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| Glennie-Smith |
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| Zimmer |
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Gregson-
Williams |
The Rock: (Nick Glennie-Smith/Hans Zimmer/Harry
Gregson-Williams) It's interesting to look back at initial reactions to
a brainlessly masculine movie like
The Rock and ponder the fact
that it received positive reviews from major critics at the time.
Director Michael Bay eventually, in the following decade, wore out his
welcome with many in the mainstream, though in 1996 his teaming with
producers Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson extended the style of movies
like
Crimson Tide and
Bad Boys to an even further extreme.
It was also an era when a Bruckheimer and Bay production could haul in a
fantastic, Oscar-winning cast, led in
The Rock by Sean Connery,
Nicolas Cage, and Ed Harris. The preposterous story involved a group of
renegade ex-Marines who steal rockets tipped with poison gas and
threaten to unleash the toxin on San Francisco from the island of
Alcatraz, unless, of course, former MI6 agent Connery and his witty
tongue can save the day. The story's sculpting of Harris' military
villain into a somewhat noble figure is perhaps the movie's saving
grace, and it has a profound impact on the messy soundtrack for the
picture. Aside from the spectacular action effects it accompanied, the
birth of the late 1990's Media Ventures score, as a concept, cranked up
the testosterone level with frantic, electronic zeal. Hans Zimmer, who
was massively successful in the official creation of a modern
blockbuster sound that was widely embraced the previous year in the
modern classic,
Crimson Tide, didn't actually spend much time
delving into the genre himself over subsequent years. Although he is
indeed to be credited as the brain behind the bombastic new style of
action scoring, he would hand over the everyday duties of handling such
assignments to his vast array of assistant composers at his co-owned
Media Ventures talent farm. While film score collectors both for and
against Zimmer's production habits would come to expect collaborative
efforts between these young assistant composers in the following years,
the scenario with
The Rock came as a surprise to those expecting
a score from Zimmer alone. For the first few years after its release,
the common misperception was that Zimmer wrote most of the music and
needed assistance in meeting the hectic post-production schedule.
In fact,
The Rock represented the first blockbuster
project for which Zimmer really served as a contributor rather than a
composer. The assignment instead landed in the lap of Nick
Glennie-Smith, a regular Zimmer collaborator who had contributed to
several Zimmer scores and Bay's
Bad Boys and who the mentor
believed was ready for a major solo credit. (Though Glennie-Smith
enjoyed a brief solo career in the mainstream after
The Rock, his
career never caught fire as it would for other Zimmer collaborators.)
When asked about his involvement in the score, Zimmer once stated, "I
never really wanted to write any of it. It was always supposed to be
Nick Glennie-Smith's score." Contrary to his wish, and due to
Bruckheimer's reported unhappiness with Glennie-Smith's material, Zimmer
actually wrote what became the main theme of the film and contributed
insight into other aspects of the score. The extent of his involvement
in the writing of the score's other two major themes is a fact that has
remained elusive through the years, though Glennie-Smith adapts Zimmer's
sound from
Crimson Tide and
Backdraft well enough that the
exact credits don't much matter. Glennie-Smith's original heroic theme
was largely dropped from the score. Since the opening titles feature
Zimmer's music, Glennie-Smith reportedly refused at first to have his
name appear on screen at the same time, and Zimmer ended up with more
credit than he wanted or deserved. Somewhere along the line,
Glennie-Smith needed assistance in providing enough music for the long
film (well over two hours) in such a tight schedule, and another Media
Ventures regular by that time, Harry Gregson-Williams, was brought in to
substitute for a few major cues. Veteran composer James Newton Howard
has often been mentioned as offering something to
The Rock as
well, though it's unlikely that his work extended to compositional
duties. Several cues were, however, further arranged by in-house
regulars like Don Harper, Russ Landau, and Steven Michael Stern. The
editing team also worked some magic along the way. Veteran collectors of
Media Ventures scores can typically determine which cues were written
and/or arranged by the various composers, though the muddled situation
in
The Rock, especially on its initial album release, didn't make
the task any easier. In Zimmer's own words in 1997: "I just want to say,
categorically, the CD of
The Rock stinks."
The rushed collaborative nature of the score's creation
does cause some odd thematic attributions throughout the narrative, but
the composers managed to stay loyal to three distinct, major themes in
The Rock, along with several lesser motifs in support.
Interestingly, while the melodramatic theme that Zimmer wrote for the
opening titles of the film is the general representation of the entire
score, most of Zimmer's contributions seem centered around the villain
of the tale, Brigadier General Frank Hummel, played by Ed Harris. The
sense of tragic nobility that Zimmer inserts into this material is quite
suitable for the character, and it's consistent with the composer's
previous thematic tendencies. This main theme and its multiple facets,
heard prominently over the rainy opening title sequence, is an
intriguing cross between the styles of
Crimson Tide and
Backdraft. You hear the choral and electronic instrumentation
from the former while the deliberate, snare-ripping movement of the
theme itself has all the heroic stature of the latter. The theme was
about as bold as Zimmer would ever get in the genre, with the possible
exception of his more satisfying experience for a very similar idea in
The Peacemaker, and many of his assistants carried this torch
ahead in scores like
The Man in the Iron Mask and
Armageddon. In
The Rock, this theme receives its most
fluid expansion in the middle of "Rock House Jail" ("Hummel/SEALs" and
"SEAL Attack" on the fuller album), reminding of some of the more
attractive, propulsive statements of melody in
Crimson Tide. The
blend of string, brass, solo trumpet, and choral aspects in this
material is a direct carry-over. Due to the placement of this theme in
the "End Titles" and its upbeat, heroic variation over different
harmonics and rock percussion in "Mason Into Furnace/SEALs Tunnel," some
might think that this theme represents militaristic tendencies both good
and evil, and that may have been the intent. But given the idea's
rooting with Hummel, including "Hummel Speech," one can't help but
associate the score's main theme with the villain alone. A separate
theme for the character's evil actions is actually teased a few times,
beginning in the opening cue but receiving more singular treatment in
"Alcatraz Reopened." Ultimately, this material for Hummel drives the
entire melodramatic core of
The Rock from the opening moments of
the film, and these passages will provide casual Zimmer collectors with
the best listening experience on album.
Aside from the primary theme of
The Rock, both
of the other two major themes have been attributed to Glennie-Smith, and
they couldn't be more incongruous in sound despite ultimately accessing
the same instrumentation. His primary action theme in the score follows
the opening title sequence in "Naval Weapons Depot" and serves as the
driving, ball-busting idea for
The Rock in "SEALs Tunnel" and
other moments of blasting mayhem. This theme is rather standard in the
ranks of Media Ventures action themes, clearly sharing characteristics
with Mark Mancina's similar, choppy moves in
Speed and
Bad
Boys. The third and more obvious theme is for Connery's character,
Mason, and it sticks out like a sore thumb. Heard poignantly in "Jade"
and at the end of "Rocket Away" ("Finale"), this exceedingly pretty
theme with all the hallmarks of an uncredited Richard Harvey performance
seems like an attempt to draw from Celtic mannerisms, both in the swing
of its progressions and the penny whistle/recorder performance lead. The
composers do adapt the idea into several cues for the character's
heroics, ranging from a brief reference in "Mason Into Furnace" to a
fuller, anthemic rendition in "Hostage/Goodspeed Captured." The
gorgeous, though simplistic five minutes of this theme's two romantic
performances is deserving of a place on a compilation far different from
the one that carries the other highlights from
The Rock, and this
theme, more than any other part of the work as a whole, somewhat betrays
the fragmented personality that results from such collaborative efforts.
Several other motifs abound in
The Rock, including the trumpet
motif for fallen soldiers and a brazenly romantic sideshow, both
sounding distinctly like Zimmer concoctions. The latter theme, while
sometimes credited to Glennie-Smith, is suspiciously similar to Zimmer's
own late-1980's and early 1990's romantic drama mode. Regardless, it
adorns "Romance I" and "Possible Romantic Cue" briefly on acoustic
guitar but takes off in "Fort Walton, Kansas," where the modern rock
edge seems quite innocent despite reminding heavily of Mancina's
Twister. But this spirited finale to the film is also out of step
with the remainder of the score. There is some indication that Zimmer
and Glennie-Smith supplied Cage's lead protagonist and other
positively-associated concepts with themes, though the thorough
integration of the main Hummel identities and the primary action motif
lessens their impact. Complicating matters, these ideas sometimes serve
as interludes to one another.
Instrumentally, the synthetic style of
The Rock
is both the score's greatest asset and weakness. Unlike the smart use of
electronics in
Crimson Tide, the overemphasis on powerful bass,
wailing electric guitars, and staccato keyboarding thrills some
listeners but ruins this score for others. The contributions by
Gregson-Williams account for some of the more intolerable parts of the
score; you can tell which portions of the work he wrote because of the
accelerated use of tingling percussion effects, best exemplified by
"Baby Gas" and the ear-splitting "The Chase" ("Escape the Chase!").
Gregson-Williams actually wrote several variations on that chase cue,
and none of them is particularly palatable. Conversely, listeners who
found the overbearing masculinity of the successive score in the series,
The Peacemaker, to be irritating and obnoxious will find little
of interest here. The rendering of the staccato movements in
The
Rock is raw to a fault, and a fair amount of the suspense and action
music is grating and juvenile in retrospect. Overall,
The Rock is
a mess of last-minute arrangements and poorly constructed orchestration
and electronic accompaniment. But given the effectiveness of both
Zimmer's main theme and Glennie-Smith's material for Connery's
character, it's easy to get the impression that this score could have
been significantly better had there been ample time to make it more
coherent. Glennie-Smith went on to adapt many of the same ideas (with
frightening similarity) in a more balanced package for
The Man in the
Iron Mask two years later. For fans of the Media Ventures (and
eventually Remote Control) sound machine,
The Rock remains a
favorite, and 2-CD bootlegs of the score long circulated. Featuring an
additional 42 minutes and in film order, these presentations eventually
improved their sound quality and removed their sound effects, making it
easier to hear the distinct musical voices of the composers at work. In
2023, Intrada Records finally supplied an official presentation of
similar arrangement and length, including a variety of alternate and
demo takes that bring the listening experience to well over two hours.
While this length exposes much of the obnoxiously raw underbelly and
frayed edges of the score, it also provides more renditions of Zimmer's
dramatic main theme and the secondary Celtic-oriented and romance themes
from which to draw highlights. For the majority of the mainstream,
though, the commercial album will offer satisfying suites of the major
parts. Many love affairs with Hans Zimmer began and ended with
The
Rock, and for those who have always bemoaned his stylistic and
procedural influence on the genre, it's bitter point of division.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
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The insert of the 1996 Hollywood album includes no extra information
about the score or film. That of the 2023 Intrada album features extensive
information about both.
