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Black Hawk Down on DVD
• Deluxe 3-Disc Edition • Gortoz A Ran music video More DVD info... |
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Black Hawk Down on DVD
• Deluxe 3-Disc Edition • Gortoz A Ran music video More DVD info... |
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Filmtracks Editorial Review:
In nearly ever way possible, though, Black Hawk Down is the exact opposite of his last score, Pearl Harbor. Rather than underplaying a historical event with soft, thematic scoring, Zimmer unleashes Hell in his music for Black Hawk Down. To understand this score, you have to also understand that the film itself is not meant to be a pleasant experience. Like the war films mentioned above, Black Hawk Down is supposed to wow audiences with its overpowering and detailed human account of a difficult historical event... not to provide anyone with a satisfyingly happy ending. Zimmer tackled this score with a admirable sense of experimentation. For such an unpleasant turn of events portrayed on screen, Zimmer responds with an equally unpleasant score. It is a score that is downright painful to listen to in parts, but at the same time, it is not only understandably painful, but also necessarily painful. Anyone who dismisses this score as merely incoherent noise is missing the point. To appreciate the score on its own , you have to look at the African and American elements separately and hear how he melds them together into the precise clash of culture that existed during the event. Sure, heavy electric guitars and East African voices are not what you'd expect to hear together in a piece of music, but when they're intentionally fighting each other, its' remarkably successful. Zimmer will be the first to joyfully explain that Black Hawk Down was a project for which he wanted to create a score that had never been done before. He and a seemingly infinite team of Media Ventures artists tinkered and experimented with all sorts of different electronic samplings in their effort to create a foreign setting. All you have to do to grasp the scope of the project is attempt to understand the liner credits on the album, and you'll realize that literally dozens of people contributed small compositional input into this score. Because of this eclectic base, and when considering that a local orchestra was contracted for only a handful of minutes to perform underscore for the synthesizers, the Black Hawk Down music is not a consistent listening experience. Zimmer brilliantly balances the American (and slightly Irish) elements of the score with the African ones. The setting of Mogadishu, with its famine and unknown militants, is represented by native East African voices set often to a modern, percussive rhythm. When the American cowboy attitudes and superior technology are displayed, the synthesized sounds of machine gun fire, jet afterburners, and the slow, deliberate swooshing of helicopter blades accompany guitars of varying electronic harshness. While no theme prevails in Black Hawk Down, the final significant score track, "Leave No Man Behind," presents the only development of a broad patriotic theme. Its deliberate pace and melancholy nature could remind the listener of the heavy theme from Beyond Rangoon. For most listeners, this cue will likely represent the only easily accessible musical souvenir from the film. The end result of Zimmer's efforts for Black Hawk Down is one of the few unique scores of the past decade. Its devestating action sequences will knock you down with their relentless and harsh pounding. The scenes of the civilian suffering in Somalia will frighten you with their stark echoing of subsistence. The underscore will challange your tolerance for cross cultural musical integration that was never meant to sound harmonious. In these regards, the album is the exact opposite of Pearl Harbor as well. It is an extremely difficult listening experience, but you cannot dismiss the power that this score must possess in its element on screen. Even if you absolutely cannot stand the music on the album, you have to chalk up another few points to Zimmer for assembling the talent necessary to make the Black Hawk Down experiment into a success. A vibrant sound quality assists the loneliness of the vocals in every track. The songs build appropriately on the cross cultural conflict in the film. "Barra Barra" and "Gortoz A Ran" are both superb combinations of modern rock and new age electronic accompaniment for African and Middle Eastern voices, and in many ways, the songs are the highlight of the album. If you are a Zimmer fan hoping for another Peacemaker or Gladiator score, then you will be shocked by how much it isn't either of those scores. Any one of the artists at the Media Ventures complex will gladly tell you that the Black Hawk Down score is no walk in the park... not an easy or enjoyable listen. But it accomplishes everything it set out to do, and you can't help --even though it is intolerable in parts-- appreciating the reality it throws in your face.
Music as Heard on Album: ** Overall: ***
Insert includes extensive credits and a long note from Danial Schweiger about the creative process of the score and all of its diverse elements. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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