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| Zimmer |
Backdraft: (Hans Zimmer) The forces of good and
evil were hard at work against each other in
Backdraft, but not
in the ways you'd expect. Ron Howard's character story of firefighters
in
Chicago's Chinatown had one of cinema's most spectacular
assets in its favor: the best portrayal of flames ever produced. In
fact, even many years later, no film has treated the personality of a
fire with such menacing dignity as
Backdraft. So brilliant is its
realistic qualities on screen that audiences were willing, for the most
part, to forgive an absolutely terrible script by Gregory Widen to
witness them. The slow and predictable narrative of
Backdraft
couldn't be salvaged by even an expert cast led by a few outstanding
conversational duels between Donald Sutherland and Robert DeNiro. The
reconciliatory side-stories of the brothers played by Kurt Russell and
William Baldwin are so wretched that you sit waiting for the next cut to
the maniacal Sutherland or, in his honor, another scene of arson to
feature the mesmerizing capturing of fire in camera. While Howard had
established a strong collaboration with composer James Horner at the
time, he had been impressed by Hans Zimmer's
Black Rain, and
depending on what source you talk to, the director's high opinion of
that 1989 score was either a blessing or a bad omen. While some accounts
indicate that Howard wanted a different variation on the style of
Black Rain to provide a hard edge to
Backdraft's overtly
masculine tones, Zimmer himself has indicated that to appease the
director, he ended up having to copy some of the earlier score almost
precisely for the fire scenes in particular. Either way, Zimmer was on
the verge of being fired from
Backdraft because of the
miscommunication between them, and the production's music director had
to step in at last minute and help explain to Zimmer what Howard was
seeking in his approach. Inconvenient technical glitches didn't help,
either.
Zimmer and Howard eventually worked very closely on a
cue-by-cue basis for
Backdraft, with Zimmer in attendance on the
set during the filming of live-blaze action. But the two men reportedly
did not speak again until their reconciliation more than a decade later
led to Zimmer's involvement in Howard's
The Da Vinci Code and
Angels & Demons. The composer had already been recognized with an
Academy Award nomination by 1991, but
Backdraft's score was a
significant wake-up call to casual film score collectors. The thrilling
role of Zimmer's music in
Backdraft and on its powerful album
helped launch him beyond the promise of
Rain Man and
Driving
Miss Daisy into the top tier of composers where he would remain for
decades. In interviews, Zimmer has stated that he's proud of the
somewhat unorthodox method of writing and recording soft music for
scenes of fiery destruction, and although that technique is used a few
times, don't be fooled into thinking that
Backdraft is anything
less than Zimmer's bombast at its best. His bass-heavy, percussive score
is loud enough to be heard over many of the stunning sound effects mixed
throughout the film. Prominent composers of the era such as Jerry
Goldsmith and James Horner had already experimented with a combination
of orchestral players, choir, and electronics in their film scores, but
never with the resounding power that Zimmer introduced with
Backdraft. He would later elaborate upon this style in
Crimson
Tide and many others, of course, but
Backdraft serves as the
origin point for many of the underlying sounds the composer was later
best known for. Between the dominant snare drum rhythms, the light
female chorus, and Zimmer's robust and simplistic themes, the
Backdraft score, despite whatever difficulty it may have had in
the conception stage, is exactly what Zimmer and Howard wanted it to be:
an ode to firemen. It bypasses Howard's Irish tilt that defines some
source usage on screen to focus on the characters and action only.
For Zimmer, the opportunity to work with anywhere from 95
to 120 orchestral players, a chorus, and his library of synthesized
samples led to the difficult task of combining all three without
drowning any one of them out. Many film score collectors credit master
orchestrator and conductor Shirley Walker for helping to guide the
score's consistently intelligent balance between the organic and
synthetic, and Zimmer himself isn't shy about lauding her immense
talents and their assistance to this score. (Walker was also known for
contributing considerable positive input to Danny Elfman's
Batman
just before, her knack for guiding inexperienced composers into
large-scale orchestral assignments proven at the top levels of the
industry.) Regardless of the extent of Zimmer's reliance upon Walker,
there's a fresh ambience to
Backdraft that went missing from the
action scores that he only co-wrote or produced later in his career.
Despite the fact that much of
Backdraft utilizes songs, source
music, or no music at all, there is no doubt that Zimmer's contribution
is an extremely successful match for the topic. A few of the
conversational cues seem overplayed by the music's mix, some scenes'
cues suddenly engaging at too high a volume for the characters' speech.
The cuts between the romantic scene for the leads atop a fire truck and
an impending fire response is truly awkward, but Zimmer still has every
right to be proud of the achievement overall. His favorite cue
accompanies the funeral procession at the end of the film, and it is an
emotionally charged and elegant piece with bold brass, percussion, and
choir that indeed resides as one of the best single cues in his career.
Interestingly, some of the more melodic moments of
Backdraft
would be further explored in
The Lion King, especially in the
combination of heart-breakingly lovely strings, solo woodwinds, and
light choir expressed during the poignant death sequence heard at the
end of "Final Fire/Who's Your Brother?" ("You Go, We Go" on the original
album). The more masculine motifs defining action scenes later found
comfortable homes in
The Peacemaker and beyond.
Two main themes exist in the score for
Backdraft,
and Zimmer intentionally states them separately until the resolution at
the story's conclusion. Leading the work is the propulsive fanfare for
the noble firefighting concept, a clear inspiration for Mark Mancina's
later
Speed and also famously used as the theme for the TV
cooking show "Iron Chef." A more lyrical secondary idea also exists for
the two brothers and their tangential relationships. By the end of the
score, as Baldwin's character assumes the role as the family's veteran
on the force, the latter theme is supplied as a choral interlude to the
snare-ripping firefighting theme, essentially integrating them into one
construct. The popular firefighter theme is best remembered for its
heavy anchoring of the fire truck travelling sequences at the start and
end of the score, lending a romantic brass identity in "Backdraft Main
Titles" ("Fighting 17th") that Zimmer has long identified as perhaps the
only truly heroic theme of his career. In this one instance, the cue
explores a broader set of upbeat secondary lines to the idea in two
minutes of development, perhaps due to the composer still feeling out
the melody in process or perhaps as a specific alternate for the
brothers' father. That firefighter theme occupies the score in several
lighter guises, eventually translating into an idea of romance in "Show
Me Your Firetruck" ("Brothers"). Zimmer's common synthetic keyboarding
at the time is more comfortable, however, with the brothers' theme, as
heard at the ends of "The Real Thing" and "The Ex is Back?" Several
secondary themes occupy
Backdraft, none as emotive as Zimmer's
death and injury motif. Powerfully exhibited upon the death of the
father in "Backdraft Main Titles" ("Fighting 17th"), this motif is often
the domain of a solo trumpet, Zimmer's ultimate tribute to heroism that
carried over to
Crimson Tide and
The Rock but conveying
here a level of raw emotion rarely touched upon by Zimmer in the
following years. This idea also returns in "Tim Burns" and "Who's Your
Brother?" ("Burn It All"), and the melancholy trumpet is sometimes lent
to the two main themes, as in "Save My Baby" and "You Win."
Zimmer's recurring action motif is a true foreshadowing of
masculine pounding to come, but it makes a somewhat strange entrance on
his trademark 1980's synths and marimba effects in "Burnt Out Beamer."
It receives its due chopped string formation after a heroic anthem that
comes together in "Mannequin Fire" and eventually thrives in "Final
Fire." Those two massive action sequences for the set firefighting
scenes offered Zimmer the chance to explore several secondary lines of
action that ramble through both cues, including a common, slower,
pulsing passage for strings, drums, synths, and choir that drives the
melodrama through the roof. Ancillary to this material is a rolling
ascent and descent motif for the fire itself that opens "The Real Thing"
on low strings and threatens in a few other cues as the fire is referred
to as an "animal." The suspense element in this score is somewhat
underdeveloped, the synthetics not always lending effective power to the
film's mix. Perhaps the most intriguing cue attempting this technique is
"Who Doesn't Love Fire?" Generally, though, the heavy,
electronically-driven portions of the score are more interesting than
the stock, more brazenly synthesized orchestra hits that would come
later in Zimmer's preferred methods. While never resorting to a harsh
electric guitar, Zimmer uses abrasive and grinding electronics during
scenes glorifying the fires. The balance in tone here seems to be more
accomplished than in most of his subsequent works, perhaps a stroke of
beginner's luck or owing, perhaps, to an editor's mixing talents. Still,
in the action motif's performance early in "Final Fire" ("Burn It All,"
a cue used in several trailers for other films at the time), the
rambling keyboarding does clearly emulate
Black Rain. That score
tends to bleed through the most in the secondary action material Zimmer
was instructed to make hyper-emotional by Howard, led by the
aforementioned pulsating choral passages. There's a reason this cue is
almost identical to the end of "Charlie Loses His Head" on the
commercial
Black Rain album (more accurately titled "Outburst of
Rage" on that score's bootlegs); Howard used that cue as a temp track
over his trial footage of dramatic fire behavior for this film and fell
in love with it.
Zimmer was inclined to take the score in a fresh
instrumental direction, and he still did, especially with the
utilization of an array of sound effects early, including the tingling
electrical sound of a burning circuit. Several of the conversational or
lightly suspenseful cues in
Backdraft rely upon that kind of
creative ambience to carry what is otherwise mundane material.
Underachieving is "What's This Job All About?" ("The Arsonist's Waltz"),
with a rhythm that barely qualifies as a waltz and a tone that neither
takes advantage of the explosiveness of the crime nor the mystery of its
perpetrator in the story. Also struggling at times is the keyboarding of
the brothers' theme in emerging from dreary environments. When the
film's tensions inevitably rise, though, the outward instrumental
creativity does return. Percussion is critical to this score, and its
mix varies substantially between the original film version and the
longstanding album alternative. The clanging of an ax is imitated by
chimes, inserted at certain points to help maintain action rhythms. The
same chimes, among other metallic strikes, underline several heroic
deeds late in the film. For the militaristic aspect of the story, Zimmer
emphasizes the most important instrument of them all: the snare drum.
Fans will have a hard time remembering a score so dominated by one
percussive instrument, but the snare is a perfect representation of the
fire truck and the hailing of emergencies throughout the film. It, along
with various medium-range drums (real or on the pads, it doesn't really
matter), create the memorable ambience of a giant pinball machine,
adding excitement while also yielding a sense of urgency, duty, and
battle that the concept relies upon. All of these neat effects are
highlights of the score's distinct mix apart of the film, though the
album situation for
Backdraft was long a major frustration for
fans. The original Milan product of 1991 was mixed by legendary Beatles
producer George Martin at Zimmer's request and the blessing of the
filmmakers, and he gave the score a strikingly different balance that is
noticeably different from the film's mix. Generally, his approach to the
score reduced the presence of the electronics while boosting the choir
and especially the percussion. For the funeral procession and final call
to action cues at the end of the film ("Funeral" and "Hard Lesson to
Learn"), Martin really cranked up the snare drum, accentuating the
pinball machine effect for better or worse.
An attractive "Ron Howard Passions and Achievements"
retrospective compilation album from 1997, also released by Milan and
remaining in print for decades to follow, contains an arguably superior
mix of those properly merged final two cues, with better balanced
percussion and choir presented in an extended suite format that is
really a lovely 6-minute overview of the score and possible substitute
for the original soundtrack album at the time. Some creative editing was
done on that compilation cue, leading to an awkward volume change in the
last sequence of the suite at about 4:00, but listeners were treated to
an even more vibrant percussive role that clearly defines the intent
that Zimmer had when preparing the music for the film. The original
Milan album also had badly mislabeled tracks, less-then-stellar sound
quality, and a presentation of cues out of film order. (The two closing
cues of the film as just mentioned were labeled as "Fahrenheit 451" and
"Show Me Your Firetruck.") In the action passages, a dull mix causes the
oft droning bass elements to overwhelm some of the trickier and more
interesting high range percussion. Aside from the merely average Bruce
Hornsby songs at the start and end of the product, about 30 minutes of
Zimmer's score was provided in the composer's standard, lengthy suite
format. In 2005, Milan revisited the album and pressed a re-issue that
unfortunately solved none of the original product's problems and
arguably made them worse. The selling points of the 2005 album were a
remastering of the score and the inclusion of a 9-minute Zimmer
interview about the music conducted in retrospect. The interview is
fine, and it illuminated some of the
Black Rain issues that
specifically plagued
Backdraft. But the remastering, while it
does better emphasize some of the treble elements that got swallowed up
by the bass in the previous presentation, has a terrible time managing
gain levels. The volume is cranked up so high at times that audible
distortion is heard repeatedly in the second half of the score. It
actually becomes embarrassing in "Burn It All." The clarinet solo near
the end of "You Go, We Go" (whether real or Zimmer's remarkable
Diving Miss Daisy incarnation) is downright nasal because of this
frustrating soundscape. In the process of toning back the bass in
"Fahrenheit 451," a certain amount of tape hiss effect is heard, too,
causing the entire piece to consequently sound tinny.
Even more disappointing about the 2005 Milan reissue
was the absence of the original film version of the "Fahrenheit 451" and
"Show Me Your Firetruck" combination of closing cues already available
on the 1997 "Ron Howard Passions and Achievements" compilation, likely
the result of a licensing complication. (Re-issues often don't allow for
fiscally viable expansion of the music by even rights-owners). Listeners
already in possession of the original 1991 album and/or the 1997 Howard
compilation with Zimmer's supposedly preferred mix of those highlights
had no reason to flock to the surprisingly disappointing 2005 re-issue.
The same can't be said of Intrada Records' 2024 full expansion of the
score, though, which finally provides the film version of the score's
mix largely intact and with sensible track titles. More importantly, the
product offered both the film's mix of the score and a cleaned-up
version of George Martin's alternative, with an extra alternate mix of
"Backdraft Main Titles" that highlights the electronics' depth to a
greater degree. Listeners still scratching their heads in bewilderment
over Milan's presentation will find some peace in Intrada's expansion,
though the product is short on alternate takes and mixes, and the 1997
compilation edit remains missing. Neither of the Hornsby songs nor any
of the other multitudes of source placements appears on this product. Be
prepared to encounter several very short cues on the expansion, a
circumstance that Zimmer himself loathed but was made necessary in this
case by the film's tendency to drop a sudden, brief piece of score into
the narrative without much context. The full presentation of the music
reveals just how wise the condensing of material truly was for the
30-minute alternative from Milan; while the narrative is better
appreciated on the 2024 album for enthusiasts of the movie, it isn't the
same nonstop thriller of a listening experience in its second half in
its longer form. Some collectors may find the Intrada presentation of
this score to be roughly as satisfying as the label's equivalent
treatment of
The Rock, as the approaches to both expansions are
similar and don't provide any significant revelations. Still, in a
bittersweet sense,
Backdraft is a nostalgic trip back to the days
when Zimmer was a refreshing deviation from the standard Hollywood
sound, and in part because of his unfortunate rash of originality
problems in the decades to follow, it remains a sentimental favorite.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
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| Bias Check: |
For Hans Zimmer reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.85
(in 128 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 2.96
(in 299,193 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
The inserts for the Milan albums contain extensive credits but no
extra information about the film or score. That of the 2024 Intrada album
contains details about both.
