Carrying a Tune is a series that looks at songs which have been used in various movies, tv series, and video games. In this series, we try to decide which one used the song best. For others in this series, click here.
Criteria: To be considered, the movie, series, or game must be notable enough to have its own Wikipedia page, and the scene in question must be accessible to me in some way. Other than non-musical documentaries and other occasional exceptions, only fictional works will be considered. Cover versions will be omitted.
The Song
“‘Heroes'” by David Bowie, 1977
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tgcc5V9Hu3g
The Contenders
Radio On, 1979
Radio On, the directorial debut from British filmmaker Christopher Petit, is a 1979 road movie about a disc jockey traveling from London to Bristol to investigate his brother’s suicide. The film, which became something of a cult film in England, features a pretty killer soundtrack for its time, including artists like Kraftwerk, Wreckless Eric, and Devo. Petit leads the film off with a long but uncomplicated tracking shot, set to the English-German cut of the song:
It’s a nice tone-setter for the film, and it’s a memorable opener.
Christiane F. – We Children from Bahnhof Zoo , 1981
The film is about the real-life German actress Christiane F., following the 1970’s West Berlin heroin epidemic through the eyes of a 13 year old girl. The girl happens to be obsessed with David Bowie, who not only appears as himself but also serves as soundtrack supervisor. Early in the film, Christiane meets Detlef, and Bowie’s “Heroes” plays as the two, along with Detlef’s friends, run through the Europa Center:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5u1CcCNwaQ
The film wound up being an important one, raising heroin awareness around Europe. It’s a particularly grim and unsettling film, because it’s pretty unrelenting in its depiction of heroin abuse, and again, the characters are mostly all under 16. “Heroes” appears early, and it really sets the tone for how Christiane initially views Detlef and his friends. The 13-year old, initially high on adrenaline alone, finds her freedom while a song about Berliner freedom plays in the background.
Antitrust, 2001
Antitrust isn’t a good movie. It’s not even an average one. It’s pretty bad, with some hilariously bad dialogue, dumb twists, and horrible editing (those over-dramatic zoom-ins when Milo realizes things are terrible). The closest thing to entertaining in this film is Tim Robbins, who plays Gary Winston, a spectacled Steve Jobs/Bill Gates type. Antitrust is a bit before its time in one respect – it foresees the development of a Google-style megacorporation that wants complete integration into your life. Winston is the charismatic genius behind this company (regretfully called NURV).
Late in the film, Milo, the hero played by Ryan Phillippe, attends a party thrown by Winston at his estate. “Heroes” is the only song you hear playing at the party. I would think it a clever song choice for the scene, as it would be the kind of song self-aggrandizing Silicon Valley types would hear and think of themselves. “We can be kings” probably speaks directly to their black souls, or at least that’s what I’d like to think Antitrust is hinting at. Unfortunately, it’d be an outlier, as that would be the only clever thing in the entire film. It must have been an accident.
Moulin Rouge, 2001
Ewan McGregor uses “Heroes”, along with about a billion other songs, to try to get Nicole Kidman to sleep with him.
The Parole Officer, 2001
Simon (Steve Coogan), the titular parole officer, proves his innocence, catches the criminal, and kisses the lovely Emma (Lena Headey!), and what better to accompany the end of a movie called The Parole Officer than with an ironic playing of Bowie’s “Heroes”?
“Is that a gun in your pocket?”
“No, it’s my penis.”
Crossing Jordan, “After Dark”, S4X01 (9/2004)
I didn’t have the episode available, but I was able to piece together the following.
Official episode description: “A mysterious blackout blankets Boston, and leaves Jordan and Bug trapped in a tunnel.”
Spooky!
And, according to tunefind.com, “Heroes” plays at the following point:
“Woody and the others come to the tunnel and again during closing scene.”
It sounds like Woody came and heroically bailed out Jordan and Bug. Naturally, we need a song about HEROES to drive that point home.
Chromophobia, 2005
I’m getting the feeling that “Heroes” is a go-to song when a film needs a soundtrack to an emotional catharsis. There’s a lot of running in this scene. It starts with a child running after hearing a news story that hits close to home. It follows with Kristin Scott Thomas running after him, and ultimately Scott Thomas runs to Damian Lewis’ character, the character at the center of the media frenzy. “Heroes” is a song that makes you want to break free from where you are, which is why it goes well with scenes like this. However, after Christiane F., it seems a bit derivative.
Criminal Minds, “Penelope”, Episode 3X09 (11/2007)
I don’t watch a lot of Criminal Minds. I’ve seen a stray episode here or there, but not enough to know who characters are or be in tune with plotlines. It’s not an all-time great show by any means, and it seems to be a procedural with a background running story, in the vein of, well, any CBS procedural. A crack team of law enforcement folks try to catch baddies using investigation and brainpower. From what I can tell, it’s one of the greatest violators of the “Enhance!” principle, the crime-solving crutch where the boss tells somebody he’d like to get a zoomed in, hi-res shot off a convenience store camera. I watched a good bit of Without a Trace back in the day, and I just assume the quality and vibe is similar. Because this series isn’t exactly revered, it’s hard to find a quality analysis of episodic strength. The best I could find was an IMDB user’s list. According to DiegoFerU, Season 3 episode “Penelope” is the 8th best in the series’ history.
If you’ve seen Criminal Minds, Penelope Garcia probably sticks out in your mind. She’s the nerd girl stereotype of the show, and she hits all the beats of the stereotype: quirky glasses, plays MMOGs, sassy, and vulnerable with the good-looking guys that give her attention. The latter gets her in trouble in Episode 8 of Season 3, where she is shot by a handsome fella at the end of a date. The girl makes a pretty quick turnaround, and she’s walking around halfway through episode 9, “Penelope”. While she recovers, the team brings in another techno-wizard named Kevin to temporarily take her place. Kevin helps the team find her shooter and simultaneously finds an appreciation for Penelope, apparently through the discovery of, let’s face it, hacking nonsense. At the conclusion of the episode, Penelope meets Kevin, and ooh boy, let me tell you, the sparks really fly. Guess what’s playing in the background?
It’s hokey and trite, but the beloved Penelope seems to have found a guy to romance, and I suppose that was a big moment for fans of the series. Diego the IMDB user certainly thought so.
The Cove, 2009
The Academy Award winner for Best Documentary Feature, The Cove shows the hazards and cruelty of harvesting dolphin meat. “Heroes” is played over the end credits, and while the film was critically acclaimed, this one feels a little forced.
Ninja Assassin, 2009
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnHdaXYED1k
Ninja Assassin:
- is a martial arts movie
- is set in Berlin
- is produced by the Wachowskis
- stars Rain and Naomie Harris. One of those is an Oscar nominated performer, and the other is called Rain.
The Simpsons, “Homer the Whopper”, S21X01, (9/2009)
Homer is cast for the role of Everyman, the superhero creation of Comic Book Guy getting adapted for the big screen. The studio hires a trainer, Lyle, to get Homer into better shape.
Lyle: “We don’t have much time, so we’ll do it in a montage to the song ‘Eye of the Tiger’. (presses play)
Homer (stopping the tape deck): “Oh, that song’s a little on the nose. Can we do it to David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’?”
Lyle: “Hey, it’s your montage!”
As Bowie plays, Homer does 5 jumping jacks, gets tired, and then requests to instead do a “walking around sad montage”.
It may not be vintage Simpsons, but it’s quality.
Ashes to Ashes, final episode
I didn’t watch this series, and I while it won’t really be weighed in my final decision (which I may revise if I ever watch the series) at this time, I wanted to leave it listed. Ashes to Ashes is a weird and influential series, and “Heroes” is the song that plays the series off. According to this article (which you shouldn’t read if you ever plan to watch this and its precursor series Life on Mars), it was a perfect sendoff.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower, 2012
The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a good movie, with strong performances fortifying an interesting take on the typical high school coming-of-age story. One of the few issues I had in this thoroughly enjoyable film was during the following scene.
What are the odds that all 3 of these teenagers have never heard “Heroes” before? The rest of the scene works just fine, and Charlie’s line, “I feel infinite”, works beautifully with the song. It’s all just undermined by the extremely unlikely idea that none of them had ever heard the song before. While it’s possible – millennials are notoriously oblivious to pop culture that preceded them, it wasn’t necessary to choose “Heroes” as the song they’d never heard, and it also wasn’t necessary to have all 3 characters oblivious. Sam’s (Emma Watson) reaction may require unfamiliarity with the song, but I think this would have worked better if Charlie (Logan Lerman), or more particularly, Patrick (Ezra Miller), had looked at her and said, “Come on, Sam, how do you not know this song?”. It’s still not a bad scene. It’s a big moment in building the friendship between the three as well as building Charlie’s infatuation with Sam. You can’t blame him, as Watson is radiant in the scene. It’s just irksome that over a combined 50+ years on earth, none had heard the song.
They revisit the moment at the film’s conclusion:
Horns, 2013
Horns begins with Ig (Daniel Radcliffe) very much in love with Merrin (Juno Temple). You see them together, on a blanket, all lovey dovey. It’s sweet. Then, immediately, he wakes up next to an empty liquor bottle, and the plot is set in motion. The first thing he does is sadly pull a record off the shelf, play it, and think of Merrin.
As we learn, through the film, about Ig and Merrin’s relationship, we later see two scenes that gives us a little more context as to why he pulled that record off the shelf. First, as children, Ig invites Merrin to his treehouse, and she points out that she, like Ig, is a David Bowie fan. The second, finds them in adulthood and in love, and we learn why this song is particularly painful to Ig:
Warning: NSFW
“Heroes” is about young lovers, and the scenes of Ig & Merrin are all the heart that Horns could muster – it’s otherwise kind of unsurprising, plotwise. There’s sweetness here, and “Heroes” is a pleasant backdrop to their love. Is it a perfect or even impressive fit? No. But it’s a good enough fit.
The Simpsons, “You Don’t Have to Live Like a Referee”, S25X16, (3/2014)
Lisa is tasked with presenting a speech to an assembly about her hero, but after Martin, who goes first, chooses the same hero – Marie Curie, Lisa panics. Bart suggests she re-focus her speech on Homer, comparing a successful depiction of Homer as a hero to conquering Everest. Lisa asks, “Why is he my hero?”, and launches into a montage of memories, all backed by Bowie’s “Heroes”. The memories consist of:
- Homer eating pizza in the shower
- Homer using his hammock to launch a barrage of beer cans into Flanders’ yard
- Homer stretching out in his underwear on a couch to watch Thursday Night Football… in the showroom at an electronics store
- A drunk Homer, asleep in Maggie’s crib, wakes with his leg stuck between the bars, and yelling, “Marge, it happened again”
It’s a brief use of the song, and a little obvious. The montage is funny, but not really due to the song.
Regular Show in Space, “A Regular Epic Final Battle”, S8X27, (1/2017)
Beloved Cartoon Network series Regular Show aired its final episode earlier this year, and the series ended with, you guessed it, “Heroes” by David Bowie.
This being the last few minutes of the entire series, the [ATTENTION: SPOILERS] nature of this clip should be obvious. I never watched the series much, so I don’t know what, if anything, constitutes a spoiler.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkSaPs4FXY0
Not considered due to unavailability:
– The Lakes, S1X01, 1997
– Worried About the Boy, 2010
– Futuro Beach, 2014
The Winner
The song about the human spirit overcoming adversity, written in and inspired by Berlin, performed live at the Berlin Wall in 1987, unsurprisingly works best in a movie about adversity in Berlin: Christiane F. – Wir Kinder vom Bahnhoff Zoo (1981). No one knows the song better than Bowie himself, and he was the music supervisor for the film. As I watched scene after scene, through both film and television, that featured this song, this one stuck with me. Knowing what’s ahead for Christiane in the film – addiction, prostitution, tragedy, this moment of reckless vandalism is as close to free from adversity as she’d get in the film. She and her new friends, children without heroes to really look up to (aside from David Bowie) were heroes unto themselves, if only just for one day.