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| Zimmer |
Interstellar: (Hans Zimmer) Truly thought-provoking
science fiction bonanzas on the big screen are a relative rarity in an
age when any low budget production can throw together some space-faring
fantasy or nightmare, yet director Christopher Nolan manages with 2014's
epic
Interstellar to combine the realms of science and
entertainment to outstanding critical and popular results. Long in the
making,
Interstellar owes much of its production origins and a
substantial amount of its plot to 1997's
Contact, and out of that
inspiration,
Interstellar was conceived in the early 2000's as a
project destined for direction by Steven Spielberg. Later in the decade,
the shifting of Spielberg from Paramount allowed Nolan and his brother,
Jonathan, to step in and guide the project to its ultimate success. With
the shadow of Carl Sagan still looming large, the scientific accuracy of
the plot of
Interstellar remained tantamount to that success for
the Nolan brothers, and while the core of the story remains one of
familial relationships, many pains were taken to ensure the plausibility
of the science in the movie as well. The story postulates that when
Earth eventually becomes inhospitable for humanity in the future,
astronauts will seek out suitable planets to explore and inhabit based
on instructions from friendly "aliens." Small groups of NASA astronauts
travel through a wormhole to explore three possible candidate worlds,
with varying results. The scientific concepts incorporated into
Interstellar are among its highlights, though it's no surprise
that interpersonal relationships are ultimately the key to humanity's
survival. After all, the most likely threat to humankind is itself.
Let's hope that by the time we have the technology to execute the escape
depicted in this film, people aren't still killing cartoonists over
their drawings of some archaic religious figure. As
Interstellar
meandered through development, it was long believed that the Spielberg
project would yield a monumental score from none other than the maestro,
John Williams. When Nolan took the helm, however, attention immediately
moved to the more contemporary media darling, Hans Zimmer, who had,
whether intentionally or not, revolutionized the film scoring industry
with his music for Nolan's
Batman Begins trilogy and
Inception.
Hence, with
Interstellar, the Zimmer media
spectacle commenced once again and the composer obliged his adoring fans
with all the obligatory quotes about producing a score that is radically
different in some way. The resulting music confirms, more than any other
in his career, that his style of composition has either evolved or
devolved into a "love it or hate it" proposition. His methodology here
may seem different on the surface, but it really isn't. There could not
be an artist further in process from the likes of a John Williams, and
there's nothing wrong with that if you experience the proper emotional
response from Zimmer's music. There will remain an entire generation of
film score listeners, however, for which this Zimmer music does not
connect, and it's important for the generally younger crowd of fans and
reviewers to remember that. For this aged constituency,
Interstellar will be among the most boring film scores to ever
exist, further steering the genre as a whole towards ridiculously slow
tempos, repetitive structures, and, as a result, the feeling of
emotional guidance via sound design. It is fascinating to witness the
nearly universal praise that Zimmer's score for
Interstellar has
received from reviewers from within and outside the film score
community, because these accolades seem to suggest that the basic
structural techniques utilized nowadays by Zimmer are not only
acceptable but praiseworthy. This review will analyze the music from a
cold and purely technical perspective, not with the intent of
eviscerating Zimmer for the purposes of simply aggravating his
enthusiasts (though, with the number of juvenile comments these reviews
generate, this trouble-maker admits to occasionally being tempted by his
reliable capability to spawn such astonishingly amusing folly), but
because there are listeners out there for whom this music produces no
emotive response, no gut reaction, no connection, and no interest to
hear it again. Why would anybody not
feel any significant
reaction to Zimmer's
Interstellar? Zimmer has done a great many
things right with this effort, correcting some perceived wrongs in his
methodology. If he remains a genuinely great and influential personality
in the film music world, why would
Interstellar land with a thud
for some listeners? Let's first discuss the basic aspects of the score
at play and then analyze the important positives of the work and
possible detriments that may drag it back down to Earth for some
listeners.
When you hear
Interstellar described as a
combination of Philip Glass'
Koyaanisqatsi and Ennio Morricone's
Mission to Mars, you have to accept these comparisons as only the
most obvious ones. If you dig deeper into the score, you are confronted
by interesting and possibly coincidental relationships between this and
prior works by Michael Giacchino, James Horner, and even Vangelis, the
last of which the most telling of the lot and perhaps not so surprising
when considering that
Blade Runner was an inspiration to the
Nolan brothers for
Interstellar. It's tempting to say that if you
found little emotional connection with the thought process behind the
music for
Koyaanisqatsi and
Mission to Mars, then you
might be in for a rude surprise when exploring
Interstellar. But
even this tired listener can recognize that Zimmer and Nolan made some
outstanding choices with this score that need commended. First and
foremost, this is a Zimmer score. Not Zimmer with 12 ghostwriters. Not
Zimmer themes with adaptations by five others. Not a Zimmer library
mock-up. Not Zimmer channeled through aliens. He is solely credited for
the mass of work on this score, and while it may be sad to actually have
to point this out, it's good to once again hear a largely solo Zimmer
score. Many (if not most) of the composer's best music came from his own
hands back in the 1990's, and it's easy to get the sense that his
guidance has become diluted in the years since his fame and production
prowess really took hold. Likewise, the composer didn't shy away from
expected but still strong decisions about instrumentation. In
Interstellar, the film's emotional heart exists in the familial
relationships, and thus the trusty old piano becomes the equivalent in
the score. For the awe of space, the composer went to great lengths,
aided by the ever-talented Richard Harvey, to find the right musicians
for the score, and that included the pairing of a pipe organ and a
massive woodwind section. The former instrument receives all the glory
in the score, but the latter is employed to denote the trepidation with
which humanity has to venture into space. The rhythmic element is also
played towards the omnipresent concept of time in
Interstellar,
and the woodwinds sometimes figure into that method of movement as well.
The composer very explicitly dropped the bass-heavy string ostinatos and
expansive drums that had come to define his prior blockbuster scores,
instead expending much effort in populating the treble region with a
string and woodwind presence while diminishing muscular brass to just a
few token appearances behind the organ.
There is definitely a refreshing feeling to the ambient
tone of Zimmer's
Interstellar. So many of the composer's scores
of the 2000's and 2010's for major projects end up hopelessly
interchangeable, and with this effort he has devised a personality in
the music that is clearly meant for
Interstellar alone. The
composer had promised for years that each of his successive works was
bound to be "radical" or "different" and yet they disappointed when they
sounded largely the same as prior entries; that is finally not the case
here, and one has to wonder how much of the seemingly endless praise for
this music results from the distinctiveness of the score's basic sound.
There's also the issue of Nolan's use of the music in the film, pushing
the boundaries of its presence and occasionally emphasizing it to the
detriment of the dialogue or scenery. Such was a major problem with
Morricone's
Mission to Mars, which also used a pipe organ
prominently for space scenes, and the instrument was so intrusive in the
end result that it was painful. Texture, ambience, and volume all come
into play in both the Morricone and Zimmer works, and this leads to most
important question of this review: Why is it that the music for
Interstellar simply doesn't connect with some listeners,
including this one? Is it an issue of changing tastes? Crotchety old
age? Grudges against a composer for indulging himself as a media
spectacle? While some readers will claim it's the last one, that's
certainly not the case. Music is, at its root, a mathematical and
scientific endeavor that ultimately aims for an emotional response. The
lack of a positive response is typically rooted in some analytically
observable aspect of the music, and the case with
Interstellar is
no different. There are structural elements in this music that both its
supporters and detractors will be able to recognize, and hopefully the
former group will be able to understand why the latter views these same
elements as a potential negative. You have issues of tempos,
progressions, instrumental presence in the mix, cue development, process
of storytelling, counterpoint, volume, synchronization points, and
numerous other technical aspects that could be (and indeed are)
problematic in
Interstellar, and together these detriments might
even be fatal for some listeners. Zimmer's most loyal collectors will
recognize these characteristics in the composer's works from previous
projects, exposing
Interstellar as work only superficially
"different" in its whole. He has a tendency to seek the proper audience
response via resonance of sound rather than complexity of thought, and
this technique practically sums up the entire issue some will have with
this score: it's irritatingly simplistic.
The first observation anyone can make about
Interstellar is that its tempos are excruciatingly slow. Even in
the rare moments of excitement and action, Zimmer restrains the pace of
the score and simply elevates its volume. Coupled with the tempo issue
is the lack of adjustment to meter. The music plods along at the same
general pace without maneuvering around to a different rhythmic
formation on any regular basis. The development of each major cue
follows the same route as well, starting softly and adding volume and
bass depth on the march to a crescendo that typically falls off
abruptly. This pattern is repeated over and over again with the same
thematic structures, partly a result of Zimmer's tendency to remix the
same idea for multiple, marginally unique presentations. Sometimes, it's
subtle, as in "Day One," whereas in other cues, it overwhelms, as in
"Coward." Whether or not this repeated device is influenced by Steven
Price's popular score for
Gravity remains an interesting debate.
So you have a slow, repetitive score that accesses the same set of
rhythmic structures and applies volume to them in identical ways in most
cues. What about the themes? Zimmer does indeed provide several of them
in
Interstellar, including identities for the family relations,
the expanse of space, and the larger human journey. For the family
relations, the composer applies the piano most frequently, but even here
the rendering of a melody is so slow and sparse that it fails to
connect. Michael Giacchino has a history of yielding much more out of
the instrument in the solo environment, and neither can touch Williams'
mastery in that area. As in
Man of Steel, Zimmer exposes his
weakness when utilizing the piano in such a way as to truly involve the
listener. Beyond the humanity and exploration ideas, the family melody
proves to be the score's main theme and services the father/daughter
relationship; it is extremely slow to develop, very simplistic, and
oddly reminiscent of James Horner's
The Land Before Time. These
themes are not only wanting for better progressions, but they lack
secondary phrases of any significance, once again exacerbating the
tiring and repetitive nature of the score. To hear the main theme over
and over and over again in "Stay" may function for some listeners, but
Zimmer only boosts the theme's volume and depth in its repeated
statements rather than taking the idea in any meaningful direction. The
simplicity is remarkably transparent. Cues largely stripped of the
thematic material and instead emphasizing purely rhythmic character
aren't much better developed, with "The Wormhole" a good example of a
cue that serves up a generic crescendo over 90 seconds that relies
solely on the resonance of texture.
Some listeners may commend Zimmer for addressing the
concept of time and space through sound effects integrated into the
score for
Interstellar, and while the use of wind and water is a
nice touch at times, the overt tapping and clicking of higher range
effects for time itself in a cue like "Mountains" is no less a
transparent or simplistic application than the purely instrumental
counterparts. Of more importance, once again, is the decision by Nolan
and Zimmer to approach this project's music before the shooting even
began. It's been said many times in the Zimmer score reviews at
Filmtracks and it needs repeated: you cannot fully and properly tailor a
score to a film without having seen at least its rough edits. Without
that context, the composer is left to write a concept album rather than
a film score. And that's what
Interstellar really is... another
album of Zimmer ideas vaguely inspired by the general concepts of family
and space. No matter what album presentation you get for this score (and
there are many, unfortunately), you hear self-contained ideas without
synchronization points, conceptual counterpoint references, or meter
changes to denote any kind of shift in action or realization on screen.
As such, this score flies blind throughout the film, relying upon the
editors to dial it in appropriately. On album,
Interstellar
sounds like any other concept album you hear from all those artists that
put out general instrumental compilations hoping they will be picked up
for placement in movie trailers. Rather than develop the narrative over
the course of the album, which is impossible because of Zimmer's
methodology, you have development only within each cue, thus leading to
these inevitable crescendos over and over again. What little
manipulation of theme that exists is tied to basic logic rather than
anything specific to the story; in other words, the composer realizes he
needs a solo piano version of the main theme, a wishy-washy string
version, and a fully glorious organ rendition simply to cover all the
expected bases. Thus, the process of storytelling in this score is
significantly stunted. Finally, you have issues of volume and
instrumental presence in the mix that cause problems in
Interstellar. On the first part, the loud portions are
overbearing in relation to the soft portions, with little integration of
the two halves. Either this score bubbles along in the background or it
totally consumes the soundscape, the median existing only in the middle
of the long crescendos. The huge woodwind section intentionally produces
ambient sound effects rather than any truly complex representation of
technology. Why not use a synthesizer rather than asking them (and the
occasional voices) to produce otherworldly noises that are held so far
back in the mix that they are indistinguishable?
One of the most artful counterarguments to this review
will come from Vangelis enthusiasts who know very well that there have
been multiple simplistic, album-first kinds of hybrid Vangelis scores
that have been nominated for awards at Filmtracks. And that's a good
point, until you realize that Zimmer never has been and never will be
Vangelis. Their purposes are completely different. If Zimmer's results
are starting to sound like those of Vangelis because of his methodology,
it's not necessarily by intent. The reason Vangelis excels is because he
enunciates his simple structures with harmonic resonance so
overwhelmingly tonal and magnificent that you can't help but admire the
resulting bravado. Zimmer doesn't offer much of that kind of glorious
sound to
Interstellar, but when he does, as in the outstanding
conclusion of "Coward" and the brass-aided interior of "Detach," you do
hear Vangelis being channeled to a degree. There is little doubt that
these moments of unrestrained grandeur in the score are its selling
points, especially in context, and you have to love how Zimmer does
maintain the volume when he finally gets there during these highlights.
The piano work specifically needs praised in these parts. But without
more such moments, this score is left to languish at agonizingly slow
speeds without the depth of sound and harmonic complexity in its
majority to keep some listeners entertained. The organ, for all its
advertised presence in this score, is not always an effective tool of
resonance. No better an example is "S.T.A.Y.," in which its exploration
is neither resounding nor intensely personal, an honestly bizarre
surprise given the capability of the instrument. At the end of the day,
Zimmer's trademark has become the droning of a bass note on key, and it
is that persistent technique in
Interstellar that serves as the
greatest clue to Zimmer's continued stagnation despite all the hoopla
about innovation in this work. Sometimes the droning is barely
noticeable, but at other times the organ lets it boom for minutes at a
time. There are better ways to engage an audience and denote gravity
than the droning bass note on key. Themes can indeed have secondary
phrases. Progressions don't all have to recall 1980's power ballads.
Movies can be scored to suit after shooting. Counterpoint can enhance
conflict or resolution. Meters or key really can change when a scene
transitions to a new location. All of these techniques are known to
work, and yet they are largely absent in
Interstellar. So if you
seek the technical reason why this scores sounds juvenile to some
listeners, despite all the efforts to innovate by Zimmer, look no
further than the composer's attempts to rewrite the basic rules of film
score composition. Taking risks is good, but you won't always
connect.
There is no joy in where this review of
Interstellar must go next. Zimmer has enough control over the
album releases of his music to prevent such marketing shenanigans from
happening, but he repeatedly allows labels to screw over consumers with
fragmented, multiple album releases of his work and thus encourage
piracy. He had a direct hand in these decisions in the case of
Interstellar, and the overall rating for this score must be
deducted as a result. Until 2020, an avid collector needed to seek out
multiples of four sources, if not all four, to achieve a full
presentation of the work. In official albums, you have the "Star Wheel
Constellation Chart Digipak" featuring 16 tracks, the "Digital Deluxe
Album," which offers 24 tracks, and the fullest "Illuminated Star
Projection Edition" of 29 tracks that debuted at $40 after the others
and proved initially hard to obtain. Then there was the lone "Day One
Dark" remix track that was featured only as a bonus download from a
movie ticket. Finally, Paramount released 33 tracks in an online
streaming awards promo. There are a couple of ways of looking at this
mess. First, those seeking a lossless version could pick up the 2-CD
"Illuminated Star Projection Edition" product. But why waste the money
on that if you already have the original CD (digipak) version? The
additional music is mostly a series of remixes of the music you already
heard on the shorter album; Zimmer only covers so much ground in this
score before having to repeat himself with different mixes. The problem
is that the unique material on the 2-CD set truly represents some of the
best presentations available for this score. Both "Murph" and
"Tick-Tock" are absolute must-haves for enthusiasts of this score, the
latter's full choir begging for Vangelis comparisons. And then there's
the film version of "No Time for Caution" that is clearly the best
rendition of that idea but not initially available on album. Finally,
the fuller albums include recitations of the "Do Not Go Gentle Into That
Good Night" poem that figured prominently in the film. However, for
whatever nonsensical reason, these renditions are by a range of the
film's actors rather than Michael Caine himself, as heard in context, a
tremendous disappointment. In 2020, WaterTower finally merged all this
music into one "Expanded Edition," a long overdue 2-CD set that
otherwise offers nothing new. When labels sucker money from fans by
withholding some of the best renditions from the recordings for intended
later editions, you have to deduct from ratings for that transgression.
Zimmer and his ardent enthusiasts can talk about innovation until they
are blue in the face, but the composer and the labels distributing his
music are doing little more than exacerbating the plague of piracy that
prevails online.
@Amazon.com: CD or
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- Music as Written for the Film: ***
- Music as Heard on Album: **
- Overall: **
| Bias Check: |
For Hans Zimmer reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.84
(in 121 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 2.96
(in 298,225 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
The insert of the "Star Wheel Constellation Chart Digipak" has a custom-cut
interior to line up with star contellations pictured on the CD itself. Its insert contains
long notes about the music from the director and the composer, as well as a partial list
of performers. The "Illuminated Star Projection Edition" comes in a box that includes
a "decodable light message" (perhaps a definitive list of Zimmer's ghostwriters?) and
some additional booklet material. It also offers a method of downloading the score in
surround sound. The insert of the 2020 "Expanded Edition" album includes the 2014 notes
from the director and composer, a list of performers, and session photography.
