10 Things to Know about Songs for Romantic Films

by Dr. Paul Merkley

In this Music Appreciation 101 Blog series, we dive into the music in Romantic Films. Here are 10 things about them which you may find worthwhile to know:

1. Until recently (and even now) actors were expected to sing and dance. In fact one term for a male actor was a 'song and dance man.' Those requirements show up even today in projects such as 'Chicago' and 'Moulin Rouge,' to name just two.

2. There is a long list of films featuring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and one of the first was 'Shall We Dance?'

3. Always in these films there is some obstacle to the two of them getting together, or back together, but the music always tells us that it will turn out well, and it does.

4. Some of the actors developed a way of speaking some of the lines rather than singing them, e.g. Rex Harrison, Richard Harris. But they did this for the purpose of the scene. Richard Harris does speak some of the musical lines in Camelot, but he sings 'How to Handle a Woman' with a beautiful voice in the same film.

5. Oh, what's the answer to that enigma? It's the wizard Merlin's answer: "Love her!"

6. Director Franco Zefirelli is the greatest film interpreter of Shakespeare's romantic comedies, and his preferred composer was the very talented Nino Rota.

7. Rota's song 'What is a Youth?' featured in Romeo and Juliet, uses words by Eugene Walter, drawing on Twelfth Night and The Merchant of Venice. The scene, with the two lovers eyeing each other and finally touching in a crowd, is mesmerizing with Rota's beautiful song.

8. And there is also clever underscore, music written to accompany action, to emphasize or underscore the feelings. Rota's music accompanying the farsical scenes in The Taming of the Shrew are good examples.

9. Following the long tradition of romantic films, many songs even today are in ia dance form. For Moulin Rouge, 2001, Sting wrote 'El Tango de Roxanne,' a powerful, expressive number. Sting's original idea was to make it a bossanova, but he changed it to the extraordinary tango in the final version.

10. Ewan McGregor sings many songs in that film, a compilation of well known romantic songs from different eras. Perhaps the most evocative is his serenade to Nicole Kidman's character Elton John's 'Your Song.' Perhaps her most memorable number is 'Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend.'

Dr. Paul Merkley is the co-founder of Seniors Junction and a retired professor of musicology from the University of Ottawa. He has a PhD in Musicology from Harvard University and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.