Hans Zimmer: the Hollywood rebel (Netflix) is a documentary produced by the BBC that originally appeared in 2022. Narrated by Lolly Adefope, also known as the noble Katherine “Kitty” Higham, in the original British version of ghosts – and with appearances by filmmakers such as Christopher Nolan, Steve McQueen, Ron Howard, Stephen Frears, Barry Levinson and Gore Verbinski, Hollywood Rebel outlines the arc of Hans Zimmer’s career from keyboardist of the ’70s and ’80s to highly sought-after, Academy Award-winning composer for major Hollywood films. “It’s about taking the big picture,” Zimmer says of his process in the documentary. “It’s about discovering what moves someone. “It’s about fun.”
HANS ZIMMER: THE HOLLYWOOD REBEL: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The essence: There are many examples from his almost 40 years composing for films. But listen to Hans Zimmer’s music for Denis Villeneuve’s 2021 film Dune, and it’s hard not to bite the grit of Arrakis between your teeth, or get carried away into something strange and spiritual by the foreboding tone of the music. Zimmer won an Oscar for her work in Dune, a score that draws on his respected bag of tricks and experiments, and Villeneuve says it demonstrates the composer’s genius. He “has the incredible ability to reinvent himself without losing his identity.” Currently working at Remote Control Productions, his spacious studio complex in Santa Monica, Zimmer is the kind of high-demand songwriter who turns down a top-tier project. work on another. Christopher Nolan had to find someone else to score Principlebecause Zimmer had already booked Dune.
Perhaps it didn’t seem like music would last as a career, back in post-war Germany in the 1950s, when a rebellious young Hans Zimmer lasted exactly two professional piano lessons. But once he moved to England with his mother, studied at a progressive music school, and discovered the first generation of keyboards and synthesizers in the late ’70s, Zimmer’s musical career was underway. And he wasn’t going to be in traditional rock bands. “You could suddenly have access to computers, so the idea of doing things on stage was much less exciting than the idea of ’How far could I take this technology?'” Zimmer says in Hollywood Rebel. The manipulation and application of sound enabled by synthesizers, sequencing and sampling would become a pillar of his film music.
rain man in 1988, true romance in 1993, and the Oscar-winning soundtrack for The Lion King in 1994: once Zimmer broke through, he never looked back, and Hollywood Rebel includes highlights from the composer’s 2022 European concert tour, where he performed many of his most moving songs on stage with a big band. The documentary also includes testimonials from Nolan, Villeneueve and other notable directors about key aspects of their collaborations. pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski says Zimmer doesn’t read scripts; instead, it’s all vibes, but it’s most revealing when the documentary delves into the places where the technical meets the philosophical. Can the various antics and motivations that drive Captain Jack Sparrow be depicted and accentuated with just a few specific musical notes? Hans Zimmer says yes. And then he shows you how.
What movies will it remind you of? 2017 Music: a musical film documentary It also delves into the process of combining music and image to tell a story and includes interviews with major composers such as Zimmer, Quincy Jones, John Williams, Rachel Portman and Trent Reznor. And if you want to see Zimmer in his element, check out the 2017 documentary live in prague.
Performance worth seeing: It’s the studio, man. Even in this documentary, Hans Zimmer’s personal studio is presented as an inner sanctuary where his creativity really occurs. All the filmmakers interviewed describe being inside it as a wild experience. And once he takes a look at the Doepfer A-100 modular analog synthesizer that Zimmer had literally built into his walls, he’ll wish he could visit it too. “He’s kind of like a samurai, you know?” says filmmaker Steve McQueen, who worked with Zimmer on 12 years of slavery. “This room is like an ancient Buddhist temple, or something, what’s going on with the keyboard and all that? And you just sit on a nice couch and feel it, talk about it and he’s on the keys and feels it. “He’s having a conversation with the keys while you’re talking about it.”
Memorable dialogue: Zimmer’s music for Dune It earned him his second Academy Award for Best Original Score. But for the composer, the work is another example of his willingness to disrupt conventional thinking. “I don’t think anyone has ever won an Oscar for music that is blatantly bagpipes, heavy metal guitars and a woman screaming at you.”
Sex and skin: None.
Our opinion: “It was everything music school tells you you can’t do.” It is with quotes from the man himself that Hans Zimmer: the Hollywood rebel lives up to its title. There is a curiosity that has clearly been a driving force for the composer since he began, and a willingness to use technology to go wherever that sense takes him. Zimmer, sitting in front of a bank of huge monitors connected to computers and keyboards, begins playing parts of his 1998 music. The thin red line. “They’re all minors and it’s asymmetrical,” he says of his score. “Music school will teach you that you should not do things in parallel. They are not chords. A chord needs three notes. These are two notes, always. And it just meanders, while this note always remains, so you get these really interesting confrontations, a new language in cinema.” Nerd moments like this are the best part of Hollywood Rebel, because it’s the same as a director analyzing shot selection, or even a musician using a soundboard to isolate the sounds of a recording. When a film’s music is being produced, sometimes we are not aware of its representative parts. But with access to the mind and hands of the composer, the meaning expressed in the music becomes as integral to a film as the actors’ performances.
Our call: TRANSMIT IT. Hans Zimmer: the Hollywood rebel It’s especially for fans of movie soundtracks: it offers access to the mind and mechanics of a major composer. But moviegoers also have reason to listen and watch, as Zimmer’s work has been intertwined with so many memorable Hollywood moments.
Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is a freelance writer and editor living in Chicago. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.TO
