Rocky: The Only Film to Win Best Picture Thanks to it Soundtrack Timothy Sexton College

In one of those examples of incomprehensibly insensible irony that can be excused for believing exists only within the otherworldly sphere of Hollywood, U.S.A, Academy Award voters in 1977 failed to nominate Bill Conti’s work on Rocky for Best Score. And as if adding insult to injury, they would then go onto award Best Original Song to “Evergreen” from A Star is Born. One might well be moved to inquire where the irony is here. Well, being with the fact that maybe five people on the planet can hum from memory a single note of that award-winning score from The Omen. From there, move to additional ironic dimension that “Evergreen” was the only song nominated from an actual musical that year. But that point is mere digression because the epicenter of Oscar irony that year is that despite losing out on the only two awards devoted to movie music, Rocky is very likely the only film ever to win top honors at the Academy Awards thanks entirely to its soundtrack.

That year’s Oscar ceremony forwards Rocky as material evidence for how score and theme song perform a role both similar to yet notably distinct from each other in a non-musical film. Music is rudimentary to the process of how audiences react to the visual imagery on screen. The...