Angelo Badalamenti (1937-2022) | Tributes

Deserving of equal attention is Badalamenti’s scores for two short-lived Lynch projects, the 1992 sitcom on the madness of the television industry, “On the Air,” and the 1993 HBO series, “Hotel Room,” a striking precursor to “Room 104,” the best episode of which features young Alicia Witt, who delivers a tour de force performances opposite Crispin Glover. Badalamenti collaborated with Lynch on numerous other projects, such as 1997’s deeply scary psychological portrait, “Lost Highway,” and 2002’s nightmarish web series, “Rabbits,” which was eventually woven into the fabric of Lynch’s 2006 abstract epic, “INLAND EMPIRE.” In 1999, Badalamenti composed the music for Lynch’s “Mulholland Dr.”, a failed TV pilot that the director turned two years later into a film, which stands today as my all-time favorite cinematic work (it recently cracked the top ten of Sight & Sound’s latest poll). His scoring of the scene where a sweating Patrick Fischler comes face to face with the dreaded Man Behind Winkies (Bonnie Aarons of “The Nun”) never ceases to cause an audience to leap from their seats, just as his atonal burst does in “Wild at Heart,” signaling the moment Lula’s mom (Diane Ladd) turns to reveal her tortured face covered in lipstick. Badalamenti is equally fearsome and oddly hilarious in his cameo as one of the thuggish suits in “Mulholland Dr.” who swoop in to take ownership of a director’s film, all the while criticizing the coffee offered to them in the most grotesque manner imaginable. 

Badalamenti’s talent was not at all confined to the work of Lynch. In a career that spanned six decades, he provided the music for such notable films as “A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors,” “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation,” “Holy Smoke,” “Secretary,” “Auto Focus,” “Cabin Fever” and “A Very Long Engagement.” Yet my favorite Badalamenti score, and the one most deserving of a vinyl release, is the one he composed for Lynch’s 1999 masterpiece, “The Straight Story.” Based on the real life story of Alvin Straight, who journeyed from Iowa to Wisconsin on his riding mower to visit his ailing, estranged brother, the film features the final performance of stuntman-turned-brilliant character actor Richard Farnsworth as the Alvin and the final lensing of master cinematographer Freddie Francis (“The Innocents,” “The Elephant Man”). The film’s score engineer and re-recording mixer, John Neff, told me earlier this year in an interview how he recorded the score, mixed it, and then mixed it into the film in 5.1 surround. “On January 30th, 1999, we had fourteen string players and three guitar players in David’s studio, and recorded the score for the film in one twelve-hour day,” Neff recalled. “It was my first orchestral score recording in all those years of working in the studio, and it worked out pretty well. I’m very happy with it.”

The soundtrack album, which I still own on CD, accompanied my family on various road trips to visit my great uncle Chuck, whose spirit is akin to that of Alvin, in Lowpoint, Illinois. Roger Ebert beautifully captured the tone of Badalamenti’s score in his four-star review, writing, “There are fields of waving corn and grain here, and rivers and woods and little bed barns, but on the soundtrack the wind whispering in the trees plays a sad and lonely song, and we are reminded not of the fields we drive past on our way to picnics, but on our way to funerals, on autumn days when the roads are empty.” Of all the tracks on that album, the one I treasure the most is “Rose’s Theme,” which we first hear as Alvin and his devoted daughter Rose (Sissy Spacek) savor a night sky filled with stars. The theme tells a more painful tune later on, as we learn of the tragedy spurred by a fire—a recurring presence in Lynch’s work—that stealthily haunts Rose as she stares out the window. And then we hear it again during the film’s glorious final moments of wordless majesty, articulating with perfectly pitched notes what dialogue never could. This melody has played in my mind at countless point throughout my life whenever I have felt a true sense of peace. Today, I wish Angelo that peace.

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