I watched the Big Chill on Film 4 last night, which turned out to be a portent of what was to come today, as the snow is back with a bloody vengeance this morning. Anyway, when the film was released on video all those years ago, I loved it. Watching it again last night I realised that it was very much of it's time and hadn't dated very well at all. After a while the characters began to really irritate me, even the ones that in the past I had been sympathetic towards, Nick, played by William Hurt and in the end I just found myself bored by these comfortable, middle class Americans whinge about themselves. I don't think that It will be a film that I will be returning to anytime soon.
One thing which has not changed with the passage of time is my love of the soundtrack which is full of great late 60's/ early 70's tunes. I remember around 1985/86 when I first saw the film, hunting high and low for the soundtrack and not being able to find it anywhere, eventually after a good 6 months or so searching I got hold of a copy only to find that 2 of the best track used in the film, You Can't Always Get What You Want by the Rolling Stones and The Weight by the Band were not even on the soundtrack.
Hearing the tracks in the film last night, got me thinking of how easy it would be for me today to get hold of them. All it would take would be a Google search to find out all the tracks used in the film and then about an hour's worth of searching and downloading and I would have the complete soundtrack, whereas back then it was either seek out the soundtrack album or make up a tape by visiting all of your friends whose parents had good record collections and recording from them. Somehow I don't think that there is the same satisfaction in hunting down tracks these days as it is all too easy. Yes it was incredibly frustrating not being able to just get the tunes but the pay off when you were eventually successful was worth it, I think. Plus you had the physical record which to me is the thing.
Here are two of my favourites from the film.
Smokey Robinson And The Miracles - I Second That Emotion
The Band - The Weight
