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Batman Begins: (Hans Zimmer/James Newton Howard)
After the eventual fizzling of the original
Batman franchise in
the late 1990's, Warner has handed one of its most prized characters to
director Christopher Nolan in hopes of resurrecting the once dominant
box office champ. Taking the Bruce Wayne character back to its origins,
Nolan's
Batman Begins reveals the beginnings of Bob Kane's
character for DC Comics and further explains Bruce Wayne's childhood
trauma and formation of the Batman character twenty years later. With
surprisingly consistent critical praise and a widely talented cast of
performers,
Batman Begins is easily the best film in the
franchise since the classic original directed by Tim Burton. Much has
been said about how the
Batman Begins entry is different from all
those before it in its more realistic style of art direction and color
usage, but the prequel film interestingly ties directly to the original
Batman in many ways near its conclusion. Despite Nolan's attempts
to create a distinguishing atmosphere throughout his work,
Batman
Begins treads very closely to Burton's darkly rendered, ironclad
vision of Gotham and its character by the climactic battle between
Batman and the film's two sets of collaborating villains. Always of
upmost importance in any superhero film, the original score for
Batman Begins would mark a return to the straight underscored
approach (the films had alternated between strictly orchestral and
score/song mixtures throughout their history). Nolan had been in talks
with renown composer Hans Zimmer for an entire year before Zimmer
officially replaced Nolan's usual collaborator, David Julyan. Zimmer,
however, was hesitant about the score because he was at a point in his
career where large orchestral works didn't interest him. He had always
wanted to collaborate with his good friend and fellow first-rate
composer, James Newton Howard, and after a dozen years of talking about
the prospect of working together, the two signed on to compose
Batman
Begins together.
The collaborative effort was just that: collaborative on
each and every cue. There isn't a "Zimmer section of the the score" or a
"Howard theme"... the two literally sat in rooms across a hall and for
12 weeks ran each piece of new material by each other as they went. The
resulting score is indeed very fluid, although collectors of both Zimmer
and Howard's scores will find the finished score's style to fall heavily
in the direction of Zimmer's body of work. As expected, the score is
heavily laden with electronics and sound effects. As Zimmer recently
stated to IGN, "I think this one has more electronics in it than
anything else... I didn't want to do straight orchestra because Batman,
he's not a straight character. I mean where do you get those wonderful
toys from and the technology? So I thought I could embrace a bit more
technology in this one... there isn't a straight orchestral note on this
score." The orchestral ensemble of about 90 players from various London
groups has the usual Zimmer emphasis on cellos and other lower-range
instruments, and he utilizes his electronics to further sink the score
into the realm of brooding darkness. Zimmer enjoys a chaotic scoring
environment, a "completely anarchistic way of working," as he says, and
this label applies more than ever to the two hours and twenty minutes of
recorded time on the
Batman Begins project. The most fanatic
followers of the Batman franchise are obviously most curious about the
musical connections between this score and the related ventures of Danny
Elfman and Elliot Goldenthal. Elfman's original is considered one of the
most poignant superhero scores in the history of Hollywood, and some of
his fans even prefer the more varied thematic and instrumental approach
Elfman took in
Batman Returns. Elliot Goldenthal, for his two
sequels, slightly altered Elfman's theme, but maintained its usage
throughout the next two sequels. Both Elfman and Goldenthal were
carefully considerate of subthemes for the often paired villains in each
film, creating a structured environment for their themes that often led
to creative and occasionally brilliant interpretations of those themes.
Both knew when to bang the gong, ring the bells, and let rip with some
heroic brass.
Zimmer and Howard throw all those ideas out the window. It
seems to have been Zimmer who made the structural and thematic choices
about the overarching style and spirit of the score, and although
Howard's sensibilities do shine through occasionally,
Batman
Begins is saturated with Zimmerisms from top to bottom. The themes
for Batman and his love interest are both extremely simplistic in
Zimmer's typical methodology for stringing a few neo-classical chord
progressions together and calling them good to go. The Batman theme
itself is a rising two-note minor key progression set over a systematic
rhythm of similar two-note alternations by real and electric strings.
Perhaps the synth brass version of the theme at the forefront represents
the big bat in the rubber suit while the chopping alternations
underneath represent the swarm of bats that inspire him. The rhythm is
utilized often, typically spanning several scene changes, and the title
theme itself is only heard a couple of times in full. As a pace-setter,
the rhythmic undertones of Zimmer's strings are sufficient as an agent
of propulsion, moving through the film at a steady pace. The sensitive
themes for the love interest, as well as scenes with Alfred and the
numerous flashbacks to Wayne's childhood are handled with a soft piano
sub-theme. Several scenes of swooshing, terrifying bat attacks are
handled with crazed string chaos. The two heavily electronic uses in the
film come first in the form of a distinct sound effect that Zimmer
concocts to perhaps represent the flapping wings of Batman's suit, both
at the very beginning and end of the film. The second use of electronics
at the forefront comes in Zimmer's only action motif for
Batman
Begins, heard three times and most prominently during Wayne's
explosive escape from The League of Shadows at the start and during the
monorail battle at the end of the film. Neither of these electronic
ideas are very creative; the thumping sound at the outset of the film is
uninteresting and any basic Zimmer collector will be able to recognize
the action music as being a poor adaptation of similar sequences in
The Rock and other early Zimmer action scores.
There is no carryover of musical ideas from prior films.
Regarding the musical history of the franchise, Zimmer states something
that would seem to make sense when taken for face value: "Why would I
want to do a sequel to something? That's a boring thing to do. We went
for dark and brooding. I think probably one of the things is that we're
a lot darker than any of the stuff that's gone before. I was working on
a Chris Nolan movie and ultimately you serve the film in front of you. I
don't think you need to be relevant to the history that it comes from,
in a way. That's what the guys pay me for: invent!" He continues by
saying: "Nobody ever mentions the Elliot Goldenthal scores. And of
course I'm not mentioning any of that either, because quite honestly I
didn't go and look at the old Batman movies again..." The above
statements are fascinating, because Zimmer exposes a critical component
in his methodology that plagues his score for
Batman Begins and
others of recent times: laziness. Whether he likes it or not (and the
same can be applied to Nolan),
Batman Begins finishes in almost
identical fashion to Burton's two films, with surprisingly similar
treatments of scene, character, and action. we even get to see the
"rising building" shot where Batman is silhouetted atop a tall building.
The theme that Zimmer conjures shares the same basic dual-personality
super-hero idea of alternating between major and minor keys. And whether
Zimmer realizes it or not, he didn't invent the concept of brooding in
the Batman franchise; Elfman clearly did. The problem with Zimmer's lack
of attentiveness to the franchise is the simple fact that he attempted
to reinvent the wheel for Batman's music. He chose not to pay attention
to the music that fans of the series already have ingrained in their
memories --another "whether you like it or not"-- and tried to take the
music in a new direction. In reality, all he did was create an inferior
version of what Elfman and Goldenthal had already done. Some people have
said that
Batman Begins didn't need the gothically heroic
approach of scoring. Zimmer claims that wasn't his goal, either. But the
film demanded it by the end, and Zimmer's inability to write to those
needs (and refusal to study the success of those who came before)
ultimately makes
Batman Begins a disappointing score.
There is no doubt that the quality of
Batman
Begins as a film ends up floating its own music. The score is played
safely, conservatively, and while it is mixed generously in volume
throughout the film, the film gains little from it. Ironically, the
Zimmer/Howard score plays better on album than in the picture, for its
simplistic rhythms and progressions are pleasant at the very least. But
"pleasant" and "simplistic" is not what Bruce Wayne needs. "I wasn't
really writing about a big, oversized, heroic character," Zimmer argues.
"I was trying to write about a slightly psychologically damaged
character. And I'm always better with those." Unfortunately for Zimmer,
he fails on two levels in that statement; first, Batman indeed forces
himself into becoming a heroic character. He's a superhero. A twisted
one, of course. But he certainly demands more than a two-note motif to
represent him and much more than recycled music from
The Rock to
accompany him into battle. Now was the time to add a gong or some chimes
or bells to that ensemble. Additionally, the recycled string adagios
from
The Thin Red Line are nice for the "people" aspect of the
story, but they lack the ability to truly define the trauma in Wayne's
life. Not everyone's struggles can be defined by an adagio. Zimmer is
proud of the cue in which a choir boy is suddenly frozen mid-theme
during a flashback ("I did this crazy thing with this choir boy..."),
and yet this usage is a cliche as ever... Definitely not crazy by any
means. The sound effects earlier in that cue are likewise tired. There
is no adequate sub-theme development for the pseudo-noble League of
Shadows, nor the delightfully horrifying Scarecrow character. Gotham's
glistening beauty at the start of the film receives no prominent major
key variation of anything that comes after its societal downfall and
Batman's arrival. Simply put, Zimmer claims that doing his research
would make for a "boring" score. Instead, this attitude not only stinks
of laziness, but also of a touch of arrogance. When another composer has
hit the nail on the head before you, even in slightly different
circumstances, there's no excuse for completely ignoring that success.
You have to know that the audiences won't ignore it.
For Hans Zimmer,
Batman Begins represents a
terribly frustrating failure to perform up to expectations. His music
services the film with only a lightly painted canvas, and luckily the
film is strong enough to overcome the deficiencies in its music. And
what of Howard? The typically sophisticated work of Howard doesn't seem
to encroach upon the simplicity of Zimmer's overarching vision of the
score. If you want to be cynical, you could argue that Zimmer has traded
in his hoard of lesser-known ghostwriters for one top-notch ghostwriter,
and even this didn't save the score. Fans would be justified to wonder
what
Batman Begins would have sounded like under the sole care of
Howard, who likely could have much better musically interpreted the
subtleties of Wayne's duality. With many of Zimmer's ardent fans already
questioning some of the composer's output these days,
Batman
Begins will only add to the head-scratching. Instead of adapting
himself to Batman, Zimmer tried to force Batman to adapt to his musical
comfort zone. If Zimmer can't extend beyond this comfort zone for a
big-name title soon, then he is coming dangerously close to outliving his
usefulness in the action/fantasy genre. Some of the fault does fall on
Nolan, who could have (and should have) known that there are brilliant
young composers working today who don't have hangups about large
orchestras, who don't work in a chaotic scoring environment, who don't
rely on the talents of other composers, and who have already proven
themselves to be masters of handling major/minor key creativity and
complex variations of theme. Who else would have been fascinated to hear
what the likes of Brian Tyler or John Ottman could have done with this
fantastic film? The hour of music presented on the
Batman Begins
album is more than satisfying, for the missing music really doesn't
differ from that which was pressed. The Latin track titles are cute, but
irritating in that they don't indicate for casual fans what parts of the
film they are derived from. Overall,
Batman Begins is an
enormously wasted opportunity for both Zimmer and Howard, as well as for
fans of the franchise. If the franchise continues, we can only hope for
a new composer who serves Batman rather than serving himself.
Score as Heard in Film: **
Score as Heard on Album: ***
Overall: **
| Bias Check: | For Hans Zimmer reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating
is 2.98 (in 51 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.23
(in 217,689 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
For James Newton Howard reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating
is 3.34 (in 34 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.39
(in 46,136 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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