This post-Romantic Russian composer of earthy, directly emotional scores has had his music excerpted in approximately 25 feature-length productions. The majority of these feature the music of Khachaturian's popular ballets Gayane (1942) and Spartak (Spartacus, 1954).
In the Coen Brothers film The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), after the original Mr. Hudsucker jumps out of the skyscraper window for unknown reasons, the character Norville Barnes (Tim Robbins) is hired from the mail room as the perfect imbecile to head Hudsucker Industries in order to drive down the price of stocks so that the chairmen of the board can buy up the remaining stock on the cheap. Barnes shows a drawing of a perfect circle on a pad of paper of his as yet unnamed invention, "You know, for kids." He demonstrates what will become the hula hoop at a board meeting which the board decides to manufacture thinking that this will be the ultimate dumb idea that will drive investors away. The energetic pulsing of the Sabre Dance from the ballet Gayane crescendos onto the soundtrack. Excerpts (arranged by…  » Read more