Ancient Rome Feature
Hans ZIMMER and Lisa GERRARD
The Gladiator
OST
DECCA 467 094-2
[61:49]
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It is suggested that this review is read in conjunction with the
interview with Hans Zimmer, new on this site
this month, in which Zimmer comments in-depth on his music for
Gladiator.
I have to say from the outset that the album impressed me more than the usage
of the music in the film. In fact I have grown to like this album more and
more on repeated hearings.
As Hans Zimmer says, he wanted to equate Lisa Gerrard’s music with
Maximus’s, the Gladiator’s, thoughts of family and home in Spain.
I have to confess feeling rather ambivalent about this choice, I was not
entirely convinced. The music has a definite Middle-Eastern, almost Arabic
feel about it, which might be thought to be at odds with the rather lush
Spanish countryside where Maximus comes from. One can argue and justifiably,
that the Moorish influence spilled over into Spain and Middle-Eastern modes
strongly influenced European music well into the early centuries of the last
millennium but that is to be unnecessarily academic. Anyway the opening shot,
of the film, of a hand brushing over wheat is accompanied by this type of
music with the voice of Lisa Gerrard, before the scene dissolves to reveal
Maximus daydreaming of home in a wintry forest landscape just before the
battle with the northern barbarians. This occupies the first two tracks of
the CD segueing into the substantial 10-minute cue ‘The Battle’.
As Hans explained, ‘The Battle’ is based on the Viennese Waltz
-- but brutalised. I will confess I was amazed at this explanation but listening
carefully to the cue again, I could recognise the pattern. If you think about
it, Hans may have a point, the Viennese Waltz is very formal, disciplined
and the men often in uniform. Zimmer’s brutal, disciplined music is
often submerged beneath the action as the legions, like some well-oiled monstrous
machine, smash through the barbarian enemy. The rich, multi-layered music
is a study in crescendo with many interesting facets including droning voices
(anticipating mourning?), Spanish-rhythmed guitar chords, staccato jabs and
slurs, and war-like trumpet figures. In places ‘Mars’ from
Holst’s The Planets is recalled; at others, Walton’s
‘Battle in the Air’ from Battle of Britain. A seething cauldron,
this music which can be enjoyed independently of the rest of the album (just
forget the quotes, enjoy the ride). It’s a hi-fi enthusiast’s delight.
So too is the 5½-minute cue ‘The Might of Rome’ although in
this case I was disconcerted, when I saw the film, with Zimmer’s Wagner
quotations (from Götterdämmerung – Siegfried’s Journey
to the Rhine and Funeral Music). The associations created seemed confused,
a real mixed metaphor—the mental link one could make between Wagner,
Hitler, Commodus, Rome (before Commodus has a chance to exert his evil
machinations) is somewhat tortuous and tentative, and anyway Siegfried was
a hero! That apart, the music makes an impact, beginning in barbaric splendour,
it is brutal and proud and hints at carnal pleasures before the Wagner-like
music heralds majesty and solemnity. The other big set piece is the 11-minute
cue, ‘Barbarian Horde’, exciting, fierce, crushing, very energetic;
very much akin to the Battle music, with the Holst influence again apparent.
The rhythms seem to have a swaying motion rather suggestive of the progress
of a closed phalanx of soldiers moving relentlessly forward into battle
confrontation, the brass braying in fury.
Of the other cues, I particularly liked the emotional restraint of
‘Patricide’. This is the music that underscores the complex scene
between Commodus and Marcus Aurelius, in which the father is torn between
sincere paternal affection for his wayward, dissolute and cowardly son and
his duty to provide a strong succession for Rome. Commodus is devastated
when he learns that his father has decided to favour Maximus and so suffocates
Marcus Aurelius to inherit power. Zimmer’s music nicely captures these
strong emotions and the dilemma, culminating in a crescendo for the murder.
The music then segues into the cue ‘The Emperor is Dead’ in which
the cymbalom/zither-like Chinese instrument is used. Again, this choice puzzled
me because I could see no relevance, and when it reappeared during a scene
between Commodus and his sister I was nonplussed unless it was some sort
of signal for Commodus’s madness and evil? Whatever, it sounds good.
I would just mention ‘Am I Not Merciful?’ and ‘Now We Are
Free’. The former is apparently music of the arena, in the aftermath
of the fighting. It begins with an oblique reference to the Dies irae stated
on double basses, low in the strings. The music’s heavy, mournful tread
picks up as the music moves up through the strings and the tempo quickens
but the atmosphere remains tragic and there is an echo of Lisa Gerrard’s
music, men’s voices, wordless intoning, until a requiem-like climax
is reached. The concluding cue, ‘Now we Are Free’ brings more relaxed,
warmer music with Lisa Gerrard singing a muted celebration of victory mixing
joy and optimism with grief; this is a victory bought at a price. This might
be the commercial exploitation track that usually comes with big blockbuster
epics these days.
Gladiator might be regarded as a flawed minor masterpiece in the Zimmer canon.
Reviewer
Ian Lace
Gary S. Dalkin adds:-
Gladiator must be the most discussed film score of the year so far. Not so
much because it comes from a film which has proved a major box-office hit,
but for the in some quarters controversial nature of the scoring.
Music and the films of Ridley Scott often sit in uneasy and frustrating
conjunction, the visionary director famed for replacing parts of Jerry
Goldsmith's score for Alien with temp tracks from previous Goldsmith
scores, for replacing Goldsmith's score for Legend completely for
the American release of the film, and for increasingly favouring electronic
music in films where it sometimes sits awkwardly. Electronics worked brilliantly
in Vangelis score for Scott's Blade Runner, and against all the odds,
form a successful part of a complex blend of orchestra, choir, ethnic
instrumentation in 1492: Conquest of Paradise. Then again, the 'lost'
Scott film (I saw White Squall in an otherwise completely unpopulated
cinema) was an excellent film marred by a sub-Vangelis score by Jeff Rona,
while about G.I. Jane, the less said the better. Now comes Scott's
most eagerly awaited film since, well, probably since Alien, and certainly
his first bona fide hit since Thelma and Louise.
Though he has written highly effective scores for films such as Beyond
Rangoon and The Thin Red Line, Hans Zimmer is not the first name
that would come to mind when looking for someone to score a $100 million
Roman epic. His familiar blend of orchestral/rock electronics may be rousing,
but it is also lacking the scale, grandeur and complexity a true epic requires.
As such, he seems almost as inappropriate a choice as Eric Serra was for
Joan of Arc. Except that Gladiator is not an epic in the accepted
sense. Apart from one battle at the start - which is fairly lavish, but nothing
compared to the scale of combat depicted in Spartacus (1960), War
and Peace (1968) or Waterloo (1970) - Gladiator is a
surprisingly small film. It is really no more than a remake of
Rollerball with a spaghetti western finale, a film structured around
four fights involving a limited number of personal in two locations. It is
not an epic in the Ben-Hur, King of Kings and El Cid tradition.
All of which were of course scored by the ultimate master of the classic
Hollywood film score, Miklós Rózsa.
Much of the dissatisfaction with the score comes from the fact that it was
not written by Miklós Rózsa. Given that Rózsa is dead,
this might have been difficult, but in his stead it is argued that someone
such as Jerry Goldsmith or Basil Poldouris would have made an acceptable
substitute. There is something rather nasty about all this. A trace of a
sort of cinematic fascism which suggests that there is really only one way
to make a movie, and that way happens to be the way they did it in the so-called
Golden Age of Hollywood. This is actually not just nonsense, but insulting
nonsense that borders on xenophobia. Film and film music does not begin and
end with Hollywood and America, and there are many ways of doing things.
Some which work, some which don't. Gladiator is not a traditional
Hollywood epic, and it would have been ludicrous to score it in Rózsaesque
fashion. In look, mood, sensibility, the film is like all of Ridley Scott's
movies, eminently European. It may wear the clothes of a Hollywood epic of
40 years ago, but it is altogether something else inside.
In composing the score Hans Zimmer has taken a line between the traditional
and the modern. He has combined orchestra and chorus with ethnic instrumentation,
solo female wordless vocal and electronics. Of these, the voice of Lisa Gerrard
has proved the source of much vexation, the electronics perhaps understandably
the same. Zimmer has done something else which has provoked intense debate.
He has all but incorporated passages from Holst's The Planets (Mars)
and Wagner's Siegfrield's Funeral Music from
Götterdämerung
The Holst is because Mars was the Roman god of war, and Holst's Mars is suitably
aggressive and menacingly doom-laden for the conflict at the heart of the
film. I had my doubts when I first heard the soundtrack album. I thought
it sounded tacky and obvious, but I have to admit that despite the fact that
I think it shouldn't do so, in the film it does work. This is not subtle,
but then nor is the film. This is not great film music, but then
Gladiator is not a great film. It is appropriate. It works. Only the
album it gets the blood pumping, it is thrilling, it is exciting, it is stirring.
It is not Miklós Rózsa.
The Wagner does not work so well. In-fact it does not work at all in the
film, largely because the scene to which it is applied (the Emperor's entry
into Rome) does not work. It does not work because the contrived lighting
of the scene makes the whole thing look completely artificial and ridiculous.
It does not work because this is supposed to be proto-fascist Italy, not
fascist Germany. It does not work because it reminds anyone who has seen
of an infinitely better film. John Boorman's masterpiece, Excalibur.
There are other moments in the score which will please the traditionalists.
'Patricide' is an extremely powerful cue for string orchestra. 'Am I not
Merciful' has a similar tortured intensity. The gentle, atmospheric pieces
written or co-written with Lisa Gerrard work well in the film, and are beguiling
on album. Gerrard is an extremely talented musician, songwriter and composer,
one half of the late-lamented Dead Can Dance, one of the few bands
to come out of anything approaching rock music that were ever worth paying
attention to. If you need convincing, listen to the album In the Realm
of a Dying Sun. It is wonderfully dark, gothic film music which just
doesn't happen to have a film to accompany.
'The Might of Rome', which ends with the Wagner, begins as an exhilarating,
successfully fascistic number of big, pounding relentless drumming. It sounds
like it could have been a Dead Can Dance number from Aeon,
and when I checked I was surprised to see that it wasn't written by Gerrard,
but by Zimmer. Clearly the influence is spreading.
Not all of this works well in the film, but then not all of the film works
well. There are moments which jar, and others which are very effective. There
is just over an hour of music on the CD, divided into 17 tracks which seem
to flow effectively as one almost unbroken sequence. This is a huge score,
and arranged almost in film order, the disc is very enjoyable. The sound
does sound somewhat compressed in places, very forceful but not as defined
as it might be. There is a distance to the recording which could have been
opened up and allowed the breath more. However, the combination of disparate
elements works more often than not. One possible grumble: having only seen
the film once I am not sure if the music which comprises the second part
of the end-title music is somewhere on the album. It certainly is not after
the music which comprises the first half of the end title, a piece called
'Now We are Free', which feature's Gerrard's vocals and is infinitely superior
to the currently customary female vocal led power ballads which routinely
conclude such period dramas. The piece is in keeping with the rest of the
score, and is suitably valedictory in tone.
Luc Besson's recent epic Joan of Arc makes musical reference to Orff's
Carmina Burana, which appeared in John Boorman's Excalibur.
Gladiator makes reference to the Wagner which appeared in
Excalibur, but just for fun see if you can spot where Zimmer borrows
from his own score for Boorman's Beyond Rangoon. Meanwhile enjoy a
thoroughly entertaining album.
Reviewer
Gary S. Dalkin
