Soundtracking: Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice

by Chris Feil

Perfect movie endings are hard to come by. And I don’t mean a great sticking of the landing or simply ending on a high note - I mean a perfect ending. But of the ones that quickly come to mind, music feels like an essential component to the magic. Gloria (and her Bell counterpart) dancing her way into a resilient future, 45 Years slowly crescendoing to sudden romantic collapse, morbid opulence and ego to bring All That Jazz to meet its maker.

Paul Mazursky’s Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice belongs in that very special class, closing its satire by ascending the audience into a higher plane of communal experience. The film is already sublime, but its coda stands apart.

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