 |
Hannibal on DVD
• Added Scenes • Dolby Digital 5.1 More DVD info... |
|
|
Hannibal on DVD
• Added Scenes • Dolby Digital 5.1 More DVD info... |
 |
|
 | |||||||||
| • | Newest Major Reviews: | . | • | This Week's Most Popular Reviews: | • | Best-Selling Albums: | ||
| . |
1. Nim's Island 2. The Life Before Her Eyes 3. Horton Hears a Who! 4. Leatherheads 5. The Spiderwick Chronicles | . | . |
1. Moulin Rouge 2. Gladiator 3. POTC: Curse of the Black Pearl 4. Star Wars: A New Hope 5. Edward Scissorhands |
6. Pearl Harbor 7. Schindler's List 8. Titanic 9. Braveheart 10. Home Alone | . | . |
1. Varèse Sarabande 25th 2. The Last of the Mohicans 3. Legends of the Fall 4. Schindler's List 5. LOTR: Return of the King (Set) |
 | ||||||||
|
|
|
Filmtracks Editorial Review:
The score for Silence of the Lambs was a smaller budget, more typical horror result from Howard Shore. For Hannibal, however, a larger scale employment of music is incorporated into the final cut of the film. Ridley Scott, of course, played a pivotal, executive role in the sound and feel of the music, and his final choice of genre very well compliments Sir Anthony Hopkins' character. Zimmer's score for Hannibal walks a fine line between a tense psychological horror and refined classical elegance. To pull this off successfully, Zimmer leaves his synthesizers behind, for the most part, and concentrates heavily on the strings of the Lyndhurst Orchestra to push the classical edge. For Hopkins' refined, brilliant exterior, the strings perform in an adagio format of repetitious, but minor/major key alternating series of lengthy string meanderings. The violin section performs the entirety of the extremely subtle, but equally classically-formated theme for the film, and together with a consistent piano, Zimmer is very successful in conveying that refined classicism necessary for Hannibal's intelligence. On the other hand, the psychotic element is surely not forgotten. The bass strings are mixed at a very strong and ominous level of unease, nearly constantly maintaining the reminder of the pure evil at work here. In a neat twist, the strings tingle and jump with delight during the middle of track nine, as Lecter enjoys the preaching of his own dark knowledge. Another interesting element is expressed in this film --something that wasn't clear in Silence of the Lambs. Because of the heavily religious implications of Hannibal, Zimmer inserts several vocals and church bells into the score. The vocals are especially well-constructed to mimic the same duality that the strings are divided by. On one hand, you hear multiple performances by female operatic voices, adding an even more refined depth to Hopkins' character as he lushly holds the audience in suspence with his undeniably luring intellect. At other points, when he begins to divulge in the more carnal and less controlled aspects of his own personality, the voice multiplies into a full choir of church-like beauty. Between these vocals and the imposing string performance, the score stands as a consistently classical piece. There are, of course, a few less civilized moments of fright and horror, and one of these occurs at the end of track nine, when a hint of the old "slasher" technique is demanded from the orchestra. But even with these few moments of choppiness, the score's elegance is difficult to dismiss. A touch of Bernard Herrmann can be heard at the end of track nine and twice in track ten, with a slight tribute to the masterful string work of Vertigo. Some of the more reflective moments of Hannibal are reminiscent of the same darkness that overshadowed Zimmer's score for The House of the Spirits nearly a decade ago. The album for Hannibal is very diverse in and of itself. Eight of the twelve tracks are composed by Zimmer, with three of the four others heavily classical in nature. With only one track not composed exclusively for the film, the classical pieces fit well into the structure of the score, though not adding to much to it. Likely to spur some controversy, four tracks on the album feature dialogue by Hopkins. Three of these are mixed together with Zimmer's score, and sometimes they are mixed with superb Zimmer cues. And yet, the dialogue is superbly performed by Hopkins (as could be expected), and his lyrical ramblings fit very well with the mood of the score. The final track of the album has a hidden moment at the end; after some moments of silence, Hopkins bids you farewell and the orchestra strikes one last, loud hit... and if you're not readily for you, it could scare you right out of your skin. As for Zimmer's music on the album, it makes up between 35 and 40 minutes, and much of the music that is obscured by the dialogue is available in varied forms elsewhere on the disc. One must be patient with the score --it only begins to really cook in its final four tracks, just as Hopkins' delightful monologues mature into their brilliant climax. The dialogue is mixed so that the music is still central behind it, though this sometimes causes Hopkins' voice to be unintelligible if you're listening to the album on a surround sound system (in which case I recommend that you switch it to regular stereo). The music for Hannibal fares well on its album even with this controversial production move. The same uneasiness which blesses the story on the screen causes the album to be equally frightful, and yet in the end, the moments of score and dialogue together steal the album. ****
* Original Score by Hans Zimmer
Insert includes extensive credits, but no extra information about the film or score. "This is the best love theme I've ever written," Zimmer says of his music for Hannibal. "I keep telling everyone this is a romantic comedy, but nobody believes me." Ridley Scott and Gladiator made it possible for me to just play... it was a great way of rediscovering my joy in music. You have to remain flexible, and you must be your own critic at all times. You must have integrity, and you cannot let your 'brothers in arms' down. Everybody works very hard on a film; nobody sets out to make a bad movie. Just on a sleep deprivation level you owe it to others. I basically decided that there are two kinds of music: good music and bad music. If something happened where I couldn't write music anymore, it would kill me. It's not just a job. It's not just a hobby. It's why I get up in the morning." | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
