Listen to...DADA..'Batman Begins'

[publicist 4,484]

As someone pointed out at the FSM-board, the japanese movie site of 'BB' has roughly 30 Minutes of score playing in the background.

http://www.so-net.ne.jp/movie/batmanbegins/

As to expect, nothing to get a heart attack over, the Newton Howard parts are clearly identifiable as they sound like the subtle piano/strings style he employed on things like 'Unbreakable' ( 'Reflections of Elijah') and a rather gorgeous string elegy around the 24 minute mark.

The Zimmer can't be accused of too much subtlety: it's the usual Zimmer roll, stomping on without much happening musically, and of course, teutonic heaviness poured all over the busy samples...alas, Zimmer's limitations are evident as usual.

He's fine for all the 'Matchstick man's or 'Spanglish's, but here :roll: i prefer my action cues structured and with something to say, not being just loud...

[AC1 3,565]

Terrible! I hate that sort of music. Batman should be scored with strings only (like Psycho).

[Saxbabe 28]

Random listening thoughts:

The beginning - big action Zimmer. Not bad, but rather blustery, repetitive.

3:30 - Howard. They are so markedly different. This is what I expected to show big when going between cues. Haunting solo child's voice and piano here.

8:00 and 9:50 - Hybrids, interesting. Begin with low ominous strings. And, then the Zimmer synth beats kick in under.

15:00-17:00 - Wow. JNH totally. Looking forward to hearing that whole cue. Got chills when I heard his theme there with those major-minor shifts. Gorgeous. The feel of that theme is similar to the lyrical one in the "End Credits" of The Interpreter.

This particular preview of score, I'm surprised at how minimalistic it is, and deeply sad. And sustained and hymn/elegy like. (But, I also haven't read the script floating around.)

23:00 - Yes, beautiful. Reminiscent of "The Hands of Fate II", ah...and the cello at 24 min...sublime. The Village was an indicator - he's maturing. And then more of the material from 15-17. Very nice.

It's clear where Zimmer's contributions appear, but there's a good 20 min of nice stuff there that is JNH oriented.

Eh, but after the talking, Zimmer in full force briefly (@36 min). He seems painfully obvious and repetitive (his repeated string figures) after hearing Howard's lovely nuanced writing. Brass theme was okay though.

Now I hope the film is good. Score will be cool in film. It's what I expected, but more finessed.

Makes for an interesting comparison, how little Howard has to use to be effective, and how much Zimmer uses to not come close to the same.

Greta

[Unlucky Bastard 7,765]

Did this movie really need two composers?

:roll:

[Saxbabe 28]

Christopher Nolan asked Zimmer originally - alone. It's nice the composers are close friends and had been discussing working together. Otherwise, it would be all Zimmer.

Zimmer asked JNH onto it and presented the idea to Nolan. Did it need two? No.

IMO, it only needed JNH. In Nolan's original opinion, it only needed Zimmer.

Greta

[ST-321 4]

Thanks for posting this!

[JMan 0]

I found it to be quite nice to hear a half hour of music from the movie. Me and my brother bothed liked it very much. I didnt really hear the music with brass and percussion from the 3rd trailer out but I did hear variations of that theme underdone by piano and female soloist. Quite nice!