Inception

Listening to film music, I've found that the "great" composers adapt to the story ... and to their director's vision. I've liked a lot of Hans Zimmer's scores over the years, but not "on purpose". I thought he was more of a "corporate" composer (i.e., Pirates of the Caribbean), doing big-budget and obvious scores. But then I started to really listen to his work. I really liked Mission Impossible II ... I liked his mix of Spanish influences and electronica (who can do that!!? = Hans, I learned). Batman Begins (w/ James Newton Howard, one of my favorites) was "great". I didn't think they'd top that. Then ... The Dark Knight. Outside the box in so many ways. I've listened to it constantly since it was released. Then, he surprised me with Sherlock Holmes! WOW! Completely unexpected! That's when I realized that this guy really absorbs what the director is trying to do .. and then contributes what he can with the score. That SH score really rounded out that film.

Inception is...Read more

My past experience with Hans Zimmer had always being similar to my experience with the Yankees in the sense that he was a composer that I loved to hate. After the brilliant and daring "Sherlock Holmes" all negative feelings are almost gone and replaced with respect and a wee bit more understanding into how the man's mind works. With "Inception" Zimmer gets back with Nolan and despite the movie supposedly being a mind altering and highly intelligent experience, the score is pretty direct and in your face with very little subtleties.

The album is largely an atmospheric album, the closest thing to a theme I could pick up was a long drawn out two note motif reminiscent of his stuff for Nolan's Batman movies. It's a very simple little statement but works amazingly well on the album. The motif is first heard on "Dream is Collapsing" which is pound for pound my favorite piece of music all year. I became obsessed with the track after hearing it on the movie's website and now...Read more

"I'm not interested in the massive heroic tunes anymore. Now I'm interested in how I can take two, three, or four notes and make a really complex emotional structure. It's emotional as opposed to sentimental. It's not b-s heroic; it has dignity to it."

This quote from Hans Zimmer about his approach to scoring Inception reveals both its strengths and weaknesses. The two-note motif ideal popularized in the Batman Begins score comes full circle here, and like in previous works is both effective yet overused. Nearly every track is built around differing two-note motifs layered upon each other but as Zimmer states above, there's no identifying themes for the characters; it's all based upon the emotional impact of the scene itself.

Empasizing this is an anecdote about how Nolan refused to grant Zimmer any spotting sessions (previewing a rough cut of the film); all the themes were formed from Zimmer's impressions of the characters from the script. It was only in...Read more