He said: “I do think people make associations, and I don’t want that to ever interfere or complicate what the scene’s about or what the viewer is feeling as they’re watching the scene.
“When you pick a song like that, it’s really going to end up being another character in the scene.”
Esmail added that he chose the song Too Close by R&B group Next for one pivotal scene because he wanted to pick a song that the characters could dance to but that wasn’t overused.
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“I just thought it was really funny and sweet at the same time,” he said of the song. “That scene goes from lighthearted and playful to sad and dark within a matter of a minute, so the song had to do a lot of heavy lifting.”
Meanwhile, the film also includes an original score composed by Mac Quayle, which is unique in that it only utilises nine notes, something Quayle said was inspired by a method put forward by French composer Olivier Messiaen relating to what are now called ‘Messiaen modes’.
“I started playing around with them and I found that Mode 3, which is essentially a scale, was producing a really interesting harmonic feeling,” he explained.
“And I got this idea that I might do the entire film in this one mode… I didn’t know if it would carry me through the entire film, but it did.”
Read on for the full list of songs featured in Leave the World Behind.
Leave the World Behind soundtrack
The full list of songs featured in the film is below:
- THE REV3NGE performed by Joey Bada$$
- Misled performed by Kool & the Gang
- Never Gonna Let You Go performed by Blackstreet
- Winter performed by TV on the Radio
- Too Close performed by Next
- I’ll Be There for You performed by The Rembrandts
- The Paradigm performed by Lil Yachty
Leave the World Behind is now streaming on Netflix. Sign up for Netflix from £4.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.
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