Hans Zimmer is best known as the king of the grand and grandiose, but he could always knock off a terrific cheesy 90s action flick soundtrack if he wanted to. Broken Arrow is as over-the-top as John Woo action films get, and as ham-tastic as a John Travolta villain action flick gets, but boy is it some dumb fun. The theme song is relatively simple, a sort of pseudo-Western, very whimsical and offbeat music perhaps more fitting to a lighthearted Western than a nuclear weapons thriller. Somehow, though, this dissonance works extremely well with the silly tone of the film.
29. 'The Way of the Sword' - The Last Samurai
Hans goes to Japan, and while even the maestro himself doubted he'd be able to achieve the very particular tone of reverence and respectfulness towards Japanese culture the film does, I do think he manages to nail it.This is a great action theme which is heart-pounding before seguing into a very heartfelt, reverential tone, and very much embodies the film's ideals of heroism and honour.
28. The Theme to Black Rain
Curious, though, that Zimmer was so nervous about taking on the themes of Japanese culture through his music, since he pretty much nailed it in one of his first goes with Black Rain. The film shares many similarities to The Last Samurai with its respectful approach to the Japanese, and is a fairly entertaining action film to boot. Zimmer's ending theme to the film is a fantastic example of him bringing about a great conclusion, as it so succinctly surmises the bond of the two men from different continents.
27. 'Stone in My Heart' - The Thin Red Line
Like the vast ensemble which was significantly pared down by Terrence Malick's brutal cutting process, Hans Zimmer's soundtrack for The Thin Red Line was apparently largely cut from the final product, with only several of his nearly 4 hours worth of music appearing in it. Well, say what you will about the man, but Terry M clearly knew what to pick out of Zimmer's bag of tricks. It's such a unique soundtrack for a war movie as there's absolutely no John Williams, James Horner or (more recently) Rupert Gregson-Williams sort of bombastic tone to any of its tracks. Which is not to diminish the work of those composers in their war sequences, they're amazing in their own ways, but Zimmer opts for a different approach to contrast with the visuals of horror and suffering. This track, set to the beautiful shots of C Company's trails in the South Pacific, shows the calm and serene surface, with the violin reprise of the tune towards the end symbolizing the men's own internal states as they move towards battle.
26. 'You're So Cool' - True Romance
As derivative from Badlands' score,as the film itself is in many ways indebted to that great Malick film, this is nevertheless another A+ quality score from Zimmer for a very entertaining, if a bit disorganized, semi-Tarantino-semi-Tony Scott venture. The sprightly and playful tune is absolutely pitch-perfect for the road trip of the two protagonists, mischievous and cheekily winning their way into your hears.
25. 'Agent of Chaos' - The Dark Knight
Starting off so calmly before setting off on another pulse-pulsating theme, this theme amplifies the escalating tension of Batman finding out about the Joker's 'Sophie's choice' dilemma, and the desperate mindset of Bruce Wayne. I have a particular affinity for how the Joker's theme subtly underlies this theme, and how it so cruelly ends its 'epic' theme to revert back to a calm, chilling score that shows the horror and tragedy of the Joker's actions.
24. 'God Yu Tekem Laef Blong Mi' - The Thin Red Line
This serene, beautiful piece of music is implemented into the film at its most understated, soothing and calm segments, to create this sense of the otherworldly. The instrumentals are minimal, but Zimmer wisely holds back in this regard to let the Melanesian choral songs and chants flourish all the more. They are a perfect representation of Private Witt's (Jim Caviezel) state of tranquility, and provides such fitting comfort in a film that so vividly depicts war's greatest horrors. It's never forceful in its emotions, fitting to the tone of the film, and provides the basis for some of its most emotionally powerful sequences.
23. Theme to Driving Miss Daisy
Atypical Zimmer, to the extent that I didn't realize till quite recently that this soundtrack was composed by him. It's sparkly and lighthearted in a fitting way to the sparkly and (mostly) lighthearted film it accompanies, and you can just see Morgan Freeman glowing and Jessica Tandy glowering/glowing herself as you listen to this catchy little tune. The use of synthesizers and samplers, very much an 80s staple and a Zimmer staple, capture that specific time period of the film despite the somewhat anachronistic use of this modern music making technique.
22. 'The Village' - The Thin Red Line
Like 'Stone in My Heart' the track begins in a tranquil fashion, before gradually turning into a darker, more tragic and mournful piece. The beauty of the strings instruments coalesce with the constant ringing and the use of bells to show how, try as one might to lose oneself in the beauty of the islands or the innocence of the past, the ringing of war is always in one's ears. The dissonance never feels jarring, but instead adds so much to the sequences in the film it's utilized in. It never 'raises its voice', so to speak, but you still completely feel how it represents the symbol of war weighing upon the men's shoulders.
21. 'Leaving Walbrook' - Rain Man
A neat subversion of the typical road trip theme song, as we get another synth-heavy Zimmer soundtrack which is entirely fitting to the very methodical, precise and yet heartwarming personality of Raymond Babbit (underrated Oscar-winning performance by Dustin Hoffman) and his relationship with his brother Charlie (underrated, period, performance by Tom Cruise). It's very straightforward in terms of the comfortable sweet spot it hits with the score, but effectively so, and brings a smile to one's face whenever it's heard in the film.
20. 'Is She With You?' - Batman v.s. Superman: Dawn of Justice
This off-kilter collaboration with Junkie XL works out surprisingly well, in fact I'd say this is a perfect example of a soundtrack that is greater than the sum of the completed film. Honestly, Wonder Woman's theme here suggests a far greater story and plot line than the final film gives her. It's utilized really well in her standalone film too by Rupert Gregson-Williams, but this is where it was established, and credits to Zimmer and Junkie XL for crafting a truly inspiring, epic theme song that puts many other superhero themes of today to shame.
19. 'Introduce a Little Anarchy' - The Dark Knight
The difficult part about praising the soundtrack to Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, in particular The Dark Knight, is how the score in each given scene is mostly compromised of fragments of other parts of the score, combined to fit the varying tones and moods of the film - usually gritty and rather grim. This is an excellent example of this splicing, as we have a heart-pounding, rousing score to accompany the best action sequence in the film as Batman has to take out his own SWAT team and save a bunch of 'hostages'. Everything just kicks in at the right time here as you can clearly distinguish each rising line of action between the chords here.
18. 'The Corall Atoll' - The Thin Red Line
Begins the men's journey into war impeccably, as here we get a bit more of the expected Hans Zimmer gravitas to its ascending opening, as it rumbles in accordance with the ominous sounds of the ships, bringing men closer and closer to the battlefields where many will lose their lives. After that it switches between the meek and calm, and the rumbling and gritty. There is an ominous air to much of the music, symbolizing the 'great evil', but there also an otherworldly sense of someplace else, the 'beautiful light' Private Witt speaks of in the great beyond.
17. 'The Medallion Calls' - Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl
A grand collaborative effort by Zimmer, Klaus Badelt, and Ramin Djawadi (of Game of Thrones fame). It effectively acts as an entry for Jack Sparrow, for better or worse, and captures so beautifully that off-kilter and mischievous airs of Captain Jack. Its grandeur juxtaposes his silly antics and airs of pretension, with just the right amount of wry knowing-ness. In many ways the Pirates series features some of the most bare-bones and simple soundtracks of Zimmer's filmography. Doesn't matter because it fits the tone of the films perfectly, even when the films themselves aren't exactly on point.
16. 'Home' - Dunkirk
Zimmer's latest soundtrack is, for lack of a better word, quite the masterpiece. It should be said that the whole sound design of the film is perhaps its most remarkable quality, and the use of a ticking clock motif for the soundtrack is a stroke of genius, as it creates such a constant urgency throughout the film. The frentic pace and rhythm this creates throughout the film is palatable through the first part of 'Home', which makes its sudden transition to something more comforting and inspirational in its second half, perfectly correlating with Kenneth Branagh's impeccable acting in that scene, so moving.
What a unique surprise it was to see this talented and deservedly acclaimed cinematographer of early-to-mid 20th Century Hollywood be featured on the mantlepiece of of Google's search engine display. A beautiful oil canvas it must be said, aptly so for a man whose films were never less than good to look at, and when in black and white on a whole entire other leve.
Howe, a Chinese immigrant who made a start doing odd jobs here and there for film studios and capturing Cecil B. Demille's eye as a clapper boy, he worked is way into becoming a director of photography by finding ways to enhance the mode of black-and-white filmmaking. Whether it was using lighting or shadowing to make actresses' best angles flourish, to discovering how to use dark backdrops to create contrast, to the use of wide-angle lenses and color lighting, Howe was an innovator through and through; he was one of the first to use deep focus, one of the first the employ the use of the dolly camera movement.
Being Chinese, there is of course an added pride I take in the work of Mr Howe which extends beyond just his expertise. He was a strong, somewhat stubborn, and exceedingly hardworking individual who got his way with the films he worked on. He won two Oscars, for The Rose Tattoo and Hud, and should be more frequently remarked as one of the biggest breakthroughs for Asian Americans in Hollywood. His marriage to novelist and literary editor Sanora Babb was discriminated against by the Chinese Exclusion Act, prohibiting them from publicly acknowledging it till 1948. Yet still they persisted.
Of course, I could babble on all day about the man's aptitude, but perhaps it's best if I just show you all some of my favourite shots/scenes involving him. Enjoy.
The lighting employed in Sweet Smell of Success on Burt Lancaster's demenaour is breathtaking, turning the handsome leading man into a hulking, nasty monster.
It's a bit of a standard drama in many ways, but Howe's work on King's Row gives it a nice added touch of noir atmosphere and an unsettling undercurrent.
With Detroit having been released in U.S. cinemas, Kathryn Bigelow's gritty and pseudo-documentary style 'trilogy' of sorts comes to a suitably controversial conclusion. Some critics have opined that it's yet another example of Bigelow twisting the truth for thriller and exploitative means, some that it misappropriates the 'black perspective' of the 1967 Detroit riots and the Algiers motel incident; on the other side, some considering it to not only be the finest work Bigelow has ever done, but a rousing powerhouse that deserves to be in Oscar contention in multiple categories, come awards season.
Having not seen it yet, I'll await judgement of it, but needless to say I'm excited. Bigelow's one of the most talented directors in Hollywood, distinguished not just by being a female director dabbling in what some might deem atypical genres, but by just being a downright fantastic visceral talent at capturing such an in-your-face immersive quality of her films. Her earlier work like the iconic cheesiness of Point Break was already notable in this regard, but with her last two films - the terrific The Hurt Locker and the effective, if slightly wavering in focus, Zero Dark Thirty - she's established herself as the go-to person for adrenaline-drenched filmmaking with quality; a Bay with a brain, so to speak.
As we've watched Bigelow's gradual transformation into this talent, we've also seen the emergence of Peter Berg. An actor-turned director who helmed a decent adaptation of a great sports novella (Friday Night Lights, highly recommend the source material), a few flops (Battlefield) and problematic hits (Hancock's great first half and awful third act, anyone?), took awhile to get into stride in this 'grit and grind' brand of filmmaking, but with 2013's Lone Survivor he finally seemed to hit the mark.
It's a very solid war thriller, tautly directed and with excellent sound editing, and its third act switch to the Pashtun villagers isn't nearly as tonally deaf as some make it out to be. It tells the story of the failed Operation Red Wings in the War of Afghanistan, and how four soldiers assigned to track down and kill Taliban leader Ahmad Shah are forced to fight for their lives against the Taliban. It is in many ways, a traditional 'Team America' story of fighting against the odds, subverted in style by Berg's blunt and incisive direction, but not in spirit. It's an interesting counterpoint to Bigelow's The Hurt Locker in that regard, which told the fictional narrative of a bomb disposal expert (Jeremy Renner in his breakthrough role) going on tour in Iraq. Where the heroism in Lone Survivor is violently and bleakly depicted, it is also honoured with the due respect to the brave men fighting; in The Hurt Locker, Renner's William James is a maverick and daredevil who's technically being very 'brave', but in a way which creates great unease among his squadron (Anthony Mackie and Brian Gergharty).
Bigelow and Berg are not overly similar in style; Berg, as aforementioned, is a bit more stylized, a bit more 'gung-ho' and All-American in his approach, while Bigelow prefers to eschew heroism for more brutal interrogation of the human nature. Her protagonists, like Jeremy Renner's William James in The Hurt Locker and Jessica Chastain's enigmatic and feisty CIA operative Maya tracking down Bin Laden in Zero Dark Thirty,tend to be more morally murky protagonists than Berg's Mark Whalberg avatars in his 'real-life trilogy' of Lone Survivor, Deepwater Horizon and Patriots Day. In each of these films Marky Mark plays the hero our focus is primarily directed towards: real-life Navy SEAL survivor Marcus Luttrell, real-life electronics technician on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig Mike Williams, and a very fictional composite cop character investigating the Boston Marathon bombings.
The perspectives of these protagonists create a vast range of possibilities for both directors. The Hurt Locker achieves its claustraphobic, often quite troubling atmosphere of constant unease through us sticking with a 'decoy protagonist' in Guy Pearce's swiftly deceased bomb disposal expert, and switching to the unpredictable William: all bets are off, and Renner's terrific, rightfully Oscar-nominated performance only serves to enhance this destabilizing effect on the narrative.
Zero Dark Thirty is a bit less assured in this regard. Chastain is a very strong lead, and her co-star Jason Clarke is equally good as a fellow CIA operative who resorts to less than savoury means to track down Bin Laden, including extreme torture. But there comes an influx of subplots surrounding different members of the CIA, which is effective in showing the interesting behind-the-scenes drama and decision-making. I do prefer The Hurt Locker's more focused narrative, but then again these are very different sorts of stories Bigelow is telling. We're kept somewhat at a distance from all characters involved, and with Detroit I'm hoping there's a bit more proximity to our characters than this film.
Which isn't to say I dislike Zero Dark Thirty; while I may not love certain elements of the storytelling structure, and the facts themselves that are used for the narrative may be dubious at best, Bigelow's direction throughout Zero Dark Thirty is consistently strong, and when it ups the ante in the third act with the Navy SEALs carrying out the mission it's a very terrific procedural thriller. It sets up a rather intense third act with good build-up in the first two, similar to what Berg does with his disaster thriller Deepwater Horizon. Deepwater Horizon's effectiveness hinges upon how it shows the before as well as the during and after of the disaster. By introducing the various characters working at the oil rig and allowing us to embrace them, it adds to the effect of seeing them struggle out of their predicament.
It never feels exploitative of the real-life tragedy; one of Berg's strengths as a director is not letting the horrors of the situation being the all-encompassing attribute of his films, but rather the strength and heroism used to confront it. Similarly, in Patriots Day, while he does show the terrible events of the Boston bombers' actions, and decry the callousness of the terrorists, he also ensures we focus on the bravery of the cops and authorities who tracked down the two killers, as well as the many ordinary citizens who bravely stepped up to help their beloved city. Sentimental? Perhaps, but with just the right amount of it coupled with realism. Berg's pseudo-documentary approach is a fascinating contrast to Bigelow's; whereas she uses it to capture the ugliness of human actions, Berg often uses it to capture the bravery of them. What is similar is their shared interest of what drives humanity in the most extreme of circumstances: the thrills in their stories never seem like mere cogs in a machine, but rather truly vivid circumstances which their characters struggle through. The Hurt Locker puts us in a position to witness tropes we've seen again and again - the rescue of an innocent citizen, a shootout with militants - and twists and turns our expectations, and we are as emotionally drained as the characters onscreen. Lone Survivor, in particular out of the three aforementioned Berg films, is intent on showing us every wound and gunshot endured by the four men; each setpiece is most remarkable not just for the technical elements, but also the emotional intensity he finds within them.
It should be noted as well that beyond being just technically impeccable, both are terrific actor's directors. Bigelow turned out a starmaking turn from Renner as well as terrific supporting work by Mackie in The Hurt Locker, and uniformly strong performances from a varied character actor ensemble in Zero Dark Thirty.
And if critical reactions are anything to go by, it looks like John Boyega, and Will Poulter have truly knocked it out of the ballpark with Detroit; we'll see about that. Berg, on the other hand, has the ability to coax realistic and invested performances by Whalberg (which should never be a given, check out the latest Transformers film) as his leading man, as well as many dark horse standouts: the magnificent depiction of Matthew 'Axe' Axelson by the one and only Ben Foster in Lone Survivor, Kurt Russell's defiant rig supervisor 'Mr Jimmy' in Deepwater Horizon, and fantastic performances by Jimmy O. Yang, Kevin Bacon, and J.K. Simmons as people on both sides of the conflict in Patriots Day all are very notable performances.
Really, Bigelow and Berg have only upwards to go after the recent quality of their work; here's hoping they keep on with their brave and gritty style to stylistically 'in-your-face' filmmaking at its finest.
