: (Hans Zimmer) Director and
producer Edward Zwick offered his fair share of Academy Award-caliber
films throughout the late 1980's and 1990's. For
, Zwick presented a fresh and redeeming story of an American
Civil War captain who is hired by the Emperor of Japan to help train and
modernize the Japanese military so that it can wipe out the remaining
Samurai warriors and make Japan into a more Westernized, trade-friendly
nation. As this captain (Tom Cruise) learns more about the Samurai
during the process of preparing for their eradication, he becomes
affected by their mentality and bravery, and he is thus caught in a
conflict of interest that would lead him to learn the ways of the
Samurai himself. With the best-known Zwick films including
, fans and
industry professionals speculated about the absence of composer James
Horner from the production team on
. But with
Horner tied to four films to be released at the same time as
in late 2003, however, he would have been unavailable for
the project, and a now equally-respected Hans Zimmer was hired for the
ethnically charged, melodramatic score. Zimmer's marketability had
reached its maturation, and the composer, whether with or without the
assistance of his associates at his Media Ventures organization, had
proven his interest time and time again in exploring new genres of
music. For the location and subject matter of
,
Zimmer would venture to the historical Far East, a realm that he had
seldom developed in his music during his varied career. Many people
seemed to have expected
, and in its most basic genre characteristics (and
Zimmer's method of mixing his recordings), that may have been the
result. But
is a film deep in contemplation and
considerable reflection, thus restraining the amount of forceful energy
that Zimmer could infuse into it.
As Horner would have done with the picture, Zimmer
assembled an array of specialty instruments native to the region and
combined them with an orchestral ensemble (of strings and brass), an
adult chorus, and his own electronics. Zimmer, however, handles his
native instrumentation differently than Horner usually does. Instead of
glorifying each individual element in its compositional role and mixing
at the forefront, Zimmer is more concerned with the overall package.
Thus, you are much more likely to hear all of Zimmer's elements together
at once, even at lesser volumes, than have a shakuhachi flute, for
instance, howl over the top of all the other performers. The shakuhachi
is joined by other ethnic woodwinds, a fiddle, Navajo voice, koto, and,
most importantly, the Taiko drums, which pound throughout
The Last
Samurai with determined resolve. Through these elements, Zimmer
creates a score that revolves around textured layers of sound and only
slips into an overtly melodic mode during battle sequences. The themes
exhibit Zimmer's usual neo-classical style of melodrama, but they never
rise to the level of nobility that was heard in
Gladiator. This
is a welcomed move, because the largely Western ideas are usually
presented through Japanese instrumentation. The two melodies that
develop in their most attractive forms during the moments of reflective
underscore exist in the same harmony as in
Beyond Rangoon, and,
as heard in
The Thin Red Line, there is almost always a major-key
cello expression underneath the remaining lines in order to elevate that
nobility to achieve a greater cinematic effect. The music is pleasantly
accessible for most of its length, following simple harmonies that
Western listeners can identify with. The way Zimmer handles the
integration of the Eastern instruments and sensibilities into his own
styles is similar to the way Basil Poledouris did the same in 2002's
little known
The Touch. The music for
The Last Samurai is
immediately recognizable as being composed by Zimmer while also stepping
through new territory at the same time.
It could be argued, however, that the same detractions
from
Gladiator also plague, to a lesser extent,
The Last
Samurai; that is, Zimmer's insistence on supplying dramatic weight
in his music by layering his strings and brass in such a heavy mix, with
or without synthetics, that the tone takes on the oppressive weight of
an electronic environment. Sometimes, as in
Invincible just
previously, this technique is superbly rendered. In
The Last
Samurai, the mixing of the orchestra's fuller performances to sound
like its electronically sampled counterparts is clearly the weakness.
When Zimmer kicks the full ensemble in gear with all of the soloists,
the added electronically aided depth to each chord is less noticeable
and convincingly does its job. But when Zimmer either uses his synthetic
programming to assist the ensemble alone or, as per usual, mixes the
bass string elements with such weight that they sound electronically
derived, the package becomes troublesome. This is because you end up
with an environment like that of
Toys or
Crimson Tide, a
more blatant, synthetically enhanced sound, in circumstances that don't
fit that style of rendering. The Los Angeles orchestra hired for
The
Last Samurai was relatively small, perhaps necessitating the use of
programming to flesh out their sound, and why the group couldn't have
been fuller or more dynamically orchestrated for is another reasonable
question to ask. Zimmer collectors knew at the time, if even only from
the likes of
Hannibal, that the composer could write spectacular
music for a recording largely without the assistance of the synthetics,
and
The Last Samurai could have been a similar project. Zimmer
and Zwick might argue that the Japanese culture was rigid and strict at
the time and thus the music followed suit, and yet the flat,
synthetically boosted sound in parts of this score doesn't mesh as well
with the dynamically recorded specialty instruments. The male chanting
in "Red Warrior" and female vocals in "To Know My Enemy" are presented
with the same clarity as the metallic clanging of swords in the battle
sequences, and the vivacious recording quality of these fantastic cues
is offset by the dull, melodramatic cues of heavy-handed mixing.
Such emphasis on weight is the Zimmer's career mode of
operation, however, and at least this simplistic technique of cranking
up the bass region doesn't affect this score in the film as much as
similar techniques would partially drown the elegance of
The Da Vinci
Code a few years later. One curious synthetic effect that conversely
works in this score is the echoing sound of
Chariots of
Fire-style metal tapping at the end of "To Know My Enemy." The use
of source-like vocals in battle mode in "Red Warrior" is actually quite
effective and well integrated. Most of Zimmer's other, more varied cues
also inspire repeated listens, and the Taiko drum alone is an impressive
inclusion in any of its cues. But be forewarned that if you had any
qualms about Zimmer's use of synthetic-sounding depth in
Gladiator, then you may be disappointed by the same application
in the equally inappropriate context of
The Last Samurai.
Additionally, some of the battle material is extremely reminiscent of
Zimmer's Japanese-related cues for the immensely popular
Pearl
Harbor, a circumstance that will inevitably bother some listeners
looking for only a fresh approach to the assignment (not to mention that
this material was never the most authentic historical sound to begin
with). The fact that Zimmer stays relatively close to his comfort zone
here, despite a strong rendering, yields questions about originality
that ironically would likely have resulted had Horner written the music
instead. Zimmer's supplemental ethnic instruments, though, along with
his genuinely interesting contemplative work for the film, make
The
Last Samurai one his better efforts of the 2000's. The emotional
power in the score resides in its cues of lesser intensity, although the
album is split about half and half between action and reflection. That
product uses the composer's usual preference for a continuous
presentation of the music, overlapping the beginning and conclusion of
each track. A rare solo score by Zimmer during this time,
The Last
Samurai earned him a Golden Globe nomination, though competition
from
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was too steep.
Despite Zimmer's lack of reinvention for this distinctly fresh
assignment, the resulting adaptation of his normal methodology more than
suffices.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
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Bias Check: |
For Hans Zimmer reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.83
(in 126 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 2.95
(in 298,877 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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