MovieChat Forums > Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World (2016) Discussion > Lo and Behold's music

Lo and Behold's music

posted 8 years ago by apogran
8 replies | jump to latest

I love Werner Herzog's documentaries. I have watched as many of his movies as I can over time. I just have one question for any fan that has seen his movies before as well as seen Lo and Behold. One of my favorite movies of his is called "Into the Abyss" which is about the death penalty. It was a very dark and sad movie with perfect background music to match. Lo and Behold is about the internet and is more about hope for the future. However, it has the same music as "Into the Abyss" which is weird because they are two very different films. Does anyone else feel this way or know what I'm talking about?

[–] devenirgris 8 years ago

Noticed it too. That music was also used in the Into the Abyss spinoff-series On Death Row.
Overall I was pretty underwhelmed by this film, and the way this music was simply re-used just made me think it was a bit of a quickie for Herzog.

[–] apogran 8 years ago

Thank you so much for the reply. I actually had no idea that the movie had a spinoff let alone that it used the same music. I think you were 100 percent correct that the music selection showed that Herzog didn't put that much time into this project which is strange because he doesn't usually do that. I read an interview with Herzog talking about Lo and Behold and he said he would have liked to do a ten part series instead of a movie because the subject was so big. so that just shows that you were right.

[–] j-39178 8 years ago

It's for sure that the opening part where the narrator explained the "LO" message, the background music is the overture to Das Rheingold https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Rheingold by Richard Wagner. The music portents the early morning awakening of the gods to gaze in awe at the newly constructed Valhalla. Thematic. Dramatic. Appropriate. Well chosen. It's arguably the best use of this overture (outside of the opera) I've ever seen.

[–] flaiky 8 years ago

I thought the music was gorgeous, thanks for pointing me to the piece! It was used towards the end of the film as well; very evocative.

I’ll be waiting, with a gun and a pack of sandwiches.

[–] TheCineSinge 7 years ago

Its good but doesn't compare with Terrence Malick's use of it for the opening and ending of The New World, both of which are simply majestic.

[–] The_Blu_Ray_Penguin 7 years ago

AGREE! I came here to see if it was the same music as it was a bit hard to hear over the talking, unlike its wonderful use in Malic's masterpiece. Every time I hear that music I get goosebumps i love it!

[–] RedmondBarryLyndon 7 years ago

Actually, the music that appears most often in the documentary is the beginning of the overture, which simply depicts the flow of the Rhine river.

[–] daddie0 7 years ago

I agree. I have seen most (if not all?) of Herzog's films and this one more than any other made me realize that his aesthetic choice, his music, and his pacing are not content driven at all, but rather like a one-size-fits-all Herzogian default. And what made this so interesting is that these same stylistic choices are what made his other films seem more insightful. In the end I let him off the hook because he just seems to be a bit of a patient observer, but it did not work nearly as well with this subject matter.