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Review of Rain Man (Hans Zimmer)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you want to trace most of Hans Zimmer's enduring and
arguably superior output from 1989 to 1994 back to its origin, because
Rain Man was the initiation point for a wide variety of the
composer's later techniques.
Avoid it... if you are not interested in paying premium prices for the short-printed 2018 album, the only option for hearing Zimmer's likable, optimistic score in a consistent, decent sounding presentation after years of offerings hampered by inferior sources.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Rain Man: (Hans Zimmer) The pride of Hollywood in
early 1989 was Barry Levinson's Rain Man, the top grossing film
of the previous year and winner of all the major Academy Awards. A
compelling script tackled the subject of autism in a very mindful but
unusual way. Tom Cruise plays an upstart car dealer of questionable
character who intends to inherit several million dollars from his
estranged father, but he discovers after the man's death that the money
was given to a brother he never knew he had. That long lost sibling is
Dustin Hoffman in one of his award-winning roles, having studied autism
significantly before expertly portraying all the mannerisms of the
condition in his performance. The younger, successful brother takes the
older, frightened one across the country to take part in custody
legalities (so that he can acquire the money), but after exploiting the
Hoffman character's memorization abilities in Las Vegas, he eventually
cares enough for his sibling to shift his focus to the care of the man.
It's a heart-warming tale dependent on a smart script and superb acting
performances, and it was a project blessed early and often by its
studio. One area in which Levinson was unsure how to proceed was the
score. An array of songs was already set to be placed in Rain
Man, many of which comprising the commercial album release for the
production. But he ended up taking a chance on newcomer Hans Zimmer for
the original score after his wife had heard the composer's ethnic music
for A World Apart, a work that Zimmer continues to consider among
his most significant. None of his assignments changed his life as much
as Rain Man, however, for the score would lead to a surprising
Oscar nomination and several consecutive years of work on films highly
successful both critically and in worldwide grosses. To this point in
his career, Zimmer had been operating out of London and collaborating
with composer Stanley Myers to learn about a scoring industry he had
always admired. Zimmer was still producing his scores on arrays of
synthesizers at the time, sometimes with acoustic soloists, and pushing
the limits of development in the application of sampled orchestral
sounds to light rock environments.
For Rain Man, the formula for Zimmer wasn't much different, teaming with assistant and eventual Media Ventures regular Nick Glennie-Smith to provide music primarily performed on Zimmer's Fairlight CMI synthesizer and steel drums. The score also features pan pipes and female vocals of a gospel tone as the anchors of its two disparate personalities. More important than the instrumentation, however, as was often the case for Zimmer at this time, is the sense of style that the composer brought to the film. An abundance of style is indeed what has kept this score so popular for so long. When attempting to capture the essence of Rain Man, Zimmer made a conscious effort to keep the score both personable and quirky. "It was a road movie, and road movies usually have gangly guitars or a bunch of strings," he recalled much later. "I kept thinking, 'don't be bigger than the characters. Try to keep it contained.' The Raymond character [Hoffman] doesn't actually know where he is. The world is so different to him. He might as well be on Mars. So, why don't we just invent our own world music for a world that doesn't really exist?" As a result, Zimmer wrote a score that concentrates on propelling the film's sense of movement while defying a genre as much as it crosses cultural boundaries. It moves with a slight hint of the rhythm and keyboarding that would develop into his reggae style for Cool Runnings. The affable combination of soothing keyboarding and percussion would translate directly into his True Romance adaptation work and others. The exotic sound of Rain Man ranges from the plucked, oriental tones that later informed Black Rain and Beyond Rangoon to the gorgeous pan pipes that evolved through several Zimmer scores until reaching their maturation in The Lion King. The wild gospel vocal accents for the Las Vegas scenes are best emulated by portions of Point of No Return. The varied combination of synthetic and real percussion was a precursor to The Power of One. Some of these sounds actually grew out of A World Apart, but as any serious Zimmer collector will know, the majority of his music from 1989 to 1994 has some connection back to Rain Man. The only usually-present element in Zimmer's highly recognizable music of the period that doesn't have any major role in this score is the electric guitar, which traces instead (in the mainstream, at least) to Black Rain. The attractive aspect of this score is not only the intriguing combination of sounds for both lead personalities, but also the simple and pretty demeanor of the main theme for Hoffman's character. Cruise's more flamboyant persona is afforded its only real spark of life in the slightly-rock inspired Las Vegas cue (with early ensemble choral hints as well), but the score concentrates mostly on the older brother's unusual journey. The rhythms and progressions in the theme are contemporary enough to cover both characters, and the only truly odd foreign sound to be heard (in early cues, naturally) is an Australian didgeridoo effect. While Zimmer's main theme on pan pipes is best remembered by its accompaniment of the hip, keyboarded rhythms, the idea is most beautiful when conveyed on its own or with slight secondary motifs, such as the oriental idea that would later sneak into Toys, strangely enough. The first half of the score often explores soft variations on the main theme with satisfyingly relaxing results. The latter portions present Zimmer's fledgling suspense material, with "Smoke Alarm" offering the most challenging moment in the work. There isn't a tremendous amount of score material in Rain Man, but Zimmer's contribution certainly deserved more than just eleven minutes on the original, commercial soundtrack release. The first of Zimmer's two cues on that product combines some of the more compelling and soft, thematic portions from the first half of the film. The second cue merges the snazzy, roaring Las Vegas cue (in a different mix from what was heard in the film) with a return to the lovely theme for the closing credits. For any true fan of either Rain Man or Zimmer's career, however, there are too many variations on the main theme left off that ubiquitous product. Several bootlegs sprouted up in the late 1990's, eventually supplanted by one leaking of the recording sessions that reached over 48 minutes in length. This collection of cues isn't particularly well edited and is padded by some alternate takes, recordings of the pan pipes or vocal tracks alone, or dialogue (with profanity; can you imagine!) between Zimmer and Glennie-Smith in the studio. Muffled sound quality remained a major issue throughout the history of the score on its bootleg arrangements. In late 2010, enthusiasts of the composer rejoiced in the news that Rain Man was to be legitimately released by Perseverance Records in a limited 2,000-copy pressing. That product contained the complete score minus some of the aforementioned padding on the bootlegs. Despite producer Robin Esterhammer's best efforts, however, this album likewise suffered from the lack of acceptable source tapes. Even after some cleaning of the analog source (which is recognized as being "really crappy" right on the packaging), the presentation sounds only slightly superior to that of the bootlegs, with distortion associated with bloated gain levels a problem throughout. Audiophiles were appropriately horrified, and the album existed as a source of almost humorous, widespread ridicule in film music forums for years. It was a bit odd, in fact, to figure that the assembly of the Perseverance album could have benefited the most by simply using the existing Capitol CD as the best available source for parts of its own product. Alas, the search for better master elements ensued, and Notefornote Music finally found superior sources at MGM and consolidated the shorter tracks into an optimum presentation in 2018 that lost the two bonus tracks of soloist recordings from the previous album (the wild pan pipes, vocals, and percussion that were side curiosities at best) but did reconstruct the original two Capitol CD suites. Finally, the sound quality on this product is comparatively immaculate, with Zimmer's somewhat wet environment preserved in the score's ethereal worldly moments. Unfortunately, the label only pressed a head-scratching 1,000 copies of the album, failing to meet lingering demand and selling out within a few weeks (except for a large quantity suspiciously sold by Amazon.com at higher prices thereafter). If you missed the 2018 release, don't bother with the 2010 Perseverance alternative as a fallback. Instead, another solution to Rain Man is to collect the majority of Zimmer's other early works as mentioned in this review; that way, you'll hear nearly every aspect of this important score in his career emulated or developed into arguably superior variations. Regardless, the spirited and optimistic main theme from Rain Man will always be a fan favorite, and the score earns a fourth star for sentimental reasons alone. There is genuine intimacy and a loving heart in this score that remains sadly absent from Zimmer's later years of ensemble mentality at Remote Control Productions. ****
TRACK LISTINGS:
1988 Capitol/EMI Album:
Total Time: 40:42
* score track composed by Hans Zimmer 1998 Bootleg: Total Time: 46:23
* includes studio conversations between Hans Zimmer and Nick Glennie-Smith 2010 Perseverance Album: Total Time: 35:17
2018 Notefornote Album: Total Time: 46:02
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert of the 1988 retail album includes no extra information
about the score or film. The bootlegs feature no consistent packaging. The
insert of the 2010 Perseverance and 2018 Notefornote albums contain notes
about both the film and score; the former also includes acknowledgement of
the poor quality of the source for the music.
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The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from Rain Man are Copyright © 1988, 1998, 2010, 2018, Capitol/EMI Records, (Bootlegs), Perseverance Records, Notefornote Music and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 4/2/10 and last updated 5/25/18. |
