ABSTRACT
Terry Gilliam here comments on his 1998 film adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and the prohibitive cost that prevented the film's use of the Rolling Stones' 'Sympathy for the Devil'. This brief remark offers an intriguing insight into one among many instances of 'real-world' considerations affecting a film's use of pre-existing music. The intention is not to provide a comprehensive history of production circumstances affecting uses of pre-existing music in narrative film. Twentieth Century Fox's The Iron Curtain, for instance, features music by Soviet composers Dmitri Shostakovich, Sergei Prokofiev, Aram Khachaturian, and Nikolai Myaskovsky, all conducted by studio music director Alfred Newman. From the side of a film's production, a music supervisor or someone with even broader responsibilities might handle the licensing process, though many productions credit one or more persons for roles such as 'music legal services' or 'music clearance executive'.
