![]() Nolan’s itinerary demands that we orbit, slingshot, and somehow direct ourselves in the directionlessness of outer space Zimmer provides Glassian swirlings of his own, providing an aural foothold in the visual confusion. Then Nolan needs us to gather the basics of relativistic time dilation in a few minutes-so Zimmer punctuates rhythms that count the seconds, reminding us that for our heroes each one is immeasurably precious. And so Zimmer offers melodies that are angular and disjunct, with steps and leaps that you could trace on a grid. Nolan’s script requires that we first get a real feel for our typical, three-dimensional experience of the world. But it certainly helps to articulate a sense of scale, holding our hand as we try to grasp the unfathomable distances over which gravity works, and the vastness and vexing slipperiness of cosmic time.Īnd the “reaching theme” is not the only aide of this sort. Whether this compositional technique “coalesces the idea of gravity and time” is debatable. Which key is best for a black hole called Gargantua? Zimmer’s real challenge begins once the Endurance takes off, when he must score the most alien of phenomena: wormholes, time dilation, higher dimensions, the warping and twisting of space itself. Zimmer and Nolan have told this story multiple times, and it’s very cute-but it doesn’t tell us much about the dexterity required to capture musically both that basic familial love and cosmological experiences that barely flicker at the edge of our understanding. Only after the composer presented Nolan with his intimate “love letter” of a tune did the director reveal that this material-or, at least, musical extrapolations based on it-would have to get a crew of astronauts to another galaxy and back. The director asked Zimmer to write a cozy bit of music in response to a brief fable about a father and child, no churning accretion discs in sight. (When I asked Zimmer how much influence the movie’s science had on his music, he was clear: “You have no idea.”) Zimmer is sometimes dinged for repeating himself, but for Insterstellar he has done something fresh and fascinating: He’s created a beautiful score that also functions as program music for the universe.īefore Zimmer could apply string theory to his string section, he had to understand what this new movie project was all about-and Nolan, true to form, initially presented him with a cryptic challenge. Zimmer had to find musical ways of reinforcing Nolan’s astrophysics textbook of a script, and while it may be difficult to catch all the clever work on the first, overwhelming listen, it’s definitely there. In fact, in order to do its supporting job as a score for a film that depends on so many difficult concepts, it had to be smart: Emotional heft alone won’t cut it when your camera is headed for a singularity. Because it is also a piece of music that, like the movie for which it was written, is rich in ideas. But while Zimmer’s score for Interstellar measures highly decibel-wise, it’s a shame that people are focusing on that rather boring attribute. ![]() ![]() Mission, I think we can all agree, accomplished. ![]()
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