I’m a fan of car chase scenes, which brings me to William Friedkin’s To Live and Die in LA. A number of Top Ten lists have cited the movie’s car chase as one of the best. But what caught my eye when I recently watched the movie was the composer, Wang Chung

What? How does an 80’s English synth band fit in with a director who brought us The French Connection? To me, the music seemed globbed on, the car chase scene was one long wreck, and for the first time when watching a movie, I actively wished the protagonist (William Petersen) would be killed, hopefully by the villain played by the great Willem Dafoe.

I could go on to make my point, but I would rather talk about a movie that got everything right when it comes to music in a car chase scene.

For many, Jonny Greenwood is a rock legend who helped create Radiohead. He would agree that he was the principal arranger of Thom Yorke’s songs. But he is so much more than a guitar hero. In fact, his first musical instrument he learned to play was a recorder. His second, a viola. From the start he was a classically trained musician, which may have made the transition into composing for movies seamless.

So far Greenwood has collaborated with filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson six times. Their first, There Will Be Blood, has been cited by some critics as the best movie of the 21st Century. Their latest, One Battle After Another, is currently garnering awards and praise.

I made a point to see OBAA on the big screen. I’m glad I did. PTA has an uncanny ability to propel a three hour movie with a sense of urgency, and Greenwood’s soundtrack isn’t so much thematic as atmospheric. Critics describe it as bonkers, manic and jolting. To me it feels part of the environment, not globbed on, but integral, especially when it comes to the final car chase scene.

PTA has mentioned that one of the films that inspired OBAA is The French Connection. I can see that. I can also see the car chase in Bullitt and the Mexican standoff from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Three cars. Sloping hills. Wide shots. Extreme closeups. Open terrain. Plus Greenwood’s syncopative drum corp., playing along as if they are also rolling up and down those desert hills.