is the part at which most people are groping round in the dark looking for their coats, the emotional impact is minimal. The rest of this type of soundtrack album consists either of music 'inspired by the film' (surely one of the most transparent marketing strategies in living memory and also a gross misuse of the word 'inspired'), or a collection of recent 'chart hits', seconds of which are shoved awkwardly into the film to justify their inclusion.
Meanwhile the 'real' soundtrack i.e. the incidental music is demoted to the background both in the film it has been commissioned for and the cultural arena in which it fights for its critical status. But it doesn't have to be that way.
One recent film that managed to bypass the pull of the marketing executives and succeeded in using its soundtrack to it's full potential was Darren Aronofsky's Pi. Working with Clint Boon (Pop Will Eat Itself) Aronofsky managed to create an effecting and disturbing soundscape to his picture which not only complimented, but also increased, the sense of paranoia and ultra-modernity that it set out to express. Rather than tacking on a bunch of pre-fabricated, unit shifting 'singles' to his project, Aronofsky conspired with contemporary composers and producers to make the soundtrack an integral part of the film and, because he did so, the soundtrack sold like Band-Aids at a leper conference.
Why doesn't this happen more? Think back to those films you've seen over the past year or so. Can you remember the music? Can you imagine how much more enjoyable the whole experience would have been if you'd come out of the cinema not knowing which to buy the first: the video or the CD?
I personally would love to have seen Bruce Willis' contemporary 'superhero' walking through the rainy, darkened streets of Philadelphia to the moody strains of a Geoff Barrow or David Holmes composition as opposed to a chorus of generic, instantly-forgotten, strings called things like 'School Nurse' and 'Carrying Audrey'…surely I can't be alone in that wish?