You close your eyes and you see a parched piece of land, the sky is crimson and there stands a white stone wall in the middle of nowhere. It’s silent apart from the sounds of few crickets. A deep blue color door with rusty iron nails in the middle of the wall....Why do you feel a lump in your throat?..... Seems like a deja-vu. You approach the door. It slowly opens like it’s hinged on clouds. A long dirty path flanked by fields of wheat. You run your hand through the velvety crop. It seems to stretch to eternity. But there is a familiar figure standing at the end of it. Who is she? She is the woman who has been waiting for you to return home from the beginning of time. She is your wife and you are home…it’s been long… it’s been a lifetime. There is no ground beneath your feet – because this is afterlife and you are now in Elysium!
Anyone who has watched Gladiator knows what I am talking about. Gladiator was a movie which was on the margins of historic and ethereal. To me it was something else, something totally different to what I had ever seen for the sole reason of sequences like the one above. The visualization concept of Elysium was something only a maestro like Ridley Scot could have come up with. But what was perhaps more magnificent was the background score. And it could have been none other than Hans Zimmer who could have delivered the goods. ...
...Even if you are not watching the visuals and just close your eyes to this score, you will feel like you are witnessing the genesis of a galaxy, feel the fragrance of burning candles in a church, like heavens have opened the gates to you and you are weightless and being sucked into a place which you always dreamt about. That mystical chanting like crooning will make you feel nothing apart from unexplained peace and that “you have finally arrived”.
Hans Zimmer began his career writing advertising jingles. His career spike came with the offer of composing the OST for the movie “The RainMan” in 1988 for which he earned an Oscar nomination. There was no looking back then and he was called to compose for several other high profile Hollywood movies. He hit his career’s peak with the score of “The Lion King” (1994) which won him immense critical acclaim along with Oscar and Golden Globe awards. He has since composed the music of Hollywood blockbusters like Nine Months, Broken Arrow, MI2, The Last Samurai, Thin Red Line, Black Hawk Down and countless others.
Zimmer is considered to be a pioneer in the use of digitally composed music like digital synthesizers, computer software and electronic keyboards. He has also pioneered blending this medium with the traditional orchestra. Zimmer’s music can be distinguished by the haunting, surreal and paranormal sort of emotions it will invoke in you. It will leave you gasping with its sheer energy, whether its high pitched, high on amplitude like “The Circle of Life” (Lion King) or as soft as a murmur like “Elysium” (Gladiator). There is a remarkable touch of African tribal beats and sounds in many of his scores like the two above – “Now We Are Free” (Gladiator) and it might have to do something with the fact that it was the haunting tribal music of ’’A World Apart’’ (a South African movie) which got him the break into big broad world of Hollywood.
There is nothing supernatural about him though and he goes through the same trials and tribulations as anyone in a creative field. He also runs out of ideas and finds himself broke of all originality sometimes as he has admitted in one of his interviews. He worked on the Lion King music for 4 years and for Crimson Tide it took him a few seconds to know what sounded right.
I sometimes marvel at the time, creativity and effort they put in Hollywood movies to produce those timeless masterpieces which refuse to die. It would be a crime to mention someone like Anu Malik in this review, but I often wonder how do guys like him are able to get up in the morning and walk to their workplace cognizant of the fact that there exist people like Zimmer in this world and they too are called Music Directors. I just wish someone even 10% of Zimmer’s ability will be born in India. We have waited long enough after RD …..