Buy it... if you want the beauty of the string motifs in The Thin
Red Line and the dramatic weight of The House of the Spirits.
Avoid it... if you agree with critics who believe that Zimmer's "mushy"
music tends to wash out the tension of serious dramas.
Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Zimmer
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 the
strongest man 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 the ultimately unhappy ending. The film was
met with either immense satisfaction or intense disatisfaction by critics
and viewers, with the depressing allegory being balanced on screen by
phenomenally beautiful art direction and stunning cinematography within the
theatre itself. Always expanding the genres of films that he takes on as
assignments, composer Hans Zimmer has been fighting his recent typecasting
into the role of scoring big action/drama films. In fact, despite similarly
blockbuster scores early in his career, Zimmer was well respected for taking
films like Invincible and providing highly effective music for them.
In this case, Zimmer teams up once again with German counterpart Klaus
Badelt; the previous year, the two had collaborated on an equally dramatic,
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.
The score for Invincible is largely a string affair,
with layers of strings performing dramatic alternations between major and
minor key chords from start to finish. Subtle brass are sometimes utilized
to accentuate more poignant moments, including the opening cue, "The
Journey." Woodwinds also add a human element during scenes of lost 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 the buildup 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 no positive moment of relief in the effort. A title theme exists in
very inglorious form, often exposing itself more clearly in the two moments
of "Nazi power" during which Zimmer returns to more familiar choral grounds.
To represent the two most powerful scenes in the film --those which are the
most symbolic of Samson's plight of justice-- Zimmer pulls out the old 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. Zimmer fans 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 on the album are a
non-stop symphonic display of tragedy. No synthesizers exist in this effort,
and it is not clear which composer (Zimmer or Badelt) was responsible for
the choral passages. Overall, this score brings out the beauty of the string
motifs in The Thin Red Line and the dramatic weight of The House
of the Spirits. The album finishes with four classical and jazz cues
popular in Nazi Germany at the time (with some original, scratchy
recordings). It was an album reportedly released only in Europe (to
accompany the primary release of the film there), but available online
everywhere. Fans of heavy Zimmer strings will be impressed. ****
• 1. The Journey (2:45)
• 2. Siegfried, the Iron King (2:09)
• 3. Master of the Occult (8:12)
• 4. The Prophecy (1:41)
• 5. Souls (3:07)
• 6. Martha Lifts the Elephant (2:07)
• 7. Visions (6:34)
• 8. The Unknown Just (7:21)
• 9. Benjamin Believes (2:08)
• 10. 3rd Piano Concerto 2nd Movement - Classical: Beethoven (3:30)
• 11. Ombra mai fú - Classical: Handel (3:15)
• 12. Sweet & Lovely - performed by Max Raabe (2:59)
• 13. You're the Cream in my Coffee - performed by Max Raabe (3:13)
Notes and Quotes:
Insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
