2. "Cuckoo" (Benjamin Britten) - Moonrise Kingdom
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5ZwTYSo-aw This is one of the several movie endings Anderson gets just right. At the end of his best film to date, about a Khaki Scout orphan and a neglected girl who fall in love in their tween years, Anderson lets us know that the forbidden affair has been continued. Thanks to his legal guardian, Officer Sharp (Bruce Willis), Sam gets to visit Suzy on a regular basis by climbing into her house through her window, where he keeps painting pictures of her unbeknownst to her parents. The technical name for the composition that caps off this impeccable childhood dream odyssey is "Friday Afternoons, Op. 7: Cuckoo!", originally arranged by Benjamin Britten and sung by a divine children's choir. Rather than finishing on the melancholy note that so many of Anderson's hipster-brooding musical selections suggest, this one lifts you up on a dizzying air of pure beauty. This, ladies and gentlemen, is what it feels like to be in love for the first time, and what it means to look forward to seeing somebody special tomorrow. Bravo, Wes.
Mark DiStefano
Contributor
I am a writer, filmmaker, philosopher, and above all a man, from New York City currently attending Cornell University as an English and Film major.
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