Review Summary: Why so serious?!
Well, that’s the question really; why is the score of
Hans Zimmer so serious? Granted, The Dark Knight unlike many of the Batman films is best said in the title itself, but does it work? In his effort to capture both the malevolent nature of the Joker, and the somewhat deadpan performance of Batman, Zimmer doesn’t show the classy stereotypical design of
Danny Elfman’s more tongue-in-cheek score for the 1989 Tim Burton depiction, but trudges deeper in a quagmire of abrasive avant-garde soundscapes, blowing percussion, and phased-out string accompaniments. His more conventional counterpart
James Newton Howard, utilises the more standard approach to the score, gathering large amounts of momentum through a clash between dark strings and swelling horns. Together, their equations mesh to form a score that’s always there, sometimes even when you aren’t aware of it. Howard’s presence is clear and apparent, where as Zimmer’s is restrained, illusive and used to fill the gaps in times of suspense.
Being spread out inconsistently – i.e
“A Little Push” comes in at seven, where in the film parks itself well toward the end – many of the tracks span over five minutes, and also show an incoherency toward a accurate representation of the individual scene changes. It seems the idea for showing off a flashy CD with a seemingly bite sized collection of 14 tracks was more important for sales, instead of the more traditional verbatim approach. This affects the listening experience, by adding confusion, that if it weren’t for the titles you’d be wondering what scene was being replayed, sparing the Joker’s own dissonant escalation theme.
Upon a closer inspection Zimmer’s staccato (sharp) driven string melodies are, like some of those expressed in
Pirates of the Carribbean and
The DaVinci Code. These chaotically cast themselves between Howard’s more solid symphonic terrains, and in a lot of instances dramatically morph into dark popping electronic piano, effective mostly, but recycled from his past scores for similar action driven films. It’s almost as if the relentless feud between Batman and the Joker caught on in the music department as well – maybe that’s the idea; to represent this fjord of chaos, the two chose for a musical score that is as literal as the depiction of Ledger and Bale on the camera, but as effective as their own visual performance is, the musical one seems to fight on it’s own strengths, chopping and changing between effects and dynamics to the point where most of the individual durations feel like one monotonous track lasting an hour.
The main focus it seems is to drive the audience’s desires into suspense, rather than leaving it to their intuitive emotion. It’s forceful in a negative way, best represented by using experimental sounds, pushing and pushing metal along strings and drums to breaking point, until the character’s climax has been reached, all the while the mesmerised audience are still composing themselves looking for a sound or musical note to relieve the pressure for a gentle brief moment. At the other end, Howard shows us how to reflect using romantically driven symphonic moulds, as well as a few brief exertions from the man on piano to capture the subtle romance between Batman/Wayne and Rachel Dawes, as well as the elegant side to Harvey Dent. His score while effective is hardly outstanding and filled with countless compositional clichés that just don’t find anywhere to lodge themselves in the memory banks. It’s evident that the skills of each composer work for selected points in the film, but on it’s own
The Dark Knight’s musical aspect is one that will be remembered for that fact that it is the music for the epic film, and not for the music itself.
