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Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you appreciated the restrained and brooding atmosphere of the music as you heard it in the film, for The Thin Red Line is not a score to effectively approach without context. Avoid it... if you are in search for more than just one short Melanesian song featured in the film, many of which were compiled onto a separate soundtrack album. Original Review, by Christian Clemmensen
As a composer, if you approach a Malick film with hard synchronization points in mind, you're doomed to frustration. Studio chairman Mike Medavoy said of Zimmer's contribution, "It's not a traditional score," however, and that's why it worked. Zimmer instead scored The Thin Red Line loosely, composing between three and four hours of music for the film and allowing Malick to have a field day with it. "A musician has a very good sense of rhythm and sometimes of the lines, the voice of a line, the narration should be like a song," Zimmer stated. "Terry sees himself very much as my lyrist. When you don't have the mortar shells going off, I create this sort of sense of silence and in a peculiar way I've been trying to create normal silence or started something that you can just observe and maybe you get drawn in." Some of the scenes had particular cues written for them, but these ideas were typically misplaced in the final edit of the film anyway. The only reason this technique actually worked to a degree in the film was due to Malick's need for music that was as visceral as the film, conveying a consistent sense of brooding and gloomy atmosphere that could easy be swapped between scenes. The many hours of music that Zimmer wrote for The Thin Red Line did contain motifs for individual characters and one overarching idea for the soldiers' fight for survival. The motifs for the characters would prevail in the film, for the most part, but be completely lost on album. Vice versa is the title theme, which was not totally realized for the scene it was meant for in the film, but makes a grand statement in the track "Journey to the Line" on album. The resoundingly growling bass theme for Nick Nolte's commanding officer is perhaps the most memorable sub-theme, heard prominently once on album in "The Coral Atoll." In terms of style, Zimmer's score has little focus and relies on purely atmospheric meanderings to convey its sense of respect and fear. The composer said, "This is literally about making a very clear statement. It's more much along this sort of philosophical lines, actually." Restrained in every cue except "Journey to the Line," the score differs from John Williams' similarly stark score for Saving Private Ryan in that it makes no attempt at patriotism or a noble heart. The score's greatest weakness is its aimless nature, and yet it is this exact attribute that made it suitable for Malick's alterations. Little continuity exists throughout the music for The Thin Red Line outside of the instrumentation and the title theme, which is heard in fragments in cues other than "Journey to the Line." A number of specialty instruments are employed by Zimmer, though their roles are somewhat diminished in the final mix. The Taiko drums are the most prominent of these, but their mixing varies significantly between scenes within the film and on album. The more surreal contributions by John Powell and Francesco Lupica, which do punctuate key moments in the film, offer pronounced use of Tibetan bowls and a deep electronic effect called a "Cosmic Beam." By Malick's request, Zimmer's electronics are largely absent (outside of some droning textures provided by Jeff Rona), though it should be noted that the French horns and strings in "Journey to the Line" are mixed with the same brash technique that tends to make most of Zimmer's scores emphasize a sharp synthetic edge anyway. String layers are the most typical conveyers of emotion, with the more positive "Light" cue presenting one of the score's few hopeful moments. Some of the interesting moments of ethnic flavor didn't even make it into the film, quantified by most of the second half of the album. The subtle drum and flute performances in "Air" are a prime example of this. Also not used in the film is the cue "The Village," a disappointment given that it's one of the stronger representations on album. Thirty seconds into this cue, Zimmer seemingly inserts a direct reference to the theme from John Williams' JFK. For listeners who can't get enough of the title theme in "Journey to the Line," a dissolving reprise is heard early in "Silence." Of course, when you're talking about comparing the music on album to that heard in the film, you're in for some frustration. Very little of the music that Zimmer wrote for the picture actually made the final cut, and what did is likely a different mix from what you hear on album. As mentioned before, four major cues on the album weren't even in the film. The famed "Journey to the Line" cue on album marginalizes the Taiko drum rhythm to such an extent that it may not satisfy some listeners. Compounding the problem is the fact that many of these score cues were replaced by Melanesian singing that was, admittedly, quite popular with awards voters when it came time to recognize The Thin Red Line. "Because it takes place at the Solomon Islands, we caught a lot of Melanesian music," Zimmer stated. "We have these wonderful choirs and we're using some of that because there's a purity about it." The challenge that the Melanesian hymns and chants cause is the complete disconnect between the native source music and Zimmer's work. The innocence of the singing is so contrary to the gloomy tone of Zimmer's score that it causes some difficulty with continuity in the film. For listeners seeking more of this material (and it's hard not to get the feeling that part of the AMPAS members' voting was swayed by them), a separate soundtrack album devoted to them is available. Overall, for Zimmer fans, The Thin Red Line could very well be a mixed bag. The power of the film's first two hours will give the music more gravity for viewers than those who approach it cold, but frustration over the placement, rearrangement, and re-mixing of the music could also result from viewing the film. This is one of the rare occasions when a Media Ventures score from the 1990's hasn't been satisfyingly circulated on the bootleg market. The original recordings, upwards of four hours in length, were not leaked in the following ten years to eager fans, causing the few bootlegs that resulted to feature only sixty minutes of roughly compiled material heard in the film itself (and most of these bootlegs suffer from varying levels of dialogue or sound effects). In October 2000, however, at the Flanders International Film Festival in Belgium, Zimmer coordinated live performances of "Journey to the Line" and "Light" for the Flemish Radio Orchestra. The former was pressed on Decca's "The Wings of a Film" compilation, while the latter has circulated on bootlegs. The legacy of Zimmer's score improved over time, with a notable use of the score during the 1999 Oscars' "In Memoriam" sequence and several connections to Zimmer's later Pearl Harbor. "You come back to your style even though you try to surpass it all the time," Zimmer reflects after Pearl Harbor. "I feel that The Thin Red Line was a movie about peace, brotherhood. And in a funny way I was working very hard at trying to get some of that into Pearl Harbor because I didn't just wanted it to be another war movie. I think I might just have forced this a bit too much." Not only were parts of "Journey to the Line" used as temp tracks by Zimmer in the production, but the film's impressive trailers coincidentally used the same cue as well to depict the approaching Japanese planes. "The best publicity that The Thin Red Line ever got was when Jerry Bruckheimer put it in the trailer to Pearl Harbor," Zimmer continued. "Everyone wanted to know what that music was, and Bruckheimer did more for The Thin Red Line than Fox ever did for that movie." As a listening experience, The Thin Red Line requires the same context of thought and mood as Saving Private Ryan. There are no cheap thrills and much of the score can tend to be barely audible. Boredom could result for listeners not prepared for this atmospheric touch. The first four tracks, arguably stronger than what follows, are arranged in Zimmer's traditionally long format, accentuating the sense of flow inherent in the music. Both mood and functionality are the key here, making the score the polar opposite of the dramatically transparent The Prince of Egypt, Zimmer's other Academy Award-nominated venture in 1998. As the composer joked in early 1999, "I am a double loser this time!" That may have been true of the Oscars, but both his scores have much to offer in his career. It just so happens that the animated musical genre makes for a far more entertaining listening experience that won't, like The Thin Red Line, lull you to sleep. ***
Review #2, by Todd China
The Thin Red Line: (Hans Zimmer) I was alone among my friends when, emerging from a movie theater in January 1999, I offered my opinion that The Thin Red Line was actually a good movie. My friends told me that I had a "questionable" taste in movies. Having had the chance to re-watch The Thin Red Line recently, I still hold to my original assessment of this film. Although John Travolta and George Clooney are terrible and the twenty-minute long lull period two hours into the film is really boring, there are moments when Terrence Malick achieves heights of movie magic. His film is not a realistic portrayal of World War II but a poetic exploration of the meaning of human conflict. Malick's choice of composer proved to be truly inspired because the results are nothing short of brilliant. The score for The Thin Red Line simply cannot be compared with John Williams' work for Saving Private Ryan. Saving Private Ryan is a quiet, reflective, Americana score that resonates with nobility, honor, and sacrifice. The Thin Red Line is a bleak, moody, brooding score that reflects the darkness of the human soul and the primal quality of combat. Like the film it accompanies, there is no sense of purpose, and the score comes to an end without any real attempt at emotional resolution. The score is very anti-heroic, instilling a sense of dread and fear. For example, when Colonel Tall demands over the sound power phone that Captain Staros take Hill 210, we hear the menacing low string motif heard at the end of "The Coral Atoll." Saving Private Ryan lacks music for the combat scenes, but The Thin Red Line thrives on the use of underscore for its combat sequences. The music sets the tone from the very beginning of the film, with a low, uncomfortable rumbling followed by a sustained organ chord. It is a musical descent into darkness. Much of the music represented on the album consists of subdued, somewhat repetitive themes that accompany scenes in which the characters ponder the meaning of life or experience brief flashbacks. A very affecting example of this kind of scoring occurs in "The Lagoon," following the taiko drums and voices (which never appear in the film, like much of the music on the album). Private Jon Bell is having the first of many flashbacks of his wife. The combination of the brooding strings, the image of the soldiers scrambling to get above deck, the klaxons, and Bell's voice-over is truly spellbinding. In "Beam," John Powell composes a decent piece of music that both fits in seamlessly with Zimmer's music while conveying the loneliness and emotional detachment of Bell as he has more flashbacks of his wife while on a life-threatening scouting expedition. Zimmer's music melds wonderfully with Malick's images in the cue "Journey to the Line," easily the best cue in the score, and one of the best pieces of music composed in 1998. The scene the cue supposedly accompanies, the journey to the line, actually contains a more percussive version, and the music fades out before really going anywhere. The cue on the album is much closer to that used for a scene that occurs at the 2 hour mark, involving a Japanese bivouac. "Journey to the Line" begins with a minimalist clicking sequence in the percussion and high woodwinds, and the music slowly builds, starting from the string bass and progressing through the upper strings, to a powerful release by the French horns. The music is perfect for a scene of such blood lust and hints at a sense of great tragedy. The rest of the score is also very good, although tracks 6, 7, 8, and 11 never appear in the film. "Air," "Stone in My Heart," and "The Village" all contain the melancholy motifs heard elsewhere on the soundtrack, but in varied permutations. "The Village," for instance, is distinguished by a lyrical opening passage performed by the bassoon. Hans Zimmer actually composed about four hours of music for the film, presumably leaving Terrence Malick to cut and paste whatever he wanted onto the soundtrack. In some cases, the score in the context of the film is not very scene specific and could have been used for any number of scenes. In other cases, such as "Journey to the Line," the music was clearly composed with the particular scene in mind. Was "The Village" meant to accompany the first sequence, in which Private Witt and his buddy are AWOL and hanging out with native villagers? How would the scene have played with this music, instead of the instrumental version of the Melanesian hymn (that so many people seem to like) that was used instead? What did the rest of Hans Zimmer's unused score sound like? If tracks 6, 7, and 8 are any indication, the answer would be "pretty darn good." I would have been interested in seeing a follow-up release with more of Zimmer's unused music. Instead, all we got was more Melanesian chants, something that I personally have zero interest in as a film score enthusiast. This brings up another point: I really dislike the presence of the Melanesian chants in the soundtrack. The voices in "God U Takem Laef Blong Mi" are annoying, and the repetitive theme leaves little impression. The scenes with villagers really have no business being in the movie at all; anyone who has read James Jones' novel knows that there is hardly any mention of natives. Francesco Lupica's contribution to the album is equally annoying, noisy, and pointless. As far as I'm concerned, the album ends with track 9. In addition, if Hans Zimmer's score has any fault at all, it is the fact that the score, like the film, tends to ramble aimlessly. As underscore, this is okay, but as a listening experience, it falls a little short of the five star rating. All in all, I love The Thin Red Line. I suggest listening to it while reading the James Jones novel --you will be rewarded. In the past, I've had a generally negative opinion of Hans Zimmer, but The Thin Red Line is a wonderful achievement. It is musical poetry. **** Review #3, by Sean O'Neill
The Thin Red Line: (Hans Zimmer) For a long time Hans Zimmer has done what is best for the films he works on, creating a score that flows in sequence with what has been presented before him, showing off and making the films, sometimes better than they actually are. The Thin Red Line, for me, is a perfect example of doing what is in the ideals of the film, it's director and it's presentation on screen. When scoring the film, he was asked by the director to use little or no electronics in the process for creating the film's music. This, Zimmer followed. There were, of course, exceptions which where made with the aid of his co-worker Jeff Rona, who created the "Visceral Ambience" which encompasses the droning orchestral sounds often heard throughout the score. As well as many of the Taiko drum motifs, which are brought to a fully accented statement in "Journey To The Line." Unfortunately, the version appearing on the album uses the Taiko drums as a background motif rather than having them appear in the forefront as they did in the film. Much like As Good As It Gets, one of the final cues in the film is performed on Zimmer's arsenal of orchestral samples produced by The London Symphony. Most would think that in Zimmer's past performances with The Peacemaker and Crimson Tide etc., that The Thin Red Line would be met with harsh militaristic undertones and jutting action rhythms. This is entirely wrong. For the most part, his score remains at an emotional depth with the film's characters and the director's, Terrence Malick's, own vision of God, the fear of dying and the destruction that war can bring upon the human spirit. The music has a religious undertone in some areas, such as the choral music sung by the local natives on Guadalcanal is transposed into full orchestral performances, sampled with the choir in "God U Tekem Laef Belong Mi." Also the use of the hymn "Christian Race," representing of one of the main characters played by Elias Koteas, highlighted in "The Coral Atoll" and "Light." This is in contrast to the theme used for Colonel Tall, played by Nick Nolte. Zimmer uses, what is in a sense, the closest sign of any militaristic motif on the album, a hauntingly dark theme which progresses into a full march before setting quietly into the hinted Thin Red Line theme. Perhaps Hans Zimmer's finest single cue for a film appears as "Journey To The Line." The introduction to this track is brought on by subtle Taiko and woodwind riffs before the strings creep in with the progressing rhythm brought on by the Taiko drums and the ascending/descending woodwinds. The strings take hold on the forefront, leading through the rhythmically building theme for The Thin Red Line. Throughout the album, up until this point, the theme is only hinted with interweaving themes in "The Coral Atoll" and "The Lagoon." The growing theme is joined by an impressive backing of Taiko drums and added strings which enter an added perspective on the building of the full emotional statement in this track. At (4:16) into the track, signals the fully stated performance of the theme, relentless and emotional, backed with controlled blasts from the Taiko drums which brings it to an end at (4:56), segueing back into it's original ambience before building into a highly emotional and pitched performance of this theme. In the film, as stated above, this theme is backed by the heavy rhythm of the Taiko drums which, for some reason, are toned down on the album version making this track less effective than it could have been. The music is much more thorough in the film, which is a shame for the album and the listener's sake, the album leaves out key tracks from the film. These tracks include the incredible performance of "Jisas Yu Holem Hand Blong Mi" orchestrated for strings. The original choir version is available on the follow-up album by Media Ventures sound designer Claude Lettesier, a very good CD. As well, pieces written for the journey sequences after the soldiers land on Guadalcanal and the airy theme music written for the film's main character, Witt, played by Jim Caviezel. It's fortunate to have the additional music from John Powell and Francesco Lupica. Both pieces highlight the Cosmic Beam instrumentation, Lupica's piece signals the troops desperate attempt to capture the Japanese positions on Hill 210 in a surreal sequence into the loss of innocence, while Powell's dark and ominous track intercuts between the search for the Japanese bunker and a soldier's fleeting visions of his love, his wife. Hans Zimmer's ability to collaborate with other musicians and composers, whether they be his co-workers (i.e. John Powell, Jeff Rona, Claude Lettessier etc.) or with new talents such as Francesco Lupica, never ceases to amaze me. This album, as well with his two previous CDs for The Peacemaker and The Prince of Egypt, exhibit a more emotionally-driven change of pace than "regular" musical style. As a whole, I feel this score represents Zimmer's best work to date, it is both emotionally compelling and brilliant in its structure. His future line up with The Gladiator (incredible music contained on the soundtrack, rivals The Thin Red Line, IMHO, of course) and Mission: Impossible II can only promise more goodies. *****
* Composed by John Powell ** Composed by Francesco Lupica
The insert includes no extra information about the score or film. Featured Musicians: Harp: Ellie Choate, Katie Kirkpatrick, & Marcia Dickstein Concert Master: Endre Granat Shakahachi Flute: Daniel Kuramoto Koto: June Kuramoto Cosmic Beam: Francesco Lupica Taiko Drums, Tibetan Bowls & Vocal Chants: Johnny Mori Bassoon: Ken Munday Taiko Drums, Tibetan Bowls & Tibetan Bells: Emil Richards Taiko Drums & Tibetan Bells: Danny Yamamoto | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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