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PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW 
Review of Thelma & Louise (Hans Zimmer)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... on any of the various score-only album releases if you
desire the defiantly beautiful, gospel-laced finale cue to go with the
commercially available presentation of the famous "Thunderbird" suite
from the score.
Avoid it... if you expect to hear more than eight to ten minutes of truly meaningful material in this work, because outside of the stylish guitar performances and that finale, there isn't much to impress on any full presentation of the short score.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Thelma & Louise: (Hans Zimmer) Director Ridley
Scott's foray into dark comedy for 1991's Thelma & Louise was
extremely well received, generating substantial awards recognition and
surprising grosses. It has also become something of a pop culture icon,
representing both road trips and women gone astray. Two contemporary
ladies from Middle America with little excitement in their lives go on a
vacation for a few days in their 1966 Thunderbird convertible. Along
their way, they shoot and kill a drunk rapist and assume that the
authorities will prosecute them, so they start a journey to Mexico while
eluding both local authorities and the F.B.I. They become hardened
avengers in the latter stages, robbing a store and destroying a fuel
tanker. When they're finally cornered at the edge of the Grand Canyon,
they famously drive their Thunderbird off the edge and plunge to their
deaths. Although Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon were far from Scott's
ideal choices for the lead roles, they both earned Academy Award
nominations. (Alas, facing off in the same category, they both lost).
The film also introduced a shirtless Brad Pitt to the mainstream and
allowed fan favorite Harvey Keitel to keep his clothes on. Despite all
the problems that Scott faced with the producers of Black Rain
over Hans Zimmer's unappreciated score for that film, the two continued
their collaboration in Thelma & Louise. Thankfully, this new
assignment went as smoothly as it could have for Zimmer. The film
features surprisingly little original score in its duration, but Scott
was so enthusiastic about Zimmer's theme for the fade-out finale and end
credits that he shot an all-new opening titles scene simply to
accommodate another presentation of that theme. Zimmer, meanwhile, has
always accepted praise for this theme, titled "Thunderbird," but has
never particularly understood why his fans want to hear the rest of the
score.
About the fanaticism over Thelma & Louise, Zimmer explains, "People are under the impression there is [more good music from the score]. But I go around that one 'Thunderbird' theme a couple of times, plus some little rock-n-rollish type things. I hate overstaying my welcome on these CDs, so there's just not enough. If I allowed a score-only Thelma & Louise CD, it probably would have been only 10 minutes long." On this matter, he has a perfectly valid point, because while the iconic "Thunderbird" theme, as well as the gospel-influenced finale piece, is worthy of a place in any collection of Zimmer's stylish early works, the rest of this score is a largely forgettable series of bluesy minimalism, sparse action motifs, irritating hoedown comedy, and unsatisfactory fragments of that primary theme. The underlying constructs of Thelma & Louise are quite simple. A lonely electric guitar theme with the personality of a battered rock ballad serves as the identity of "Thunderbird" and, by its adaptation throughout the film, most of the score. Zimmer was in the process of becoming quite fond of super-stylish guitar solos at the forefront of his pop-oriented film scores during the early 1990's. His collaboration with Pete Haycock for Thelma & Louise was an early representation of a partnership that continued in K2, True Romance, Calendar Girl, and Drop Zone, among others. The power behind the solo performances is neither as forceful nor memorable here as in Days of Thunder, replaced by a slightly dejected and alienating tone as required by this story. Zimmer augments Haycock's contribution with familiar keyboarding, loops, and drum pads. He makes no attempt to use his electronic samples of an orchestra to specifically emulate an organic tone for the story, instead leaving a synthetic edge in nearly every cue to reinforce the disembodied rock style. In the reunion scene ("Homecoming/Railway Station"), the score approaches the new age genre if not for the stylish guitar. Two secondary identities are established by Zimmer in Thelma & Louise to compliment the main "Thunderbird" theme. The first is plucky Western minimalism with a harmonica and banjo, inhabiting a bluesy tone for Pitt's escaped convict. This material eventually develops into full-fledge hoedown territory, with "Bitches From Hell" (the tanker scene) previewing the more developed symphonic variant in Cool Runnings. The other secondary identity is the subtle gospel influence that very tragically but beautifully emerges in "The Decision" as the women decide to commit suicide. This music is similar to Zimmer's many other uses of soul and gospel in his scores at the time, but the duet between the guitar and voices for the "Thunderbird" theme in the first half of "The Decision" is a highlight of the score. The only other aspect of Thelma & Louise worth mentioning is the influence of Black Rain on a sort of "determination motif" that Zimmer uses to propel the protagonists to their fateful decision. Heard first in the subtly keyboarded staccato string chopping late in "Wide Awake," this idea matures in the composer's familiar action tones in "The Chase." Overall, Zimmer is correct in that there's only about ten minutes of lasting music in Thelma & Louise, but that didn't stop a First Born Records bootleg from slapping 40 minutes of it on a decent-sounding CD later in the decade. The commercial MCA album had only included the four-minute "Thunderbird" suite amongst the usual collection of songs. In 2011, the Kritzerland specialty label pressed a slightly rearranged version of the bootleg presentation on a 1,200-copy product that sold out immediately, despite the reality that the eight minutes over the final two tracks on the bootleg are the only ones definitely worth having. The same contents were re-pressed for another 1,000 copies in 2017 by the young specialty soundtrack label Notefornote Music. Given comparable sound quality on all the products, if you already own one of the prior editions of this decent but rather underwhelming score on the whole, then there's no need to seek the later editions. ***
TRACK LISTINGS:
1998 Bootleg:
Total Time: 77:52
(41:07 of music from Thelma & Louise) 2011 Kritzerland/2017 Notefornote Albums: Total Time: 38:10
NOTES & QUOTES:
No consistent packaging exists for the bootleg variants. The 2011 Kritzerland
and 2017 Notefornote albums' inserts contain basic note about the film and score.
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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 Thelma & Louise are Copyright © 1998, 2011, 2017, First Born Records (Bootleg), Kritzerland, Notefornote Music and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 4/6/10 and last updated 12/19/17. |
