Let's Journey to the Line!

[Kühni 485]

Off the top of my head, here are three "followers" of this composition (cue? track?) that is among HanZ's apparently most lasting music.

 

From 2002 and We Were Soldiers by Nick Glennie-Smith, "Look Around You" (starting at 2:36):

 

From 2007 and Merry Christmas by Philippe Rombi, "War":

 

From 2019 and 1917 (HOW'S THAT FOR WORDPLAY, EH?) by Thomas Newman, "Sixteen Hundred Men":

 

That's from what I have in my collection. Any additions?

[Edmilson 7,367]

From 2012 The Avengers by Alan Silvestri, there's an action variation of Journey to the Line:

 

 

 

[KK 3,307]

Ooph this could take a while...

 

I'm guessing we're not counting Zimmer's own self-rips?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Those are the ones that come to mind. I think it's a rite of passage for most modern film composers to negotiate a "Journey to the Line" temp situation. Some just skirt around it better than others.

[Edmilson 7,367]

It's not really fair to use the RC minions, but anyway:

 

 

[Jay 37,249]

Huh, I hadn't realized this one piece of film music had been so influential!

[publicist 4,643]

Zimmer himself helped himself to it barely a year after the fact:

 

 

[Edmilson 7,367]

Well, if we're going to use Zimmer's own examples, this one from (his masterpiece) The Last Samurai is the most obvious, from 2:38 onwards:

 

 

[KK 3,307]

29 minutes ago, Edmilson said:

Well, if we're going to use Zimmer's own examples, this one from (his masterpiece) The Last Samurai is the most obvious, from 2:38 onwards:

 

 

 

The 2:38 is not so much "Journey to the Line" as it is just Zimmer's general early 00s melodrama. But 5:20 onwards is definitely an almost verbatim lift of the more contemplative second half of "Journey to the Line" though, which in itself was Zimmer's take on Ives' "The Unanswered Question".

 

He leans on the same idea again in Angels and Demons:

 

38 minutes ago, Jay said:

Huh, I hadn't realized this one piece of film music had been so influential!

 

This piece, and score was not only key to redefining modern film music tropes, but it was also massively formative for Zimmer. Nearly every dramatic tool he has in the shed, more or less has roots in The Thin Red Line.

 

36 minutes ago, publicist said:

Zimmer himself helped himself to it barely a year after the fact:

 

 

 

And for the sake of posterity, there are of course the two classic retakes that reintroduce the template across generations:

 

 

 

 

At least the former actually explores and develops the idea with integrity. The latter is just a poor man's "Journey to the Line" featuring Johnny Marr and beefed up for woke Gen Z crowds.

[Jay 37,249]

18 minutes ago, KK said:

This piece, and score was not only key to redefining modern film music tropes, but it was also massively formative for Zimmer. Nearly every dramatic tool he has in the shed, more or less has roots in The Thin Red Line.

 

Very interesting.  I should have paid more attention to this score over the last 22 years!

 

BTW: Is there anything super essential or interesting in the recording session leak that isn't on the LLL set, or does the LLL set cover everything important and the remaining bits are just minor variations of released cues?

[publicist 4,643]

21 minutes ago, KK said:

At least the former actually explores and develops the idea with integrity. The latter is just a poor man's "Journey to the Line" featuring Johnny Marr and beefed up for woke Gen Z crowds.

 

'Time' for me always was devised as a pop tune, and the 'genius' of Zimmer isn't the piece - which is depressingly simplistic - but to know exactly when, where and how to use it. The whole score is much better and more interesting.

 

Funny how Horner got to rewrite it (the Chevaliers tune):

 

 

[Edmilson 7,367]

18 minutes ago, publicist said:

The whole score is much better and more interesting.

 

I agree. I wasn't a fan of Inception for a long time, until I've heard the recording sessions leak. Of course, there's a lot of long cues that is just "suspense music", but the whole score is much more fleshed out. Also, it has one of the best action cues by Zimmer in my opinion (which I don't think it is present on the OST, at least not on its entirety), 6m35-36 It's A Trap.

 

 

For anyone with an open mind and wanting to rediscover this score, the recording sessions are the best way of finding out that this is one of the best Zimmers since he entered the "Dark Ages" (from TDK onwards).

 

Weirdly, the film versions of two of the most famous pieces from the OST are very different. The film version of Mombasa (2m13 Mombassa Chase) is way shorter and less developed than on the OST, and the film version of Time (7m47 Welcome Home Mr. Cobb) has an insert that breaks the drama of the cue.

[KK 3,307]

36 minutes ago, publicist said:

 

'Time' for me always was devised as a pop tune, and the 'genius' of Zimmer isn't the piece - which is depressingly simplistic - but to know exactly when, where and how to use it. The whole score is much better and more interesting.

 

Oh definitely. It's manipulated quite cleverly across the score, one which I enjoy. I just can't stand "Time" itself, and how eagerly Hollywood ate it up.

 

36 minutes ago, publicist said:

 

Funny how Horner got to rewrite it (the Chevaliers tune):

 

 

 

Ahaha. Even when Horner pulls ingredients from Zimmer, he manages to coat it with so much of his own glaze that it sounds like he's pulling from his own vocabulary.

 

I always thought the accumulating "4-chord" passacagalia-esque construct from A Beautiful Mind onwards was a very post-Thin Red Line/Gladiator idea that he assimilated into his arsenal. But he dresses it up with all his usual bells and whistles that it's sometimes hard to recognize as anything but Horner.

 

 

 

Zimmer's is the classier work. But it's all Gorecki anyway. Still, credit goes to Zimmer for popularizing that template in film music.

 

38 minutes ago, Jay said:

 

Very interesting.  I should have paid more attention to this score over the last 22 years!

 

BTW: Is there anything super essential or interesting in the recording session leak that isn't on the LLL set, or does the LLL set cover everything important and the remaining bits are just minor variations of released cues?

 

Nothing essential, as far as I remember. Anything the LLL set missed are mostly just minor variations or alternate takes.

[publicist 4,643]

Oh, Beautiful Mind was temped to the brim with 'Thin Red Line', you hear it also in the love theme (pure Horner, but still):

 

 

 

[KK 3,307]

Ah that's right! The love theme! I was wondering why I couldn't find the more obvious Journey rip I had in mind. Was looking at the darker material instead.

 

Man that score is mostly just pretty chords eh? 

[publicist 4,643]

Horner may have been the last of a dying breed of guys who could take these idiot fad temps and kinda make them his own. 

 

Case-in-point: the then-ubiquitous Danny Elfman Beetlejuice temp (Goldsmith did a great Goldsmith take on that in Small Soldiers) that sounds like academic Elfman: 

 

 

(and sorry for the diversion, he even put his, or whoever came up with it, original version of that cue on the soundtrack album and it's a far more accomplished piece)

 

 

[HunterTech 982]

7 hours ago, Jay said:

BTW: Is there anything super essential or interesting in the recording session leak that isn't on the LLL set, or does the LLL set cover everything important and the remaining bits are just minor variations of released cues?

It has nearly 2 hours of random stuff for Malick and the editing team to screw around with. That's not counting how long the whole set lasts (5 and a half hours), so I'm pretty sure the LLL set has the actual essentials of the piece. Anything else is just neat bonuses for the super fans.

[Jay 37,249]

Thanks, I appreciate that response!

Any other opinions?

[Edmilson 7,367]

1 hour ago, Jay said:

Any other opinions?

 

According to the bootleg, Zimmer recorded about 323 minutes (5h23m30s) of music for Malick to use as he pleases on the movie, which runs for 170 minutes. Apparently, he wrote and recorded it before Malick started shooting, so he could use his music on the set.

 

Here's the cue list according to the bootleg. I don't know, if he recorded it before the filming, why some cues have reel numbers, but anyway:

 

1m00 (11 12) NEW DNU (1:32)
1m00 (11 12) NEW V.2 (1:33)
1m00 Opening (3:03)
1m00 v.3 Nature Montage (1:16)
1m02 Children Swimming (3:17)
1m05 Witt W Melanesians (1:41)
1m06 Witt W Melanesians (1:42)
1m06 v.3 Island (1:46)
1m06 v.3 Island (alternate) (1:46)
1m06 Island (New Version) (1:29)
2m08 Witt in Brig (3:26)
2m08 v.2 Witt in Bring (3:37)
2m09 Tall & Quintardi (5:08)
3m11 Staros Below Deck (2:04)
4m14 March Island DNU (8:24)
4m14 March Island Remix (8:26)
4m14R March Island (8:32)
5m16 Tall Staros Orientation (2:24)
6m19 The Grass (0:49)
6m22 Talls Calls Staros (2:43)
7m23 v.1 Keck’s Death (4:36)
7m23 v.2 Keck’s Death (4:49)
8m25 Welsh Helps Tella (2:30)
8m26 Bead Dies (8:12)
8m26 Bead Dies (New Version) (3:40)
9m29 v.2 Bell Goes Alone (3:56)
9m30 Tall & Staros (3:30)
9m34 Bird v.2 Welsh & Witt Talk (3:23)
9m34 GOD v.2 (10:39)
10m31 Gaff’s Party Returns (3:19)
10m31 Gaff’s Party Returns (with New Percussions) (3:06)
11m33 v.1 Prisoners (2:09)
11m33 v.2 Prisoners (2:05)
12m39b v.1 (7:57)
12m39b v.3 (3:30)
13m41 Tall Does Nails (1:37)
13m41 Short Tall Does Nails (1:25)
14m42 Air Field Bell Flashback (6:01)
14m42 New ending Airfield (7:21)
14m42 old (6:00)
14m52 (3:43)
15m44 Village Flashback (2:08)
15m45 Witt Travels (2:42)
15m45 46 v.2 Witt Travels Copra (5:49)
15m45 46 (6:12)
15m46 v.4 (6:45)
16m47 In the River Witt Chased (1:30)
16m49 v.3 Witt Chassed (4:28)
17m51 Proc
17m51 Saar Witts Death (2:14)
17m53 CD (5:17)
17m53 v.1 (4:40)
17m53 v.3 Cemetary (4:46)
17m55 (1:56)
Big Chord (1:38)
Cosmic Beam (drone) (5:43)
Grace v.1 – D minor (5:15)
Grace v.2 – A minor (5:18)
JP Concerto for Beam (6:03)
Mono Orch 60 bpm DNU (3:26)
Mono Orch 66.5 bpm (3:05)
Mono Orch Brass 60 bpm (3:39)
Monotone 7 Bars DNU (2:08)
Monotone 7 Bars (2:15)
River #5 (ReRecOrch) (5:42)
Rolling Thunder (3:28)
Wild Bowls with Panning Fx (7:19)
Wild Bowls with Png Fx & Shaku (7:20)
Wild Bowls with Shaku (7:51)
Wild Bowls (7:49)
Wild Shakuhashi (9:56)
Wild Solemn Taiko (3:42)
Wild Solo Cello (1:31)
Wild War Drums (18:36)

 

The expanded edition probably takes the more important part of this whole material, and I guess try to reconstruct it according to the movie.

 

And yes, the cue today known by the name of Journey to the Line is... 9m34 GOD v.2 (10:39). Maybe a little pretentious? An acronym? Who knows...

[Kühni 485]

.

[Edmilson 7,367]

Yeah, I guess the boot contains pretty much everything or almost everything that was recorded for the movie, but it doesn't make for a good listening experience though. I don't think anyone has patience for listening to eight minutes of "Wild Bowls with Shaku" or almost nineteen minutes (!!) of "Wild War Drums"

 

But I guess you can take the boot and edit the desired missing tracks from the LLL set into the main program.

[TheUlyssesian 2,473]

The only cue interesting in Inception is Dream is Collapsing. Time is so basic jesus, so bloodless, so antiseptic.

[publicist 4,643]

Here's what i ended up with. 97 minutes (and there is still a lot of repetition).

 

[Jurassic Shark 12,008]

Here's mine:

 

 

[Edmilson 7,367]

If Time is based on Journey to the Line, and the track below is based on Time, so in a way this track is a... grandchild of Journey to the Line? Or more like it and Time are brothers?

 

 

Chevaliers de Sangreal is the European cousin of the family, of course.

[HunterTech 982]

I feel like asking the same question regarding this DOFP theme, being based on Time and all that:
 

And yet I actually like it more than Time, since there's an actual melody here and some semblance of proper progression. There was a Zimmer/RCP track that more overtly reminded me of Journey to the Line, but I can't quite recall which yet.

[crocodile 7,973]

This is an obvious rip...starting at about 4:50:

 

 

Karol