Napoleonic Trailer Music

​Photo by Elimende Inagella on Unsplash

The recent announcement of the Napoleon movie has created a stir of excitement among history nerds everywhere, myself included. However, upon watching the trailer, I noticed something that has been bugging me about many trailers recently: the music. For those who are not aware, the composer that writes a film's score is usually not the same composer that writes for the trailers. This makes sense as the composer for the film has the important job of scoring the film first and foremost. However, there is one worrying trend that has been emerging from this process, and I’ll be discussing it below.
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The Trailer

It’s a pretty cool trailer right? Costumes look amazing, the colors chosen are wonderfully satisfying and fitting. Why a 48 year-old Joaquin Phoenix is playing a 24 year-old Napoleon is beyond me, but who am I to judge? Oh right, I’m here to judge (but maybe we’ll stick to the music). The set and material appear to be painstakingly researched to ensure the visuals are as historically accurate as possible. So, can someone tell me why “The National Anthem” by Radiohead is playing in the background? What does this have to do with the film we’re supposed to be excited about? I’m almost certain Radiohead didn’t time-travel to assist in the Siege of Toulon.

Maybe I’m weird… No,  I’m definitely weird, but the current trend of sticking any old song into trailer music really just breaks the immersion for me. If it's out of the question to use something written for the film, and it needs to be something pre-written, why not some music from the time period? A little Beethoven? I’ll explain.
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Beethoven

Personally, I’d be more in favor of something written for the film, maybe a reference to a theme from the original score. Barring that, I think including something at least historically relevant would be better than Radiohead. Beethoven famously composed his third symphony in honor of the brilliant general, later defacing its title and removing its association after Napoleon crowned himself emperor of France, breaking Beethoven’s anti-monarchical heart. Using Eroica or some other music from the period for this trailer would at least better set the scene. It could even be used to mirror Napoleon's progression through history.
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Arguments for Contemporary Pop

I realize the reason why Radiohead was used in this trailer, and why films tend to do this. They want to grab and maintain a prospective audience member’s attention with a hint of familiarity. Using a recognizable pop tune can achieve that quickly and easily. I want to clarify that I’m not completely opposed to using pre-written music in trailers. I think there is merit to using popular music from the time to set a scene or help put audiences in the correct mindset. One good example of this would be the trailer for the Fear Street series, which intentionally references the time period as an important setting and plot point. In this case briefly quoting “I Will Survive”.

​The song use is done in reference to the fact that each movie follows a different time period. The music for the trailer cleverly underscores the changes between time setting for each movie, working to make the trailer even more digestible. The crucial step that the Napoleon trailer was missing was the relevance of the music to the material.
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Arguments for Using the Score

​This trailer for the first Harry Potter movie is a great example of utilizing musical themes which will appear in the film. If the composer of the trailer were to have access to elements of the score for the film (which may be difficult due to the fact that the score is one of the last elements added to the film) that would work. Even fragments of themes being included in trailers could serve as subconscious preppers for the score of the film, creating that sense of familiarity in the movie theater rather than on YouTube, Facebook, or God forbid… Twitter, I mean “X”, I mean Twitter.

Granted, this example is quite dated, but the inclusion of thematic material introduced audiences' ears to the musical world of the film, and made it more impactful when they heard it as they watched. Now just watch the trailer again, but imagine an epic arrangement of an NSYNC tune mixed in…

I can’t be the only one clawing at my skin right now. 

All joking aside, the reference to a John Williams score actually brings up another aspect to consider. There's a worrying trend (in my opinion) of film scores moving away from a thematically focused approach towards a more effect-based/sound design emphasis. This could further make the trailer composer’s life difficult, but I’ll likely discuss it in a future blog post as it’s a whole topic on its own.​
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Summary

​I don’t mean to harp on this Napoleon movie, it looks promising and I’ll look forward to giving it a watch either way, but it was one of the most recent films that has followed this annoying habit. Am I the only one bothered by this? I would love to hear from you if you have any thoughts or potential solutions! Until next time, thank you for reading.