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| Zimmer |
Man of Steel: (Hans Zimmer/Various) Batman,
Spider-Man, and now Superman. All of them rebooted. All of them darker,
more sophisticated. Most of them battling nastier, less defined
villains. Most of them with more fake muscles lining the costume fabric.
Most of them claiming to be better, more modern and realistic
representations. All of them existing because of a lack of intelligent
new ideas in Hollywood. Immense profits don't hurt, especially when the
viewers don't care about unoriginality. Instead of bemoaning the reboot
culture of the movie industry, however, let's just face the truth that
these famous comic book characters will be reinvented as long as people
pay for them to be reinvented. Threats of a lawsuit over lost revenue
from the rights-holders of Superman brought him back to the big screen
in 2013, technically for the third generation of the character's
cinematic existence. Doing the honors of adding the fake muscles and
wholesale alien starship invasion to the history of Superman lore on
screen is Zack Snyder of
300 fame, backed up by producer
Christopher Nolan and a hefty budget from Warner Brothers. While the
2005 resurrection of Superman remained somewhat loyal to the various
production values of the famed Christopher Reeve series of movies from a
generation prior, the 2013 re-envisioning of the character in
Man of
Steel transforms him in the ways that modern superhero blockbusters
mandate, travelling a darker, more menacing path than ever before.
Man of Steel is an origin story, but one that essentially
combines the narratives of the first two movies in the entire franchise
and short-changing both stories as a result. The basics are all there,
but the lengthy interpersonal interactions and the best elements of
disguise have been replaced with outrageous action material to meet the
demands of insatiable audiences with no tolerance for extended romance
or existential contemplation. This version of Superman is a completely
different animal as a result, one met with mixed reviews from critics
who lament the lack of affable style and the abandonment of truly
believable rural influence on what has essentially devolved into a
franchise that requires huge ships destroying the planet to justify
itself. Thirty years prior, General Zod did not need such instruments of
fantasy; when Terence Stamp demanded that we kneel, his demeanor while
doing so was entertaining enough to suffice.
Inevitably, the music for Superman's journey has traversed
an expanse as great as that from Krypton to Earth, itself a casualty of
diminished style as this franchise becomes yet another to succumb to
Hans Zimmer's passion for the production of sound design. Zimmer is no
doubt the most famous composer of the contemporary generation, reaching
heights near where John Williams was in the late 1970's. Although
Williams is still alive and productive at this time, his pencil-written
mastery is no longer cool to a generation hell bent upon causing itself
hearing loss courtesy film music that emphasizes its bass region without
restriction. Zimmer's success has come about by a fair amount of luck,
his lack of classical training in music steering him towards a career
dominated by the production of music rather than the creation of it
through the use of its many linguistic complexities. He has lived the
ultimate life of a soundtrack fanboy, loving Williams, Ennio Morricone,
Danny Elfman, and a host of his peers past and present, and remaining
very humble in the respect he professes for them. But due to his knack
for composing the right scores at the right times, teaming up with the
right directors, and surrounding himself with an army of musicians
(ghostwriters, some will say) at his own production house, he has landed
himself in assignments not befitting his capabilities. Superman, like
Batman before, is one such occasion. Zimmer admits as much. In fact, he
fought his involvement with both franchises. In regards to
Man of
Steel, Zimmer confessed, "I was the reluctant bride on this one. I
kept saying no. I turned down this one about three times." As anyone
might expect, his desire not to step on the toes of the classic 1978
Williams score was a key concern. Never mind the fact that John Ottman
walked the tightrope extraordinarily well for
Superman Returns,
proving that an adaptation of sorts was not only possible, but quite
effective. Rather, Zimmer, as he had done with Elfman's iconic music for
Batman, decided to completely sidestep the issue. "The master, John
Williams, had done rather well by it, and it was part of my growing up
and DNA loving John Williams' score," he said. "The inevitable
comparisons are out there, but I couldn't care less about what anybody
says. Find me a composer who isn't driven by paranoia and neurosis." In
response, with the persistent encouragement of Snyder and Nolan, Zimmer
simply did what he always does in such circumstances: force a franchise
to meet him on his own terms.
As he has done with alarming frequency since his stardom
was born, Zimmer indulges a tendency to get caught up in the hype
generated for his music by the studios, filmmakers, and fans. As a
result, he is a celebrity who accompanies every release of a major new
score with countless rounds of interviews. This accessibility has always
reaffirmed that Zimmer is a likable man who clearly loves playing with
all the assets available to him. In many cases, however, it's also
exposed him to be oddly bizarre in the decisions he makes about these
blockbuster scores, and
Man of Steel has yielded more
head-scratchers than most. It's clear that the darker direction of this
reboot, even down to the de-saturated colors of the lead's costume,
required Zimmer to steer the franchise towards his brooding sound design
universe. In his discussions about this direction, he admits, "One of
the things Chris [Nolan] and I talked about was creating an autonomous
sound landscape. I think we did that. I think if you forget the notes
and just hear the ambience, you know this is
The Dark Knight. In
a funny way, we tried to do the same with Superman." It's no wonder,
therefore that all the nobility associated with Superman is stripped
from Zimmer's rendering of him. The same applies to the patriotism;
there was always a presence of American pride in Superman's heroics, and
all of that style of wholesome spirit is now gone. The brightness of the
light has been extinguished as well. All of this despite Zimmer's claims
about addressing the country's rural values. "Let's not make this
Superman bombastic," he explains. "Let's make this a score which deals
with and celebrates the farmers and the people in the heartland of
America. Let's make this about those endless plains." And thus, a hybrid
of
Inception and
The Dark Knight results. But how? How
exactly does Zimmer's brain connect deep, broad sound design with a farm
in Kansas? His answer in part was to try to address ever character
moment in
Man of Steel with a simple upright piano. But even
these sequences, while relatively frequent, are drowned out by
background layers of vaguely dissonant design. Not enough coolness in
the piano, perhaps? Not a moment passes in this score during which
Zimmer does not alter the soundscape to augment (or in many cases ruin)
an organic performance with some totally unnecessary layer of bass
manipulation or other accentuation that must inexplicably click in his
brain during the production process. As a result, the softer, piano-led
moments in this score lack a genuine sincerity necessary for the Kent
family.
Much is always made about the ensembles that Zimmer
collects for these high profile assignments, and the disconnect in
Americana spirit is all the more evident because his choices for
Man
of Steel. For the atmosphere of the plains, Zimmer claims he was
inspired by expanses of telephone wires to electrify the ambience. Likewise, he hired
a steel drum ensemble to pound out the action sequences. Along with it
was what he calls a "drum orchestra" with dozens of famed percussion musicians
assembled to blast their way through a new identity for the work. What
this sound has to do with the plains is an unanswered question. Instead,
it seems like yet another situation in which Zimmer executed something
for his music because he could, not because it was the right thing to
do. The same could be said of many of his scores, the result of his
endless tinkering with musical production toys rather that actually
conjuring evocative melodic connections. Taking the challenging and
rewarding route, the actual embrace of the treble region and all the
typical representatives of nobility, patriotism, and heroism, was
eliminated from consideration. "I was terrified of parody in any sense,
even unwitting parody. Part of my very simple plan was to exorcise
anything out of my orchestra, like the main instruments that I remember
John Williams using, like the trumpet fanfare. I didn't use any of that.
By narrowing my palette I felt I was doing something different." In
reality, by narrowing that palette, Zimmer was actually simply allowing
himself the license to regurgitate music he is comfortable producing.
The same was true of Batman, and now there is Batman atmosphere in a
Superman movie. There is not a trumpet to be heard in
Man of
Steel. No high chimes. No woodwinds. And with them, there is not
only a lack of the aforementioned characteristics, but there is an
absolute and total void in the area of romance. Just because Lois Lane
no longer has that dark hair doesn't mean that there isn't any romance
involved in the equation of this plot, and not even the most loyal
Zimmer enthusiasts will be able to point to a single swell of romance in
this score. Likewise, the action is afforded pounded drum rhythms
without any sense of true malice or direction. General Zod certainly
deserves more than brutish slapping of drums to accompany his menace.
Both Lane and Zod are completely unaddressed in this score, Lane
receiving only a continuation of the tepid family farm piano material
and Zod's thematic and instrumental representations bleeding into
Superman's without distinction. When you tackle major characters with
sound design, perhaps that's the most to be expected.
Some of the more baffling claims made by Zimmer throughout
his media tours for
Man of Steel relate to his unrelenting
support for orchestras. Or so he says. For all the pride he supposedly
takes in employing commissioned orchestral players, he spends an awful
lot of time diminishing their performances. Of course, when he talks
about "orchestras," that can mean just about anything. In
Man of
Steel, he's actually referring to all the drum players he assembled.
With enthusiasm, he relates, "I tried to create these orchestras which
were unusual. At the same time, you can hear the energy and, in a way,
the competition between all the players, just to give it their best." He
seems to fail to realize that when you put so many drum players together
in a recording, no matter how many channels of sound are involved in the
listening experience, the end user can't really distinguish what's so
interesting about it. The hype fills in that blank. Zimmer could have
received the same result by overdubbing just a few performances several
times and few, if any, in the mainstream would have noticed a
difference. When it comes to real, actual orchestral players, his
interest there revolves mostly around his hand-picked soloists. Even
then, the hype does not manifest itself in actual results; when he
advertises that he had a performer utilize a Artot-Alard Stradivarious
violin for the score, he's only discussing the scene in which Krypton is
destroyed. He is proud of counterintuitive approach in that cue, but its
mixing again diminishes the relevance of the instrument. If you're
producing
Schindler's List, then the Stradivarious is important.
Here, it's insignificant. When you step back and think about Zimmer's
comments about orchestras, you really do have to wonder what the hell he
is thinking. He has spent years taking great, organic performances and
altering them with layers of synthetic processing and making them,
ironically, sound sampled. Sometimes, you can't hear any of the
performance nuances after Zimmer is done manipulating the bass region to
its proper mind-numbing volumes. In
Man of Steel, you also have a
1990's-era Zimmer choir to contend with, along with slurred electric
guitar coolness that hails back to the early 90's Zimmer rock scores. In
a context like
Point of No Return or
Drop Zone, that sound
works. For Superman, it sounds like a cheap ploy to stimulate the
hormones of teenagers. If you like the broadly pounding bass notes from
Inception, Zimmer can't resist destroying the soundscape with
some of those here as well. Since there's a metallic sheen to
everything, why not? Is that a bird? Is it a plane? No! It's a
"BWOOOOOOMMM!"
Zimmer does at least attempt to follow a few basic
norms of film scoring in his attempt to suffice for
Man of Steel.
But never mind the lack of counterpoint, synchronization points,
triplets, and other elements when you can take yet another superhero and
largely define him with a two-note theme? His theme for Superman and
Clark Kent is longer than that, especially when fleshed out for the
latter. But it is essentially a series of rising two note figures (sound
familiar, Batman enthusiasts?) that never really change in their
compositional characteristics. Like all of the themes in
Man of
Steel, this one plods along at a static pace and only experiences an
emotional shift in the orchestration phase. In "Look to the Stars" and
"Flight," Zimmer at least has the decency to express these phrases in a
slow crescendo to a heightened major-key whole note in a fashion perhaps
meant as a tribute to Williams' famous Krypton cue. When this idea is
conveyed by the solo piano, be prepared to nod off. No sincere emotional
reach is achieved in these moments, cues like "Sent Here for a Reason,"
"This is Clark Kent," and "Earth" lacking any true Americana depth (where
the hell are the violins and woodwinds in these cues? Oh, that's right,
the drums are there for that depth when needed!). Elfman used
essentially the same progressions in
Real Steel with infinitely
more touching results. Without adequate thematic resonance, Superman
cannot soar, and there is absolutely nothing soaring about "Flight" or
any of the other more ambitious cues. In that and "What Are You Going to
Do When You Are Not Saving the World?," however, Zimmer does afford his
longtime collectors some throwback to the 1990's in the bravado that
does exist. It's too bad most of the progressions are an amalgamation of
The House of the Spirits,
The Lion King, and
The
Peacemaker, all strong scores but not the type of references you
wish to encounter in this context. Another undesirable and inexplicable
inclusion is Zimmer's employment of the standard female voice of
lamentation. In three or four cues, you hear these soothing tones make
their obligatory contributions, proving once again that
Man of
Steel is little more than another "lowest common denominator" kind
of score. Zimmer is the man after all, who, with the help of Lorne
Balfe, applied a brooding Media Ventures-era power anthem to the concept
of the creation of man earlier in 2013 with the television series "The
Bible." The fact that there are many similarities between that score
(more female lamentation and intense bass brooding) and
Man of
Steel exposes Zimmer's methodology as flawed. Or at least existing
out of convenience.
Ultimately, Zimmer was right. He was the wrong man for
this assignment. He wrote the best he felt capable, and he forced the
concept into an untenable place as a result. Apologists will argue that
Zimmer was only addressing the new style of superhero film, and that
nothing more complicated was necessary. This is nonsense. Michael
Giacchino has proven that sophisticated orchestral compositions can
still exist in completely rebooted and reconfigured franchises, and John
Ottman certainly displayed that there are ways to adapt prior identities
effectively into a new context. Zimmer didn't attempt to meet Williams'
mould halfway. He ran from it entirely, a remarkably silly choice given
that much can still be learned from the maestro. It's not Zimmer's
synthetics or taste in ambience that lies at the heart of the problem
here. It's not the lack or romance, nobility, patriotism, or dynamism.
It all relates back to the fact that Zimmer confesses to love producing
music well beyond writing it. And it shows. All the lipstick in the
world won't change the nature of a pig, and all the wickedly cool
ensembles and awesome technology in the world cannot hide a horrifically
simplistic and conceptually inappropriate composition. Adding to this
mucky stew of discontent regarding
Man of Steel, most
predictably, is the commercial absurdity surrounding its album release.
Pay a few more dollars and get the steel-encased deluxe edition with
highly redundant bonus material. All albums include a 28-minute track of
rough drafts of Zimmer performing the score solo. Unfortunately, it
sounds almost identical to the final rendering! In no case do you get a
coherent, chronological presentation, and if you want the much
advertised surround sound version of the score, be prepared to have to
download an app. Sorry, desktop users with the big, high-end sound
systems, if you're curious to hear what "Launch" sounds like in DTS,
you're screwed. That oversight was apparently Zimmer's choice as well.
At the end of the day, this entire endeavor solicits reactions ranging
from disappointment to disgust. The most outrageous statement made by
Zimmer during his
Man of Steel media blitz was this: "For me as a
foreigner I think there's a chance to hold up a mirror to America and to
let it see the things it's become a little bored with." If he truly
thinks that the country is bored with the legacy style of John Williams
and believes that his droning ambience is a sufficient alternative for
any great quantity of the population, he still has a lot to learn about
this country. Twenty years from now, sports stadiums across the country
will still be playing Williams' theme long after the fad boosting
Zimmer's one has subsided. The time may have come for Zimmer to shift
into solely the music production role he so relishes and allow the
inspiration for the compositions flowing from his company to originate
from those with a deeper understanding of the musical language.
* @Amazon.com: CD or
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| Bias Check: |
For Hans Zimmer reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.86
(in 118 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.01
(in 290,888 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
The inserts of the various albums include extensive credits and a note from
record producer Peter Asher about the score and composer. Surround sound versions of
the music can be accessed only by downloading an app on your mobile device (via
instructions on an internal insert card). The "Deluxe Edition" is contained in a
steel case that is difficult to open initially.
