Anyone have an example of awkward or unintentionally funny score? For me the one that comes to mind is The Untouchables (Morricone), I found myself amused by this scene below. Okay, you got string tremolos to build up tension, but after the first gunshot is fired instead of switching to something more exciting, it's .... more string tremolos, accompanying baby stroller all the way down the stairs! (It was nominated for Oscar, too
)
How in your view should this have been scored, to make this classic set piece—one of De Palma's two most talked about, and which is studied in film schools—not laughable?
The implied theme throughout the movie is the intrusion of psychopathic barbarity upon the innocence of family and child. This is established in the second scene of the film immediately after Capone's prologue.
After the child in that second scene is killed by Nitti's bomb, her mother intensifies Ness's motivation in her short meeting with him. It's no longer about him merely doing his job; it's personal.
Then at regular intervals throughout the film, the contrast and conflict between innocence and violence is reinforced—particularly by using Ness's own family—ultimately reaching its apex in this scene where Ness is simultaneously trying to (1) save the lone woman's child, (2) not get killed himself, (2) and kill the mobsters so he can do nos. 1 and 2 plus which arrest the account.
So, the set piece summarizes the theme perfectly.
Aping the action on screen is only one legitimate way to score a scene. Sometimes it's the obvious and best way to go, and sometimes it's the obvious
worse way to go.
The gunshots and foley are the literal element, a rhythmic counterpoint under which the tremolos and interspersed low brass clusters provide suspense and danger, respectively.
As a matter of interest, the
baby-in-the-stroller-going-downstairs device was famously De Palma's homage to Eisenstein's Odessa Steps sequence:
And for laughs, there is this homage to De Palma's homage: