Home Alone (1990). Old Man Marley is scored using the ancient "Dies Irae" melody, referencing a coming death. After Kevin talks to him, the choir begins singing the "Carol of the Bells", which uses the same melody notes, showing we the audience have misjudged the old man the same way Kevin has.

hippiethor on September 20th, 2018 at 21:05 UTC »

Examples of Marley's cue can be found here and here. The Dies Irae has been used to represent death for years, and can be found in countless requiem masses and many symphonic works, including Hector Berlioz's "Simphonie Fantasique" which was famously used by Wendy Carlos as the opening to Kubrick's "The Shining".

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John Williams was no doubt aware of the connection, and uses the cue to tell the more musically literate members of the audience "Hey, this is something to be scared of", but since the motif used has the same melody notes, just in a different rhythm, as the Ukranian folk song "Schedryk", (which became "Carol of the Bells") the two melodies can be seen as variations of each other. Thus Williams disarms his own cue, transforming it into something less threatening. Which of course, mirrors the way Kevin realizes the thing he thought was threatening turns out to be harmless.

TLM86 on September 20th, 2018 at 21:27 UTC »

Williams sure loves his Dies Irae. He also uses it in Star Wars during the burning homestead scene, and it got picked up by Michael Giacchino for use throughout Rogue One.

WaffleUltima on September 20th, 2018 at 21:28 UTC »

Dies Irae is actually everywhere in classical music as well as soundtracks and a lot of other genres. If you can recognize the main melody you start to notice it all over the place.