Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #923
Written 9/21/03, Revised 3/2/09
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Buy it... if you seek a combination of the yearning beauty of the string
motifs in The Thin Red Line and the melodramatic weight of The House
of the Spirits.
Avoid it... if you agree with critics who believe that Hans Zimmer's
"mushy" tone of over-extended emotional reach tends to wash the tension out
of serious dramas.
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| Zimmer |
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| Badelt |
Invincible: (Hans Zimmer/Klaus Badelt) The first mainstream
film by director Werner Herzog in many years, 2002's Invincible was a
polarizing tale of human dignity and religious allegory set in Nazi Germany
during its early pre-war years. It tells the story of the world's strongest man,
a modern carnival attraction that was popular even back as far as the early
1930's. A talent scout finds this man of strength and brings him to a German
show house with live acts (run by Tim Roth, who brutally portrays the theatre
owner and a clairvoyant for Hitler), where the boyish strongman lifts boulders
and performs other outstanding feats. The conflict of the story arises in the
fact that the strongman is a Polish Jew in a country slowly being squeezed by
the Nazis. And, as part of the necessary allegory of the story, the strongman,
like Samson, reveals his true self during a live performance (tearing off his
blonde wig and gladiator's uniform). The surprising tale spirals from there,
including a love triangle and a predictably unhappy ending. The film was met
with either immense praise or intense dissatisfaction by critics and viewers,
with the morbidly depressing allegory balanced on screen by phenomenally
beautiful art direction and stunning cinematography within the theatre itself.
Always attempting to expand upon the genres of films that he accepted as
assignments, composer Hans Zimmer had been fighting a recent typecasting into
the role of scoring big action and drama films by 2002. In fact, despite similar
blockbuster scores early in his career, Zimmer was well respected for taking
projects like Invincible and providing them with highly effective music.
In this case, Zimmer teamed up once again with German counterpart Klaus Badelt;
the previous year, the two had collaborated on an equally dramatic, but far more
introspective and personal score for the character drama The Pledge.
While Invincible does not exist on as remote a level of instrumentation
and alienation as The Pledge, it does offer the same heavily dramatic
base as that score, this time with a symphonic ensemble. Zimmer's sensibilities
can be heard throughout Invincible, but it's likely that Badelt's greater
role in the production of this score was an ongoing trend that would lead him to
take primary credit over Zimmer (as legally necessary) for their forthcoming
blockbuster hit, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black
Pearl.
The score for
Invincible is largely a string affair,
with layers of deeply resonating violins and cellos performing dramatic
alternations between major and minor key chords from start to finish. Subtle
brass is sometimes utilized to accentuate more poignant moments, including the
opening cue, "The Journey," and the powerfully gripping "Martha Lifts the
Elephant." Woodwinds also add a human element during scenes of unrealized love
between the strongman and the woman of the theatre's owner. Very sparse
percussion is utilized by the pair of composers, with only the solemn pounding
of "Siegfried, the Iron King" accompanying a buildup of anticipation to the
momentous tasks achieved on stage by the strongman. The oppression in the string
motifs is omnipresent in
Invincible, with Zimmer and Badelt offering
really no positive moment of relief in the effort. A title theme exists in very
inglorious form, exposing itself most clearly in the two moments of Nazi control
during which Zimmer returns to more familiar choral grounds. To represent these
two most powerful scenes in the film with overwhelming emotion (those which are
the most symbolic of Samson's plight for justice), Zimmer pulls out the familiar
deep male chorus and spins their usual Russian tilt into a Germanic one. In both
"Master of the Occult" and "Martha Lifts the Elephant," Zimmer evokes the
choral
intensity of
The Peacemaker in its most serious form, instilling a sense
of awe and fear into the theme. Collectors of Zimmer's more masculine works will
probably latch onto these moments in particular, but the rest of the score,
though certainly understated throughout, deserves the same attention. The
neo-classical chord progressions of Zimmer's usual choice are hard at work in
Invincible, and the 35 or so minutes of score presented on the album
release are a non-stop symphonic display of tragedy. No synthesizers exist in
this effort, and it is not clear which of the two composers was responsible for
the choral passages that serve as the obvious highlights of the work. Overall,
this score summons the beauty of the string motifs in
The Thin Red Line
and merges it with the impressive, dramatic weight of
The House of the
Spirits. The album finishes with four classical and jazz cues popular in
Nazi Germany at the time (some in their original, scratchy recordings). It was a
product reportedly released only in Europe (to accompany the primary release of
the film there), but available online everywhere. In sum, enthusiasts of heavy
Zimmer string melodrama will be very pleased.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
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.
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