This week Pitchfork's film site The Dissolve counted down "The Movies' 50 Greatest Pop Music Moments". We asked Pitchfork contributors to contribute some personal selections that didn't make the list. See additional favorites from Pitchfork writers over at the Dissolve's Newsreel.
Roger Krumble’s 1999 film Cruel Intentions takes its inspiration from Pierre de Laclos’ novel Les Liaisons dangereuses, a sardonic assault on the mores of French libertines that would ultimately burst into flames with the rise of the Revolution. Krumble’s protagonists-and-potential lovers, Cecile Caldwell and step-brother Sebastian, willingly engage in acts of sexual and moral terrorism until the latter encounters true love. By the end of the film, Cecile has nowhere left to run; as copies of her brother’s diary slowly begin to circulate at his funeral, the orchestral peals of the Verve's “Bittersweet Symphony” drift in.
The song lends the scene an additional sense of foreboding. Krumble brandishes the Britpop hit against the film’s central themes of modern indifference and overindulgence: Gilt and guilt go hand-in-hand in Cruel Intentions, and the verdant luster of the song provides the ideal musical realization for the film's beautiful and doomed protagonists.