Magnolia (film) - Music and Soundtracks

Music and Soundtracks

Anderson met Aimee Mann in 1996 when he asked her husband, Michael Penn, to write songs for his film, Hard Eight. Mann had songs on soundtracks before but never "utilized in such an integral way" she said in an interview. She gave Anderson rough mixes of songs and found that they both wrote about the same kinds of characters. He encouraged her to write songs for the film by sending her a copy of the script.

Two songs were written expressly for the film: "You Do," which was based on a character later cut from the film, and "Save Me," which closes the film; the latter was nominated in the 2000 Academy Awards and Golden Globes and in the 2001 Grammys. Most of the remaining seven Mann songs were demos and works in progress; "Wise Up," which is at the center of a sequence in which all of the characters sing the song, was originally written for the 1996 film Jerry Maguire. At the time Mann's record label had refused to release her songs on an album. The song that plays at the opening of the film is Mann's cover of "One" by Harry Nilsson. Mann's track "Momentum" is used as the loud playing music in Claudia's apartment scene when Officer Jim arrives and was also featured in the trailer for the film.

Anderson produced a music video for "Save Me" that featured Mann in the background of what appeared to be scenes from the film, singing to characters. Unlike in many such music videos, there was no digital manipulation involved; the video was shot at the end of filming days with Mann and actors who were asked to stay in place. The video, which contains exactly seven cuts, won the Best Editing award at the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards and was nominated for Best Music Video from a Film.

The soundtrack album, released in December 1999 on Reprise Records, features the Mann songs, as well as a section of Jon Brion's score and tracks by Supertramp and Gabrielle that were used in the film. Reprise released a full score album in March 2000.

The film also features the famous Habanera from the opera Carmen and the opening from Richard Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra, the latter of which plays over the deathbed of Earl Partridge and introduces his son Frank Mackey on stage.