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Review of Black Rain (Hans Zimmer)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you're curious to know where the action truly started
for Hans Zimmer, Black Rain being the composer's first entry into
a genre that eventually evolved directly out of the sound heard in this
score.
Avoid it... on any album if you have no interest in hearing Zimmer's intuitively smart but not particularly well refined merging of Eastern solo instruments with his comfortably familiar rock-influenced tones.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Black Rain: (Hans Zimmer) A popular cops versus
gangsters film of 1989, Black Rain led to director Ridley Scott's
unequivocal denouncement of filming in Japan, claiming after being
forced out of the country during the shooting of this movie that high
production costs in Japan are prohibitive. The story is one of standard
intrigue for the genre, tackling the subject of the Yakuza and all of
the violent traditions associated with the Japanese mafia. Two New York
cops are witness to a power struggle within the Yakuza in a local eatery
and arrest an ambitious, ascending mob boss after he assassinates a
representative of his competition. Upon losing this villain after
escorting him to Japan for trial, they create trouble for Japan's police
force and, after the gruesome killing of one of the Americans, Michael
Douglas in the lead role takes matters into his own hands. The title
comes from the Yakuza's belief that the counterfeiting of American
dollars is revenge for the "black rain" caused by the nuclear attacks of
World War II. Despite its production hiccups, Black Rain earned
almost ten times its budget worldwide, snagged a couple of Oscar
nominations for its sound, and forever changed the life of the composer
of its score, Hans Zimmer. The German (via London) had appeared suddenly
in the mainstream with Rain Man the previous year and was about
to receive even greater recognition with Driving Miss Daisy.
Zimmer had aspirations of coming to Hollywood and writing big action
scores like John Williams, but he did not have the classical training
and was only familiar with orchestration through his friendship with
composer Stanley Myers. At the end of the decade, Zimmer was, sometimes
with the assistance of Shirley Walker, beginning to explore orchestral
accompaniment to his comfortable synthesizers which, to that point, had
emulated an organic, symphonic sound well enough to suffice. Black
Rain represented the composer's first foray into the genre of
action, and Zimmer wasn't sure if his techniques would suffice for the
picture. It didn't help to have a completely unsupportive producer on
the project.
Movie producer Stanley Jaffe famously shouted to Zimmer at a Paramount screening of Black Rain that the composer's score was the worst piece of music he had ever heard, at which point the composer claims to have fainted. Pressure from Jaffe and/or Paramount caused Scott to butcher Zimmer's score in the final edit of the picture. In fact, little of what made the film is recognizable from the original flow of the composition. Zimmer has always been humble about his position in the industry, deferring credit for the best Digital Age action scores to the likes of Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, and James Horner. In addition to that uncertainty, Black Rain was something of a production nightmare for Zimmer, and he acknowledges that its eventual success was the result of originality that resulted from his own lack of experience. He later recounted, "...by the time we got to the dub stage, I was just living in fear. We were battling the system." What he could not have predicted was just how influential his music for the film would become, not only in leading to and informing his later assignments, but also in emulation from other composers. The irony of Zimmer's approach to Black Rain is that it really wasn't radically different from John Carpenter and Alan Howarth's equally discordant sound for Big Trouble in Little China. Both scores utilized keyboarded samples and drum pads with the assistance of stereotypical Eastern solo elements (and both had now dated songs on their albums that are frightfully similar). For Zimmer, his trademark action sound of the 1990's is mostly derived from seeds of ideas heard in Black Rain, and although this score would have its most prominent influence on Backdraft (and thus, everything that developed out of that score), pieces extend all the way to The Last Samurai and Batman Begins. The basic ingredients of Black Rain are all familiar in retrospect, too, beginning with the keyboarded samples, rhythmic pacing, distinctive electric guitar, slapped drum pads, and metallic percussion effects. Walker's assistance in this entry manifests itself in fuller faux-string accompaniment, and she contributed one original source piece of pleasant diversion heard on the early airplane scene. Among the standard Zimmer techniques in Black Rain, the exotic woodwinds proved to be frequent in Zimmer's early 1990's output, their lyricism especially informing Beyond Rangoon. Some of the more soothing, treble-inhabiting keyboarding (which sometimes imitated plucked oriental tones) would develop further in the composer's light drama and romance scores to follow, aided by the composer's obvious love of the soft tone of pan pipes. The cool, somewhat restrained electric guitar representation of Douglas' character would blossom in Days of Thunder and countless other early 1990's works. Thumping bass, pairs of hits, and broad swooshes deep in the bass region are a precursor of Crimson Tide. The string applications foreshadow Backdraft, especially the minute or so at the end of the pivotal "Charlie Loses His Head" cue, a sequence that Ron Howard was so infatuated with that it eventually, after much toil and miscommunication between the composer and director, was reprised almost identically for the ultra-dramatic fire scenes in the 1991 drama. Thematically, Zimmer handles Black Rain with a few ideas that mostly play to American notions of compassion and kick-ass attitude. The score's primary theme of friendship is best heard in "Nick and Masa," though an attractive secondary theme in "Sugai" serves as both an action motif and a convenient melody for the Japanese elements to chew on. A separate minor-key theme idea for "Sato," the Osaka location, and harsher impressions of the Japanese culture exists frequently in the score, heard with frightening, foreboding force as the city is seen from an airplane for the first time in the plot. This final "villain" theme is the most frequently referenced one throughout the score, often integrated into the less interesting percussive sequences of stalking. The blurring of lines between the oriental woodwind tones and the electric guitar in the background of the "Sugai" material is a particularly enjoyable aspect of that theme's development. The dissonant passages of pure ruckus from Zimmer are highlighted by the actual beheading portion of "Charlie Loses His Head." For the scene that immediately follows, as Douglas' cop is seen comforted by the woman he meets in Japan, Zimmer reinforces his friendship theme with satisfying contemporary keyboarding. A stereotypically oriental subtheme for this character is absent from on the commercial album. The roughly 22 minutes of score music on Virgin's 1989 commercial product is presented in a continuous suite of major cues condensed into four tracks, faded together as per the composer's norm. Casual fans of Zimmer and the film should be satisfied with this material, especially when accompanied by the composer's outstanding rock song performed by Gregg Allman, "I'll Be Holding On," which coincides with the main "Nick and Masa" identity in the score. Much incidental score music, as well as the shorter, opening title version of "I'll Be Holding On," was absent from the commercial product, however. A bootleg version of Black Rain thus long circulated in the secondary collector's market and offered over 70 minutes of Zimmer's contributions. While much of that music remained redundant, especially in short cues that simply drone with ominous keyboarded bass or sporadic drum hits, there were a few cues from that presentation (which sounds decent and is absent sound effects) that could have been added to the commercially available suite to form a more representative 30 to 35-minute album. These additional cues of interest include the sorrowful "Joyce's Theme" and the American bad-ass attitude of "The Final Confrontation," the latter hinting at the ballsy sound of Drop Zone. In 2012, an official 2-CD presentation of Black Rain pressed essentially the bootleg's contents on its first CD and filled the second with the original commercial album's presentation and eight bonus tracks. While this limited La-La Land Records product does toil at times with the same redundancy issues as the bootleg, the additional offerings in the bonus section are a particular highlight. The "Monks Wild" version of a sequence in "Charlie Loses His Head" is vital to the film, dubbed in during several scenes, and finally available is the shorter main title version of "I'll Be Holding On," though with arguably diminished sound quality. The alternate version of "Bikes/Fight" will thrill fans of early Zimmer action as well. The composer has often commented that it's somewhat amazing (and even baffling) to see his music for Black Rain become so influential and, to an extent, some head-scratching is merited. It's a good score, but not particularly refined or impressive in its sum. The fuller album treatment by La-La Land Records is good to see, however, and no matter your opinion, Black Rain is an important work in the history of Digital Age film music, and it deserves appreciation and even study at the very least. ***
TRACK LISTINGS:
1989 Virgin Album:
Total Time: 48:25
* composed by Will Jennings and Hans Zimmer 2000 Bootleg: Total Time: 74:25
2012 La-La Land Album: Total Time: 141:43
* Not used in film ** Contains material unused in film *** Contains instrumental melody of "I'll Be Holding On"
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert of the 1989 Virgin album includes no extra information about
the score or film. The bootlegs contain no consistent packaging. The 2012 La-La Land
album's insert contains extensive information about the film and score, including a
track-by-track analysis.
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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 Black Rain are Copyright © 1989, 2000, 2012, Virgin Records America, (Bootleg), La-La Land Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 3/23/10 and last updated 10/15/12. |
