Is Hans Zimmer the GOAT yet?
Dune: Part Two once again proves his skill at adding something tangible to a movie - but is he the best of all time?
Before we start, here are three spoiler-free incontrovertible truths about Dune: Part Two, which I saw with my friend James on Friday evening:
First, Dune: Part Two is at least as good as Dune: Part One. The scale is bigger and the tone is more epic; it feels like an old school epic - a sci-fi Ben Hur or Braveheart or Gladiator. Timothee Chalamet has never been better on screen, and I’m including Call Me By Your Name. Same goes for Zendaya, who should be nominated for all the awards after this. Austin Butler almost stole the show with a relatively small amount of screen time (or at least smaller than I expected). And the visuals are stunning; you must see it on the biggest screen possible.
Second, Dune: Part Two suffers from the same issues as Dune: Part One, and none of them really detract from the film. In the case of both films, there are plot points that really could have used more time - like developing relations with the Fremen, exploring the Bene Jesserit, and their new life on Arrakis in the first movie. The second movie does the same thing, spending time in the first half that could have better served to develop new characters (like Butler’s Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen) that play key roles in the second half. The thing is, though, this isn’t really a criticism; its more like “Dune: Part Two is brilliant, I wish we’d spent more time exploring this or that” rather than “hey, they screwed up”.
Third, Dune: Part One and Two should’ve been stretched out to a trilogy. I think there is enough story here, and writers Denis Villeneuve and Jon Spaights approach it in the right way, that Villeneuve could have stretched it out to a trilogy. There are even logical points to break them up - right after the Atreides massacre in Part One, and right before the final act in Part Two, meaning you can give some of those under-served characters more time.
I can also recommend seeing this film with James, if only for his “they’re calling for a Shai Hal-Uber” joke in the second act. I still want that on a tee.
The other element of Dune: Part Two that succeeds in the same way as Dune: Part One - the score composed by Hans Zimmer.
Zimmer’s contribution to Villeneuve’s Dune is such that I have to start wondering if we’re witnessing a film composer at the peak of his talents, and if those talents make him the GOAT - the Greatest Of All Time.
If you’re in the right crowd (read: movie production nerds) and pose this question, you’ll get a handful of pretty standard answers, usually led off by John Williams. The second most Academy Award nominated individual ever (54 noms; only Walt Disney has more with 59 noms), Williams wrote his first film score in 1958 (Daddy-O) before pairing up with Irwin Allen and writing scores for television shows Lost In Space, Time Tunnel and Land Of The Giants, before receiving his first Oscar nomination for 1967’s Valley Of The Dolls. More recently, Williams is known as the composer for a number of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas movies you may have heard of: all nine Star Wars movies, all five Indiana Jones movies, Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List (famously, Williams told Spielberg "I really think you need a better composer than I am for this film," and Spielberg replied "I know, but they're all dead."), ET The Extra Terrestrial and Jaws, Saving Private Ryan, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind … the list goes on.
Two of those dead composers Spielberg was probably thinking of were Max Steiner (1888-1971) and Bernard Herrmann (1911-1975).
Steiner was a legend even in his own lifetime: a few of his most notable scores include 1933’s King Kong, 1939’s Gone With The Wind, 1942’s Casablanca, and 1952’s The Jazz Singer. Steiner was a musical prodigy, writing his first operetta at age 12, and was one of the first composers working in film, starting by composing music to accompany silent films, then moving on to score ‘talkies’, where he became known as “the father of film music” and pioneered the use of click tracks (scoring to the rhythm of a film), non-diegetic music (accompanying score; most talkies had no music from outside the story world) and leitmotif (specific themes for characters or locations) in film.
Herrmann, meanwhile, took what Steiner had done and expanded it - pioneering the use of electronic instruments (like early synthesisers and theremin) and non-standard orchestra compositions (famously using four alto flutes in the score of Citizen Kane) thus moving film scores away from standard concert hall music. Herrmann’s most famous work probably comes from his decade long collab with Alfred Hitchcock (1955-1966) - including Vertigo, The Man Who Knew Too Much, North By Northwest, Psycho and The Birds - as well as his Oscar nominated score for 1941’s Citizen Kane, 1951’s The Day The Earth Stood Still, 1972’s Sisters, and 1976’s Taxi Driver.
John Barry will get a mention: he wrote the Bond theme and scored around a dozen Bond films. Ennio Morricone wrote scores for spaghetti westerns including 1964’s A Fistful Of Dollars, 1965’s For A Few Dollars More and 1966’s The Good The Bad And The Ugly, all directed by Sergio Leone, and eventually Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight in 2015, an homage to Leone; Morricone’s “Ecstacy Of Gold” (from The Good, The Bad And The Ugly) is used as the opening song at most Metallica concerts, including the two I’ve attended.
There are few more recent composers. James Horner, James Newton Howard, Danny Elfman, Randy Newman. I’m quite partial to Thomas Newman (1994’s The Shawshank Redemption, 1999’s American Beauty) and Michael Giacchino (2004’s The Incredibles, 2019’s Jojo Rabbit), and who doesn’t love Howard Shore’s work on Peter Jackson’s The Lord Of The Rings trilogy.
Hans Zimmer, though. I feel like every time I take notice of the score in a movie, Zimmer is involved. In fact, my love of Zimmer’s work goes back to 1993’s Cool Runnings, the comedy film about the Jamaican bobsled team, possibly the first score I ever owned (I had it on cassette).
It feels like Zimmer can’t be pigeon-holed. A year prior to Cool Runnings, he scored 1992’s The Power Of One and A League Of Their Own; a year later he scored 1994’s The Lion King. An animated film here, a Michael Bay film there, a critically acclaimed Oscar-bait film after that. Its a varied list of films, and his work on each differs in huge ways.
Zimmer has collaborated extensively with Tony and Ridley Scott, Michael Bay, and most recently Christopher Nolan, from 2005’s Batman Begins to 2017’s Dunkirk. He also wrote the music for the Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise, and all of the Kung Fu Panda movies, not to mention David Attenborough’s Planet Earth franchise and (checks notes) 2021’s Boss Baby: Family Business.
My favourite Zimmer score (pre-Dune) is probably 2008’s The Dark Knight, a gorgeously understated piece of work that is downright unsettling at times. I’m also a huge fan of his work on 2010’s Inception, which uses repetition and looping to brilliant effect.
His scores for Dune: Part One and Part Two are on another level though. They’re like their own character, popping up at the right times, accentuating the action perfectly, and giving the film an almost familiar tone; while the Fremen are clearly based on Middle Eastern peoples, and especially Arabic populations, Zimmer’s score is otherworldly but just evocative enough to hammer home the metaphor.
In fact, I’ll go a step further: Hans Zimmer’s attachment as composer only serves to make me more excited about the film I’m going to see.
But what do you think - who is the film composing GOAT? What is your favourite film score of all time?
Five Songs Worth Checking Out!
> Nadine Shah - Topless Mother
The best single track from Nadine Shah’s wonderful new album, which I gushed about last week, has been on high rotate. The video is great too!
> Incubus - Circles (XXIII)
For whatever reason, Incubus - who play Auckland on April 4 (I’ll be there) - have decided to re-record their hit album Morning View as Morning View XXIII. The album comes out October 6, but a couple of tracks have dropped - “Echoes” a few weeks ago, and now “Circles”. A different vibe than the originals, but both are worth a listen regardless.
> Hozier - Be (Acoustic)
The Irish musician is touring here later in the year to tour his newest album Unreal Unearth. In the meantime, an acoustic version of his beautiful song “Be”, from 2019’s Wasteland Baby, has dropped and it is gorgeous.
> DARTZ - Flat Inspection
My favourite song from DARTZ’s second album.
> Scala - Everything In Its Right Place
A wonderful cover of Radiohead’s brilliant song, this version appeared in the trailer for 3 Body Problem, based on Liu Cixin’s great sci-fi novel, and adapted by Game Of Thrones’ David Benioff and DB Weiss.
If you made it this far … thanks! I super appreciate you reading.
I’ll be back later in the week,
Chris
I love love love the soundscapes in Dune, these kind if otherwordly noises floating in and out of every scene. It made the whole thing feel so alien and strange yet beautiful.