Sorcerer

[...] A new chapter in the career of Tangerine Dream would begin when they were asked by the American film director William Friedkin (who made movies like "The French Connection" and "Exorcist") to make the music for his movie. Friedkin was very enthusiastic about the music of Tangerine Dream and wished to use their music to make a frame around a re-making of Clouzot's "The Wages of Fear" from 1953. Tangerine Dream were handed the script and were given the opportunity to do whatever they wanted. Finally, it ended up with the rather unusual situation that the soundtrack was ready before the camera work began! While working in the jungle, William Friedkin placed loudspeakers all over the place and played Tangerine Dream's music to inspire and get the film crew into the right mood.

These very good and free conditions were perfect working conditions for Tangerine Dream and their electronic instruments. Froese: "All our knowledge about improvising and creating very fast meant that when we sat down for the first time and started to compose the music for Friedkin -- the first time I've ever composed -- it was so easy! It was so easy because we just put down in a few words: a few discussions about forms and melody lines and prism structures and so on. We wrote it down, we made some scripts and then we taped the lot!" (New Musical Express - July 1977).

When the movie finally had its premiere, Tangerine Dream were a little bit disappointed by the result: according to the band, too many of the tracks were not used in their entirety and lost a little bit of the idea, but in several places -- like at the beginning of the movie, where you see a helicopter passing over the South American rain forest -- the music fits perfectly. [...] The movie was never really a success, but when the soundtrack came out in the summer of 1977, it was nevertheless found to be on the English charts! This clearly opened some door to the film industry, where Tangerine Dream ended up being one of the most used bands for composing soundtracks.

For a long period of time the band made a good living out of making music for bigger and smaller movie productions. In the eighties you could almost talk about a mass production, until it got too much for Edgar Froese & Co. They have now stopped that line of work -- at least until further notice -- well, apart from some minor soundtrack production now and then.

Edgar Froese: "This was the first time we'd been asked to do a movie soundtrack. William Friedkin, who produced 'The Exorcist', just gave us the script and told us to write music. The film hadn't even begun shooting! We were astonished, but some of it worked well, some of it didn't."

Chris Franke: "Making a film soundtrack is different from recording a studio album. You have to follow ideas of characters, plot, action, the meaning behind the film. You have to take into account the feeling of the producer and director."

(Interview with Johnny Black, thisBEAT, issue 17, April 1986)