was
extremely well received, generating substantial awards recognition and
surprising grosses. It has also become something of a pop culture icon,
representing both road trips and women gone astray. Two contemporary
ladies from Middle America with little excitement in their lives go on a
vacation for a few days in their 1966 Thunderbird convertible. Along
their way, they shoot and kill a drunk rapist and assume that the
authorities will prosecute them, so they start a journey to Mexico while
eluding both local authorities and the F.B.I. They become hardened
avengers in the latter stages, robbing a store and destroying a fuel
tanker. When they're finally cornered at the edge of the Grand Canyon,
they famously drive their Thunderbird off the edge and plunge to their
deaths. Although Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon were far from Scott's
ideal choices for the lead roles, they both earned Academy Award
nominations. (Alas, facing off in the same category, they both lost).
The film also introduced a shirtless Brad Pitt to the mainstream and
allowed fan favorite Harvey Keitel to keep his clothes on. Despite all
the problems that Scott faced with the producers of
over Hans Zimmer's unappreciated score for that film, the two continued
their collaboration in
. Thankfully, this new
assignment went as smoothly as it could have for Zimmer. The film
features surprisingly little original score in its duration, but Scott
was so enthusiastic about Zimmer's theme for the fade-out finale and end
credits that he shot an all-new opening titles scene simply to
accommodate another presentation of that theme. Zimmer, meanwhile, has
always accepted praise for this theme, titled "Thunderbird," but has
never particularly understood why his fans want to hear the rest of the
score.
About the fanaticism over
Thelma & Louise,
Zimmer explains, "People are under the impression there is [more good
music from the score]. But I go around that one 'Thunderbird' theme a
couple of times, plus some little rock-n-rollish type things. I hate
overstaying my welcome on these CDs, so there's just not enough. If I
allowed a score-only
Thelma & Louise CD, it probably would have
been only 10 minutes long." On this matter, he has a perfectly valid
point, because while the iconic "Thunderbird" theme, as well as the
gospel-influenced finale piece, is worthy of a place in any collection
of Zimmer's stylish early works, the rest of this score is a largely
forgettable series of bluesy minimalism, sparse action motifs,
irritating hoedown comedy, and unsatisfactory fragments of that primary
theme. The underlying constructs of
Thelma & Louise are quite
simple. A lonely electric guitar theme with the personality of a
battered rock ballad serves as the identity of "Thunderbird" and, by its
adaptation throughout the film, most of the score. Zimmer was in the
process of becoming quite fond of super-stylish guitar solos at the
forefront of his pop-oriented film scores during the early 1990's. His
collaboration with Pete Haycock for
Thelma & Louise was an early
representation of a partnership that continued in
K2,
True
Romance,
Calendar Girl, and
Drop Zone, among others.
The power behind the solo performances is neither as forceful nor
memorable here as in
Days of Thunder, replaced by a slightly
dejected and alienating tone as required by this story. Zimmer augments
Haycock's contribution with familiar keyboarding, loops, and drum pads.
He makes no attempt to use his electronic samples of an orchestra to
specifically emulate an organic tone for the story, instead leaving a
synthetic edge in nearly every cue to reinforce the disembodied rock
style. In the reunion scene ("Homecoming/Railway Station"), the score
approaches the new age genre if not for the stylish guitar.
Two secondary identities are established by Zimmer in
Thelma & Louise to compliment the main "Thunderbird" theme. The
first is plucky Western minimalism with a harmonica and banjo,
inhabiting a bluesy tone for Pitt's escaped convict. This material
eventually develops into full-fledge hoedown territory, with "Bitches
From Hell" (the tanker scene) previewing the more developed symphonic
variant in
Cool Runnings. The other secondary identity is the
subtle gospel influence that very tragically but beautifully emerges in
"The Decision" as the women decide to commit suicide. This music is
similar to Zimmer's many other uses of soul and gospel in his scores at
the time, but the duet between the guitar and voices for the
"Thunderbird" theme in the first half of "The Decision" is a highlight
of the score. The only other aspect of
Thelma & Louise worth
mentioning is the influence of
Black Rain on a sort of
"determination motif" that Zimmer uses to propel the protagonists to
their fateful decision. Heard first in the subtly keyboarded staccato
string chopping late in "Wide Awake," this idea matures in the
composer's familiar action tones in "The Chase." Overall, Zimmer is
correct in that there's only about ten minutes of lasting music in
Thelma & Louise, but that didn't stop a First Born Records
bootleg from slapping 40 minutes of it on a decent-sounding CD later in
the decade. The commercial MCA album had only included the four-minute
"Thunderbird" suite amongst the usual collection of songs. In 2011, the
Kritzerland specialty label pressed a slightly rearranged version of the
bootleg presentation on a 1,200-copy product that sold out immediately,
despite the reality that the eight minutes over the final two tracks on
the bootleg are the only ones definitely worth having. The same contents
were re-pressed for another 1,000 copies in 2017 by the young specialty
soundtrack label Notefornote Music. Given comparable sound quality on
all the products, if you already own one of the prior editions of this
decent but rather underwhelming score on the whole, then there's no need
to seek the later editions.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| 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 298,172 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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