- From Olivier Assayas’s Les Destinees, released a couple years before the Walkmen’s first album
I’m still mourning the loss of the Walkmen, one of my favorite rock bands, who went on “indefinite hiatus” earlier this year. Few musicians have done more to increase my enjoyment of movies. That might sound odd, considering the band never recorded any music for films and that their albums lack those qualities (orchestration, sound effects, spoken interludes) that inspire people to describe certain albums by, say, Pink Floyd or Scott Walker as cinematic. The Walkmen’s connection to cinema lies in their selection of detail, both lyrical and sonic, and their ability to conjure complex emotional states through atmosphere.
Ben Sachs writes about moviegoing every Monday.
