搬运自：微信公众号【评论搬一堆】（在原文基础上添加了英语原文与排版调整）

原文链接：https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/the-50-best-movie-scores-of-all-time/?page=1

翻译：ConigliaFolle，Will Lin

校正：Ryan-Chopin，Lynn Liu，Emma.Z

推送：Lynn Liu

10.  Halloween  《万圣节》1978

John Carpenter, the Renaissance man of horror, didn’t just help pioneer the slasher film genre with Halloween, he also created one of its most iconic scores. Bernard Herrmann’s climactic, stabbing strings for Psycho may have set the tone for scary film composition, but Carpenter’s music chases the listener with the sense of a never-ending nightmare—fitting for its seemingly invincible, purely evil villain, Michael Myers, who’s still stalking and murdering today. It’s the kind of score that confirms that you’re not just being paranoid—there really is someone lurking behind you in the shadows. This creeping dread can be found throughout the film, but it’s in the frequently-sampled main theme that fear is most potent, and then it’s multiplied as the sparse melody becomes layered with more piercing synths. Grab a kitchen knife and run. –Kristen Yoonsoo Kim

John Carpenter，作为恐怖电影的开山鼻祖，他不仅仅用《月光光心慌慌》开创了血腥恐怖电影的历史先河，还制作出了最具代表性的配乐之一。Bernard Herrmann为《惊魂记》所创作的高潮的、尖利的弦乐也许为恐怖电影音乐的创作奠定了基调，但是Carpenter的音乐给听者一种噩梦永无止境之感——与看起来不可战胜的纯粹恶棍Michael Myers十分配合，他时至今日还在追踪杀戮。这种配乐告诉你你不仅仅是在妄想状态里——是真的有什么东西在你身后的影子里攒动。这种诡异的恐怖气氛在电影中随处可见，但是时常作为采样的主题中的恐惧是最为明显的，当音符稀疏的旋律伴随着尖刻的合成器时，这种恐怖会成倍增加。拎上一把菜刀就跑吧。

—— Kristen Yoonsoo Kim

9.    Shaft   《黑街神探》 1971

Few films are as inextricably linked to their music as Gordon Parks’ Shaft is to Isaac Hayes’ compositions. “Theme From Shaft” is so woven into the fabric of pop culture that it might invite more parody than reverence now, but nearly 50 years ago, it revolutionized how music could be used in film. Before Shaft, soundtracks were collections of popular songs, while scores were designed to accompany action and dial up drama. Hayes’ take on Shaft blended the two approaches, creating an experience that worked in theaters and also on radio and record players—and in the process, topped the charts.

很少有电影能像Gordon Parks的《黑街神探》与Isaac Hayes的作品那样，其功劳与电影中的音乐密不可分。“Theme From Shaft”深深地与流行文化交织在一起，所以现在这首曲子都有许多拙劣的翻版，缺少对它的致敬。但大约50年前，它彻底改变了音乐在电影中的应用方式。在《黑街神探》之前，原声是流行歌曲的集合，而配乐是为了配合动作和推动剧情发展而设计的。Hayes在《黑街神探》中融合了这两种方式，创造了一种在影院、电台和电唱机里都能完美享受的体验，并在此过程中荣登排行榜榜首。

Though Shaft was Hayes’ first film score, he was uniquely equipped for the task. A multi-instrumentalist, producer, arranger, vocalist, and songwriter, he was one of the architects of the funk and R&B sound of Stax Records, and knew how to create something massive from the ground up. When tasked with dramatizing Shaft’s scenes, he enlisted his home team—the Bar-Kays, the Isaac Hayes Movement, and the Memphis Strings & Horns—and drew from a palette of styles that told the story of where black music was and where it was going. Jazz, R&B, rock, blues, funk, and nascent disco are all present and vital. The album would cement Hayes as a star and earn him an Oscar for Best Original Song—the first for an African-American composer. The greatest testament to its impact remains the theme, still purring in our heads today. –Timmhotep Aku

虽然《黑街神探》是Hayes的第一部电影配乐，但他完全能胜任这项任务。他是一位精通多门乐器的演奏家、制作人、编曲人、歌手和作曲家，他也是Stax唱片公司放克和R&B之声的创造者之一，他知道如何从头开始创造出这样宏大的东西。他的任务是将《黑街神探》的场景戏剧化，他召集了他的主要团队——the Bar-Kays，the Isaac Hayes Movement，以及the Memphis Strings & Horns——用各种风格的调色板描绘出黑人音乐的发展历程。爵士乐、R&B、摇滚、布鲁斯、放克和新兴的迪斯科都是当下的流行音乐，也是重要的音乐流派。这张专辑巩固了Hayes的明星地位，并为他赢得了奥斯卡最佳原创歌曲奖——这是第一位非裔美国作曲家获此荣誉。事实证明，对其影响最大的仍然是它的主题曲，时至今日仍在我们的脑海中回响。

—— Timmhotep Aku

8.  Psycho《惊魂记》1960

“He only finishes a picture 60 percent,” Bernard Herrmann said of Alfred Hitchcock. “I have to finish it for him.” The composer worked with Hitchcock on a number of films, and though he may have written a richer score in Vertigo, nothing else remains as iconic as Psycho. You could argue that Herrmann didn’t “finish” Psycho; he made it. Hitchcock must have thought so, too, because he doubled Herrmann’s fee.

“他只完成了60%的电影，” 这是Bernard Herrmann对Alfred Hitchcock的形容。“我必须为他完成这些音乐。”这位作曲家曾与Hitchcock合作过几部电影，尽管他在《Vertigo（迷魂记）》中可能写过更丰富的配乐，但可以说《惊魂记》的配乐就是他的代表之作。你可以说Herrmann没有“完成”《惊魂记》，可他确实做到了。Hitchcock肯定也这么想，因为他把Herrmann的酬金提高了一倍。

Accordingly, people say that Psycho invented slasher movies, but really Herrmann did, and he did it with a single string cue. Nothing in the famous shower scene—not the pulling back of the curtain, not the shot of the killer’s knife poised high, and not Janet Leigh’s scream as the knife digs repeatedly into her flesh—cuts as deep as those violin shrieks. Slasher movies, and the gruesome way they play on your nerves, gushed forth from this inciting wound; think of the string screeches as Jason emerging from Camp Crystal Lake at the end of Friday the 13th, or the stabbing lurches of the Jaws theme. They are little pieces of the DNA left in Psycho’s blood trail. –Jayson Greene

因此，人们说《惊魂记》成就了血腥电影，但实际上是Herrmann创造的，他用弦乐创造的。在那场著名的淋浴戏中，没有什么比小提琴尖锐的声音更让人揪心了——没有拉开窗帘的镜头，没有那把刀高高举起的镜头，也没有在刀不断捅进Janet Leigh的身体时发出的尖叫声。血腥电影以及它们刺激你神经的可怕方式，从这个刺激的伤口涌出；想想《Friday the 13th（十三号星期五）》的结尾，Jason从Camp Crystal Lake出来时弦乐尖锐的声音，或是《Jaws （大白鲨）》主题曲，它们都能让你感到心猛地一跳。它们是《惊魂记》里血迹上留下的DNA碎片。

—— Jayson Greene

7. Ascenseur pour l’échafaud 《通往绞刑架的电梯》1958

Miles Davis recorded the score to Louis Malle’s Ascenseur pour l’échafaud (released as Elevator to the Gallows in the U.S.) in 1957. Its open-ended modalities point forward to the jazz giant’s groundbreaking 1959 LP Kind of Blue, and even to the ghostly proto-ambient atmospherics of In a Silent Way, released just over a decade later. Malle’s film is a noir thriller, with pitch-black subject matter—adultery, murder, claustrophobia. The bleak, lonely sound of Davis’ muted trumpet matches the stark black-and-white imagery perfectly, and the short, near-fragmentary nature of the compositions allow Davis to break out of the hard bop confines of the 1950s. Taped with a pickup band of Parisian jazzers and the ace drummer Kenny Clarke, Miles’ mostly improvised score provides a sense of almost unbearable tension, whether the musicians are lingering on a doomy, morphine-drip bassline or racing along to the skitter of Clarke’s deft high-hat work. Adding music to film brought out some of Davis’ most inspired and adventurous playing. –Tyler Wilcox

1957年，Miles Davis为Louis Malle的电影《通往绞刑架的电梯》录制了配乐。它的开放模式指向了这位爵士巨匠于1959年发行的开创性专辑《Kind of Blue》，甚至指向了10多年后发行的《In a Silent Way》中幽灵般的原始氛围。Malle的电影是一部黑色惊悚片，所有主题都是黑暗的——通奸、谋杀、幽闭恐惧症。Davis柔和的小号发出了凄凉、孤独的声音，并与黑白分明的画面完美地契合在一起，而作品短小、近乎零碎的性质，让Davis突破了20世纪50年代硬式咆勃（Hardbop）的束缚。Miles的音乐大多是即兴创作的，与一支由巴黎爵士乐手和王牌鼓手Kenny Clarke组成的临时乐队录制而成，给人一种难以忍受的紧张感，无论乐手们是在一段忧郁的音乐中徘徊，还是在闪着灵光的低音线中狂奔，还是在Clarke娴熟的高难度作品中踱步，紧张依旧。在电影中插入音乐使Davis的一些最具灵感和冒险精神的演奏脱颖而出。

—— Tyler Wilcox

6.    A Clockwork Orange《发条橙》1971

 

Wendy Carlos’ score for A Clockwork Orange was designed to disorient. Stanley Kubrick’s film takes place in a dystopian future, and its main character, the sociopathic youth Alex, is obsessed with the music of Beethoven—the sound of the distant past. Carlos was the perfect composer to articulate this temporal instability; in her massively popular and groundbreaking 1968 album Switched-On Bach, she showed how ancient music could be updated with forward-looking electronics. Armed with a battery of synths and the assistance of her regular producer and collaborator Rachel Elkind, Carlos crafted a dense and tonally slippery world that reinforced the essential horror of the film, sometimes by offering creepily cheerful counterpoint. Great art, the film suggests, is just as easily embraced by monsters, and this uneasy irony comes through in both Carlos’ electronic re-imagining of classical themes (“The William Tell Overture,” Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9) and in original compositions, like the slowly unfolding and brilliant opener “Timesteps.” Hearing it now, almost 50 years after its release, amplifies the record’s confusion in the best possible way. It remains an inscrutable and rewarding puzzle. –Mark Richardson

Wendy Carlos为《发条橙(Clockwork Orange)》创作的配乐像是故意让人迷失方向。Stanley Kubrick的电影发生在一个反乌托邦的未来，它的主角，反社会的年轻人Alex，痴迷于贝多芬的音乐——一种遥远的历史之声。Carlos作为一位作曲家表达了这种时间的不稳定性，堪称完美；1968年，她的专辑《Switch - on Bach》广受欢迎且具有开创性。在这张专辑中，她展示了如何用前瞻性的电子设备来更新古老的音乐。在制片人兼合作伙伴Rachel Elkind的帮助下，Carlos使用了一系列合成材料，精心打造了一个密集而滑溜的世界，强化了影片的恐怖本质，有时还送上令人毛骨悚然的欢快对位。影片暗示，体会伟大的艺术作品正如轻易与怪物邂逅，这种令人不安的讽刺不仅体现在Carlos对古典主题的电子重构中(贝多芬的第九交响曲“The William Tell Overture”)，也体现在原创作品中，比如缓慢展开的精彩开场曲“Timesteps”。在专辑发行近50年后的今天，再次倾听也许才是体会整张专辑困惑感的最好方式。但它仍会是一个难以理解且充满惊喜的谜题。

—— Mark Richardson

5. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly 《黄金三镖客》 1966

The flickering two-note coyote bay. The vaulting trumpet fanfare. The click-clack rhythm of horses, wagon wheels, and, later, gargantuan steam engines: Ennio Morricone’s theme for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is a musical metonym for the American West, a cultural artifact as tied to that mythology as the Red Rocks of Sedona and John Wayne. In fact, half a century later, it’s difficult to imagine high noon without Morricone’s signature melody.

一闪而过的草原狼吼，小号短曲，四轮马车发出的咔嗒声，以及后来的巨大蒸汽机：Ennio Morricone为《黄金三镖客》 （The Good, the Bad and the Ugly）制作的配乐主题采用了美国西部的音乐性转喻手法。这是一个具有文化价值的手工艺品，和红岩国家公园以及John Wayne一样具有神话色彩。事实上，半个世纪之后，很难想象缺少了Morricone独特旋律的《日正当中（High Noon）》会是什么样子。

Sergio Leone intended his film to be a studied yet hyperbolic send-up of western films, in which a triangle of outlaws outrunning the Civil War (as heard in the immortal lament “The Story of a Soldier”) search for treasure, culminating in a wonderfully absurd graveyard confrontation. Morricone responded by synthesizing the genre’s storytelling tropes—insistent motion, arid twang, outsiders’ impressions of Native American music—into dense sonic pieces that pull at tension until it snaps and amplify drama until it overflows. They’ve never been outdrawn. –Grayson Haver Currin

Sergio Leone本意是将其电影打造成一部精心安排且语言夸张、模仿并讽刺西部电影的作品。电影中三名亡命之徒在独立战争中获得胜利（正如永恒的挽歌“The Story of a Soldier”所唱的），他们寻找财富，最后以精彩却荒谬的墓地博弈结束。为了配合场景，Morricone将电影普遍叙事主题——持续的动作、枯燥的拨弦声、外人对美国本土音乐的印象——融合进晦涩的音乐作品，试图制造冲突，直至突然失控；同时增强戏剧效果，直至效果溢出。没有什么配乐比这更具吸引力了。

—— Grayson Haver Currin

4. The Virgin Suicides 《处女之死》 1999

In her filmmaking breakthrough, Sofia Coppola turned Jeffrey Eugenides’ dark, dirty novel The Virgin Suicides into a love story of sorts—between teenagers Lux (Kirsten Dunst) and Tripp (Josh Hartnett), and also between five beautiful, doomed sisters and their haunted admirers. Coppola met her tonal match in the French electropop duo Air, who agreed to write a score as long as they could approach it like an album. The result proved just as bold and cosmic as Air’s classic debut, 1998’s Moon Safari, but with a stronger air of mystery, vis-à-vis ’70s prog influences, insistent synths, and cryptic lines of film dialogue. The Lisbon girls are like a surreal daydream when set to “Playground Love,” featuring an intoxicating sax solo and a drowsy, sexy performance by Phoenix’s Thomas Mars. When that same melody recurs by piano on “Highschool Lover,” its coolness has turned wistful and heavy, consumed by lingering questions the boys are afraid to ask. –Jillian Mapes

Sofia Coppola将Jeffrey Eugenides黑暗且肮脏的小说《处女之死》（The Virgin Suicides）改编成一部讲述爱情故事的电影。主人公是青少年Lux（Kirsten Dunst扮演）和Tripp（Josh Hartnett扮演）以及五位美丽但注定结局悲凉的姐妹和她们魂牵梦萦的追求者。Coppola和法国电子流行乐二重奏组合Air一拍即合，后者同意写一段配乐，前提是他们要像制作专辑一样对待这段配乐。果真这段配乐就如Air1998年发表的经典处女专《Moon Safari》（月亮巡游）那样大胆且充满宇宙感。但它与70年代的前卫摇滚，持续不断的合成器以及具有隐含意义的电影对白相比，更有一种强烈的神秘感。歌曲 “Playground Love（游乐场爱情）”配以令人上瘾的萨克斯独奏以及Phoenix乐队主唱Thomas Mars令人昏睡但却性感的表演，音乐录影带中里斯本女孩就像一个超现实的白日梦。当同一段旋律借由钢琴曲“Highschool Lover（高中恋人）”再次响起，男孩不敢问的悬而未决的问题使得安静的旋律变得沉重了。

—— Jillian Mapes

3.  There Will Be Blood 《血色将至》 2007

Starting with a title that promises violence as directly and ominously as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre—another cinematic nightmare about unsustainable consumption in the American West—writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson treats his adaptation of muckraker Upton Sinclair’s novel Oil! as a tale of demonic possession. The demon in question, though, happens to be money. So if Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood’s original music for There Will Be Blood sounds like the score for a horror movie, that’s because it is.

电影名称表明了这部片子就如《德州电锯杀人狂》（The Texas Chain Saw Massacre）一样直接预示着暴力的发生。后者是另一场银幕电影的噩梦，讲述对美国西部的过度消耗。作者兼导演Paul Thomas Anderson将其改编的扒粪记者Upton Sinclair小说《石油！》（Oil!）视为魔鬼附身的传说。然而这里所说的魔鬼恰好是金钱。因此，假如Radiohead乐队吉他手Jonny Greenwood为电影《血色将至》创作的配乐听起来更符合恐怖片的氛围，那是因为这本来就是部恐怖片。

Leadoff track “Open Spaces” is the tell here. Despite long string phrases that evoke the wide landscapes crossed by the misanthropic oil magnate Daniel Plainview, the mood is not openness but dread. “Future Markets” and “Proven Lands” clatter and pulse with infernal-engine energy. “Henry Plainview” hums like flies on a pig’s head. Strongest of all, the title track is a two-minute masterpiece of jump scares and screeching cacophony in the lineage of Psycho and The Shining. Greenwood creates a soundtrack for a haunted hotel where the elevator doors gush crude, and the killer’s ax is embedded in the earth itself. –Sean T. Collins

专辑中第一首单曲“Open Spaces（开放空间）”就是指示。尽管一大段乐器的铺排唤起了影片中遁世的石油大亨Daniel Plainview曾遇见的广阔风景，气氛仍然幽僻且可怕。“Future Markets”和“Proven Lands”伴有引擎能量的鼓点。“Henry Plainview”哼唱的感觉就像苍蝇在一只猪头顶嗡嗡作响。专辑同名曲是一首时长两分钟的杰作，采用电影《惊魂记》（Psycho ）和《闪灵》（The Shining ）开创的“突发惊吓”以及“惊声尖叫”的恐怖电影表现手法。Greenwood为一个闹鬼的旅馆创作原声带，旅馆的电梯门喷出原油，杀手的斧头插在地里。

—— Sean T. Collins

2. Under the Skin 《皮囊之下》 2014

Though Mica Levi cites her childhood love of Disney films as an inspiration for her first film score, Under the Skin contains nothing approaching conventional songcraft or leading cues, dwelling instead in unsettling shards of gray. She has also likened the effect of her incessant, microtonal viola-playing to a beehive—though it is more malevolent than that, evoking the way Japanese honeybees swarm around an intruding giant hornet and cook it to death.

尽管Mica Levi将其童年对迪士尼电影的热爱当成她电影配乐处女作的灵感，《皮囊之下》（Under the Skin）却找不到传统的歌曲创作艺术或重要的提示，而是沉湎于令人不安的灰色碎片。她也曾把自己连续不断的微分音中提琴演奏的效果比作一个蜂窝，尽管前者比后者更可怕，让人想到日本蜜蜂围攻一只入侵的巨型黄蜂，并将其置于死地。

From this menacing shudder emerges leering shrillness and disembowelling slurps, flooding sensations that simulate organs swelling with blood. That sense of simulation is key: Director Jonathan Glazer’s extraterrestrial protagonist is disguised as a human woman unsettled by their emotions, a confusion Levi captures by making her sexiness uncanny. (Fitting, also, that the score was partially inspired by strip club music.) Jonny Greenwood’s work for There Will Be Blood inspired a run of dissonant scores: Under the Skin represents its apex. –Laura Snapes

令人害怕的战栗产生于淫荡的尖笑声以及开膛破肚般的咕嘟声。不断涌来的情感模拟充血的器官。这种模拟感是关键：导演Jonathan Glazer刻画的地外主人公伪装成一个受情感困扰的人类女性。Levi通过使这名女性的身心美变得奇怪刻画出了这种困扰。（刚好，配乐的灵感部分来自脱衣舞俱乐部音乐。）Jonny Greenwood为电影《血色将至》创作的作品引领了一大批不和谐音配乐创作：《皮囊之下》的配乐就是其中的代表作。

—— Laura Snapes

1. Blade Runner 《银翼杀手》 1982

It’s shocking to consider that Blade Runner did not get nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award, or any other major Oscars. Equally bewildering is the fact that Vangelis won Best Original Score for 1981’s conventionally pretty Chariots of Fire, but wasn’t even honorably mentioned for his far richer contributions to Blade Runner. Vangelis composed the score live, improvising as scenes from the film unfurled onscreen in his London recording studio. “Everything was composed with the images,” he said in 2007, adding that “the reason I wrote the score is that I was very impressed with this film.” There is a palpable sense of awe trembling through his every keystroke, as well as a subliminal sense of competition—a drive to not only match the majesty before his eyes, but maybe even surpass it.

《银翼杀手》（Blade Runner）没得到“奥斯卡最佳影片奖”或其他奥斯卡主要奖项的提名，这让人非常吃惊。同样让人吃惊的是音乐家Vangelis凭借1981年传统意义上的好片《烈火战车》（Chariots of Fire）获得“奥斯卡最佳原创音乐奖”，但甚至没被提及相比之下他所做贡献更大的《银翼杀手》。Vangelis现场谱曲，即兴创作，正如电影中他在伦敦录音室的场景所展示的。“所有歌曲是由图片谱成的，”他在2007年说道，并且补充说“我为这部电影创作配乐是因为我对其印象很深。”他的每一次按键都能让人感到敬畏，潜意识的重复感是一种驱动力，不仅与他眼前的庄严相称，还可能更甚。

Before Blade Runner, electronic soundtracks for science fiction movies painted the future as cold, sterile, emotionless, as hostile to humanity as Saturn’s liquid hydrogen surface and diamond rainstorms. Vangelis broke with these accumulated clichés, draping Blade Runner’s scenery with droopy pitch-bent synth tones of unexpected warmth and wetness. From the colossal, thudding pillars of percussion that open the film, through the mystic yearn of “Rachel’s Song” to the climactic twinkles of “Tears in Rain,” everything is drenched in reverb—an effect as atmospheric and seductive as director Ridley Scott’s over-reliance on shadow and drizzle.

《银翼杀手》之前，为科幻电影创作的电子音乐原声带将未来描述成寒冷、无生气、无情感、敌对人类敌意的世界，如同土星表面散布的液态氢和钻石暴风雨。Vangelis破除了这些延续已久的陈规，用低垂的音伦电子合成器一反常态的温暖和潮湿的音色填充《银翼杀手》的场景。从影片开场打击乐器巨大、沉闷的核心，通过对歌曲“Rachel’s Song（瑞秋的歌）”的神秘渴望，到激动人心的独白“Tears in Rain（雨中的泪水）”，这一切都沉浸在电子混响的音效中。这种音效如同导演Ridley Scott过度依赖阴影和细雨一样具有魅力。

It’s impossible to imagine this film without its music, so intertwined are the sounds and the visuals. Although the movie takes place in a 21st-century Los Angeles teeming with flying cars and huge, animated billboards advertising a fresh start in the off-world colonies, the music is steeped in aching nostalgia as much as disorienting futurity. And that’s just right for a film that, for all its stunning special effects and storyline about androids gone AWOL, is rooted in the archetypes of 1940s film noir and hardboiled detective fiction: Deckard as the cop with the tough exterior and the big soft spot, Rachel equal parts vamp and broken-winged angel. Ghosts of older styles haunt the edges of the score, from jazz and blues to the crooned 1920s pastiche of “One More Kiss, Dear.”

无法想象这部电影缺少音乐会是什么样子，听觉和视觉的联系是多么紧密啊。尽管电影发生于21世纪的洛杉矶，这里充满了飞车和巨型卡通广告牌，展示了地球之外聚居地的新生活。音乐还是沉湎于痛苦的怀旧情绪以及迷茫的未来。但这也正是一部电影需要的，因为所有惊人的特效和机器人成为逃兵的故事线深深植根于上世纪四十年代黑色电影和冷硬派侦探小说的典范：Deckard作为一名警察，外表冷酷，内心柔软；Rachel的角色一半是荡妇，一半是折翼天使。更古老风格的鬼魂常在即将播放配乐的时刻出现，从爵士乐和布鲁斯到具有感伤风格的上世纪二十年代集成之作“One More Kiss, Dear（亲爱的，再吻我一次）”。

There are also pungent aromas of ersatz exoticism, like the keening quasi-Arabic wails in “Tales of the Future” and the vaguely Eastern cavalcade rhythm of “Animoid Row.” We don’t know quite where or when we are with Vangelis’ score, which mingles ancient and modern, East and West—perfectly matching this futuristic West Coast that resembles a Pacific Rim hybrid of Shanghai and Santiago. It’s a tomorrow’s world more vividly imagined than filmgoers had ever before encountered, and Vangelis filled every corner of this space with life as strange and lonely as our own. –Simon Reynolds

电影具有强烈的伪异国风情气息，如同热情的类阿拉伯语在歌曲“Tales of the Future（传奇未来）”中的哀号以及歌曲“Animoid Row”中稍稍体现的东方马队节奏。“我们确实不知道Vangelis的配乐把我们带到什么地方，他的配乐混合了古代和现代以及东西方的特点，完美契合处于未来的美国西岸，与囊括上海和圣地亚哥的环太平洋地区类似。未来世界比观众在电影院见识到的更具想象力、更逼真，Vangelis把这个空间填满了怪诞而孤独的气息，就像我们每个人都正在经历的生活一样。

—— Simon Reynolds