Gerald Busby's Eerie Soundtrack to "3Women" is Now Streaming

Once the ability to synchronize music and sound to celluloid became possible, music quickly became an essential aspect of the storytelling process. Soundtracks help make movies memorable by reinforcing the atmosphere or mood of a film, as well as giving a rhythm to scenes. Sometimes the music becomes as iconic as the movie itself. Gerald Busby's haunting score to Robert Altman's strange cult classic 3 Women is a potent example. Released in 1977, the movie starred Sissy Spacek, Shelley Duvall ( who, for her role, won the Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival,) and Janice Rule.

Altman said the story came to him in a dream. It is surely dreamlike in its eerie slowness and peculiar atmosphere. It's as though it were set in some alternate universe.

The movie opens in a geriatric center as old people slowly walk, back and forth, in an exercise pool. Busby's ominous, atonal score is a counterpoint to these daily rituals, adding to the unsettling atmosphere. According to Altman, the opening shot represents the amniotic fluid surrounding a fetus. Perhaps these geriatrics are returning to the water from where their lives began. But what's it about? Maybe it's beyond meaning. Certainly the film is mysterious, and Busby's piercing flute solos and pulsating bass strings add to that sense of mystery.

3 Women is considered Altman's most poetic, yet enigmatic, film. (If you haven't seen the movie - you must!)

How did an unknown composer who had never written a film score, never conducted an orchestra, land such a plum assignment? Read the story:

https://jrobin8583.medium.com/the-sound-of-music-soundtrack-to-altmans-3-women-now-streaming-44e34363f039