The Criterion Odyssey
Spine #986
Screenwriter: Marcel Pagnol
Based on “Blue Boy” by Jean Giono
Director: Marcel Pagnol
Cast: Raimu, Ginette Leclerc, Fernand Charpin
Cinematography: Georges Benoit
Music: Vincent Scotto
Release: September 7, 1938
Country: France
Sometimes I feel like such a buzzkill when I write these. First, I wrote all about how much I disliked the universally beloved “Swing Time” and now here I come for the just-as-beloved “The Baker’s Wife.” I promise I’m not an angry person who screams at the injustice of life and never feels joy… seriously. I love “The Great British Bake Off” and “Queer Eye” just as much as you do, damn it!
The Baker of the title is played by Raimu while the much-younger Wife of the title is played by Ginette Leclerc. Together they have just moved to a pretty small town, occupied by a menagerie of eccentric, bickering characters. One of them is the local Marquis (Fernand Charpin), who orders a shit ton of bread per week and promises to regularly dispatch his hunka hunka burning man meat Shepherd to pick it up. We sense the wife takes a liking to the Shepherd since, in their first moment alone, her hands go directly for his chest hair. Soon enough the two run off together, leaving the Baker devastated. He declares he is too upset to bake any more bread until his wife is returned to him, so the town bands together to reunite them.
All of that sounds pretty damn charming, and for a while it is. I especially enjoyed the first half hour or so, as we are getting to understand the personalities of the denizens of this charming town. Farmers squabble over shadows from branches along their property lines and how they may or may not hinder the growth of their crop. A priest (Robert Vattier) and a schoolteacher (Robert Bassac) argue about whether Joan of Arc really heard voices or just thought she heard voices. There’s talk of a dead cat who fell down a well. This is the kind of storytelling I live for – that quirky slice of life exploration with an ensemble of fun character actors.
Much has been written about the failure of the movie to hold up under our modern lens (though in every instance, the writer will – in the same breath – say that it transcends these problems), and most of the writing has been in relation to the Wife character. She is introduced in a discussion solely about her age and looks with her husband talking her up to his new neighbors. She has none of the character quirks of anyone else in the cast. But, weirdly, this did not bother me because her character isn’t actually supposed to function as a character. No, she’s a macguffin. A mystery wrapped in an enigma. So the lack of depth was fine… at least until the last scene, where it all fell apart. But more on that later.
Where the movie began to come apart at the seams for me was in its wild variance of tone. Now I’m not saying that comedy and drama cannot exist within the same space – it can, and I love films when their makers get this balance right. Near the end of the first act, there’s a long scene where the Shepherd comes to serenade the Baker’s Wife, and the Baker misunderstands the situation, sending his Wife downstairs to give him some bread as a gift. Of course, the second the Shepherd steps inside downstairs, she jumps his bones, all while the clueless Baker stands upstairs, looking out his window and coming up with excuses why it’s taking so long. This is played entirely for laughs, and I should point out that variants of this scene have happened so often since the release that it’s become a comedy clam. That’s all well and good, but I have a hard time laughing at how stupid the Baker is being there considering that he later attempts suicide by hanging while in the throes of grief. These don’t seem like they are from the same universe.
The second act also lags greatly once the Wife disappears. Simple scenes last much longer than they need to, with characters doing something, then explaining what they did, and why they are doing it, over and over again. The focus becomes more scattershot and the pacing all but disappears. There’s no way a movie with this premise should be more than 90 minutes, but “The Baker’s Wife” clocks in at 2-hours-and-fifteen minutes… much too long. Now here I’m more than willing to admit that my criticism here may be unfair. In its original French, the dialogue may crackle and breeze by at a fast clip, but the subtitles may have lost that sparkle and wit in their translation. So it may be the movie’s sin, or perhaps not.
Things improve a bit once the town comes together to hunt down the wife so they can get their bread back. Well, partially to get their bread back and partially to help the Baker. Would it have been stronger and cleaner had it been one or the other? Probably. I also wonder what having the Baker and his Wife being new to the town does for the script. Wouldn’t it have been more advantageous for them to be established in the town for years? He’s beloved, she’s gossiped about, and when the Shepherd starts work, the inevitable happens. It may have strengthened the throughline and theme significantly. But oh well.
Wait, wasn’t I saying things improved? Yeah, back to that. There’s a great scene where the town is assigning roles and places for its citizens to go in search of the Wife. I wonder if Tim Burton used it as a model for his similar scene in “A Nightmare Before Christmas”? Some bits sparkle, like when the men bickering about the tree line end up bonding during their search. Others bomb, like when those four men, now friends, immediately begin to mock and scorn the Baker. The funniest sequence in the film is when the Teacher and the Priest cross a river together in a most unusual manner, snipping and snarking the entire way.
Leading into the final scene, I was relaxed and felt like the movie had gotten back on the rails, but that long finale, where the Baker and his Wife are reunited, destroyed nearly all my goodwill. It’s so badly written and so miscalculated that it was sunk well before the racism and sexism are even brought into consideration. I’m certain that someone will tell me that it’s a masterful piece of filmmaking, but for me it’s a convoluted mess that only underlines that Pagnol had no idea what he was trying to say with the film. The Baker, who has been sweet and kind with rare exception to this point, forgives his Wife on a surface level before calling her “Tart! Slut! Piece of filth!” (sure, it was to a cat, but you know exactly who he was really talking to). And while the Wife character served as an enigma prior to this, her blankness comes across as just that here. Plus the part where he says that all black and Asian people look indistinguishable, which I’m not even gonna touch. All things considered, when the movie finally faded to black, my jaw was dropped… and not in a good way.
My animosity in this final scene is not aimed at Raimu or Leclerc, who both give exceptional performances. With a cigarette constantly in his mouth and his sweaty, sleeveless undershirt on, the Baker probably doesn’t smell that good, but Raimu gets across his humanity throughout… and bonus points for giving a good drunk performance, which is nearly impossible. His mustache also makes him look like an even schlubbier Charlie Chaplin, while the Teacher looks close to Harold Lloyd – all we needed was a Buster Keaton twin for the trifecta. Leclerc does so much with so little, dominating scenes simple with her presence and stare. In fact, the entire cast is quite lovely, top to bottom.
And while I take issue with Pagnol’s screenplay, his work with the cast and gentle direction are exquisite. This isn’t a movie of great visual invention, but it still finds some great moments to shine. Look, for example, at how Pagnol frames the scene where everyone goes inside the bakery to check the Baker’s bread – it’s from behind the Wife looking out, so we see every person entering checking her out.
But while “The Baker’s Wife” has many assets, I struggle with recommending it. Its problems aren’t as forgivable as other films – they cut me to the quick. But I suppose if you can watch it with blinders and take well-timed bathroom breaks throughout, including during the final scene, you can do worse. But why not seek out something where you don’t have to ignore all the problems instead? Just a thought.
Cover: Manuel Fior captures the look and tone of “The Baker’s Wife” beautifully. It’s not the most memorable cover of the year, but it’s certainly fun and will make fans of the film very happy.
I award it four pastis’ out of five.
Essay: Ginette Vincendeau proves once again why she is one of the most dependable recurring essay writers in the Collection with a well-written, thought-provoking essay that does an excellent job summing up the film, its contents and its origins. Highly recommended.
I award it four-and-a-half sexy Shepherds out of five.
Extras: Meh.
-I enjoyed the introduction by Pagnol, recorded for television while he was still alive. He sums up how the movie came into being quite well, and I like his personality.
-Another Pagnol television interview, this one more disposable.
-A short looking at the town where the movie was shot, which I have already forgotten a day after watching it.
-Pagnol expert Brett Bowles has selected scene commentary, which is quite horrendous. He attempts to place the film and sequences in political context, but ends up just describing what is on screen and trying to explain why it is funny. It’s excruciating and I ended up not finishing them.
I award them one-and-a-half overbearing tree shadows out of five.
Up Next: 1984
The Criterion Odyssey/The Film Noir Odyssey
The Criterion Odyssey
The film focuses on Salomon (Marco Hofschneider), a young German Jewish man who manages to survive World War II by lying – he adjusts his ancestry to a more “in vogue” family tree. He finds himself in a Russian orphanage, then as a soldier, then as a member of the Hitler Youth. Yes, you read that right. Salomon manages to near-perfectly create whatever character he needs to in any situation, but there is one mark which he cannot erase – his circumcision.
Salomon’s family is introduced, with his poor sister getting a whole three lines in before she is exploded in a Nazi attack. A gay actor first tries to seduce Salomon but, upon seeing his penis, realizes he is Jewish and wants to be besties instead. He gets a whole two scenes with Salomon before he is shot to death on the front. This gives the viewer whiplash after awhile, and in the climax when Salomon is reunited with his brother… his only surviving family member… the screenwriters have done such a bad job of setting him up that we are numb to the moment. What a shame.
Then again, it’s not like we get to know Salomon all that well either. Yes, dear readers, we have arrived at another one of those paper-thin protagonists whose main attribute seems to be existing. Despite the fact that Salomon narrates his own story, what all do we know about him? Not much, I’m afraid. And there is a huge missed opportunity here – we could have watched a character we genuinely love warp and change before our eyes into someone completely different because of his circumstances. But no, he starts out bland and ends things just as bland… with Hofschneider (who reminds me a lot of Jeremy Irvine) doing just fine in the role. Nothing more, nothing less.
And I haven’t even gotten to the tone, which is… a choice. Holland seems to be trying to balance tragedy, dark comedy and slapstick – sometimes all three within a single scene. I don’t think it works. Look, I’m the first to admit that a film about a Jewish man hidden in Hitler Youth whose penis is the only thing that could implicate him has some humor in it. But is it really funny anymore after the guy has basically mutilated his penis to hide himself? Not really. There are multiple dream sequences so odd that my jaw dropped when watching them… and not in a good way.
It just does not compute for me. It’s like putting a penis joke at the beginning of a Criterion article.
I’ve already mentioned Hofschneider’s just okay-ness in the lead. Would he have done better with different material? Probably. The rest of the ensemble speed by without making much of an impact. This includes Julie Delpy as Salomon’s brief Nazi girlfriend. I thought it was impossible for Delpy to not make much of an impact… and yet here we are. The film looks nice, at least, thanks to Holland’s eye and cinematographer Jacek Petrycki. Zbigniew Preisner’s music is essentially one earworm of a two-note theme played over and over again, which is memorable (then again, two notes are pretty easy to memorize), but a major missed opportunity when you consider the grey area the score could have created for Salomon’s character.
Which is how I feel about the entire movie. There’s all this grey area about Salomon and his circumstances which are not exploited or delved into. Were the screenwriters afraid to dive deeper because the subject was still alive? Or were they too focused on telling his entire wartime story to stop for any nuance? Even after watching the special features, the answer still eludes me. And, frankly, the movie isn’t good enough for me to keep thinking about it.
The Criterion Odyssey
And there has never been another human like Hedwig (played by writer/director John Cameron Mitchell). Born a boy in East Berlin, Hedwig (then Hansel) found a sugar daddy who would be willing to take him to America… if he has a sex change operation. Hansel is initially hesitant, and the surgery goes horribly awry, leaving a one-inch mound of flesh. Now named Hedwig, the moment they get to America, her sugar daddy leaves her, sending her into a spiral of depression until she pulls herself out of it thanks to blonde wigs, make-up and some great eye shadow. Oh, and she’s a brilliant composer who wants to be a rock star.
Hedwig isn’t comfortable in her own skin… and understandably so. She was resistant to her sex change operation, betrayed by every person she loved and feels rightly robbed of a rock star career that should have been hers. Tommy, though the villain, is likewise uneasy – still coming to terms with his sexuality, he feels bad about stealing the music and obviously has deep love for Hedwig, but is willing to trade it for his rock star lifestyle.
Also of note is Hedwig’s current partner Yitzhak. Though born a man, it becomes apparent quickly that he wants to be a woman and – in an inspired bit of casting – is played by a female (Miriam Shor). And damn, it must suck for Yitzhak to be in a relationship with Hedwig, knowing every single day that she’s still in love with someone else and literally stalking him across America.
I wish I could say the same for the rest of the cast, but if I’m being blunt, this is Mitchell’s show and everyone else essentially just gets out of his way. Shor, who is the best thing on the long-running series “Younger,” is fine as Yitzhak but doesn’t offer up as much depth as I expected from such a great performer. Pitt is quite good as the young, impressionable youth Hedwig falls in love with, but doesn’t manage to convince you for a single moment that he has the gravitas of a rock star. This despite the fact that he played a rock star very well later in Gus Van Sant’s “Last Days.” Usually dependable character actors like Andrea Martin get lost in Mitchell’s wake. But then again, it’s almost understandable – everyone is bowing down to Hedwig, and rightfully so.
In case you couldn’t tell from the plot summary above, the film is off kilter… but in a great way. It’s difficult to compare it to anything else because there hasn’t really been another movie like it – before or since. And that’s not a bad thing. Like Hedwig herself, this is a singular creation. But its weirdness is one of its strong suits. Mitchell draws us in with the gloss, but his screenplay always keeps its focus where it resonates most – on Hedwig’s journey to self-actualization. It’s a smart script, full of witty dialogue and great zingers, but is also blunt with its emotion in a way that is quite surprising. It wants to be loved as much as we want love in our own lives.
I can’t believe I’ve gotten this far into the article without mentioning the songs, which is a tribute to how wholly excellent most everything in “Hedwig” is. And the songs, co-written by Mitchell and Stephen Trask, are no exception. Probably purposefully, they don’t allow just one specific type of music for the songs, instead going for a pu pu platter when it comes to genre. There are several standouts – my personal favorites are “The Origin of Love,” “Wig in a Box” and “Angry Inch,” but I could have easily listed four or five others in their place. If you’re watching a good musical, you walk out whistling one of the songs. But if you are watching a great musical, you hum several tunes for the next week. This is a great musical.
Years and years ago, when I was just starting college, I was visiting a friend in New York and met his boyfriend for the very first time. That night, there was a blizzard so we all ended up snowed in at my friend’s apartment. My friend said he had just rented this movie called “Shortbus” – also directed by Mitchell – for us to watch, put it on, then promptly fell fast asleep. This left his boyfriend (who, again, I had met one hour before) and I to watch the film, which begins with a man giving himself a blowjob, goes on to show a threesome where all three men sing the National Anthem while holding one another’s penises like microphones, and ends with an orgy. All the sex is real.
It was awkward. Like, way awkward. Probably less because of the film and more because of the fact that I was 19 when I watched it next to a stranger. Regardless, this experience is why I have avoided watching “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” until this Odyssey, and now I’m kicking myself for missing it for all these years. I know that it has a cult following, but even though it had a Broadway revival, I feel like it never hit the big time in the way other cult hits have. And yet, here it remains, waiting to be discovered by those lucky enough to find it.
The Criterion Odyssey
So when I say that I was just as engaged watching “War and Peace” as I was learning about its insane (insane!) creation, know how much of a compliment it is.
Oh, how I cared. At seven-plus hours (split into four sections), there is obviously a lot here, but “War and Peace” ultimately boils down to three characters’ journeys. First is Pierre (Bondarchuk), who goes from a naïf to the voice of a nation. Second is Natasha (Ludmila Savelyeva), a young woman who feels every emotion deeply… sometimes too deeply. Third is Andrei (Vyacheslav Tikhonov), a prince who is still grieving the death of his wife and walled up to love. We follow them through – wait for it – war and peace as battles are waged, dances are danced and Moscow burns.
These moments give an intimacy to the entire affair that helps ground things. Bondarchuk smartly pays as much attention to creating an emotional reaction from the viewer during a ball as he does while exploding things on the battlefield. And it’s a credit to him that we remember the romance of those moments as well as we do the more epic stuff. That ball sequence… damn I was swept away in the romance of it all. The smoldering looks… the innocent stares… the everything. It takes a lot to get me to swoon, but damn if I wasn’t doing so multiple times here.
It’s an odd thing, really. I suppose I have gotten numb to seeing battles waged onscreen. I’ve seen the CGI wars waged in what seems like every fantasy tentpole since “Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.” I’ve seen the slow-moving masses attacking one another in ‘50s epics like “Spartacus.” And I’ve seen the scaled-down versions that hide their low budgets with style, like “Chimes at Midnight.”
The imagery. The scale. The camerawork. There are shots where we are looking at dissipating smoke and then, when it disappears, we see thousands of soldiers moving in formation. And the angle and composition are so precise that you just know that you aren’t looking at a happy accident that they captured on film. This was calculated… but how many takes did they have to make to have the smoke dissipate just so? And how long did it take to reset the thousands (again, it is thousands) of soldiers for every take? And I’m only focusing on a single shot here out of hundreds of battle ones. Add it all together, and you can see why it took five years to make. Hell, you’re kind of surprised it didn’t take longer.
You also kind of wonder if Bondarchuk was purposely one-upping classic imagery we’ve seen in American epics. A shot of hundreds of dead soldiers on the battlefield reminds you of the soldiers lying outside the hospital in Atlanta shot from “Gone With the Wind.” Scenes of the soldiers marching conjure up memories of the Jews marching from Egypt in “The Ten Commandments.” One has to wonder if he’s really trolling us… and I think because of the similar framing in these instances he must be.
And I should also say that this is not visual trickery. In the first three sections, what you are seeing on screen is what was shot. There are no matte paintings or anything of the like. You do notice a few such moments during the burning of Moscow in the final section… but then again you can’t really blame Bondarchuk for deciding not to burn down the fair city again. Once was enough.
All this and I haven’t even gotten to the performances yet, which are quite good. Savelyeva was a ballet dancer before getting the role, but holds her own. Tikhonov does well at appearing stone cold on the surface with a deep well of emotion concealed. But the standout is Bondarchuk as Pierre, who is excellent every time we see him onscreen. The man was likely mad, casting himself as the lead in his seven-hour epic film that took five years to create and longer to edit… this after co-writing the screenplay which is based on the most famous, beloved novel in Russian literature. But he took it upon himself. Based on the special features, everyone behind the scenes and in front of the camera (except Savelyeva) seems to hate him to one degree or another, which is understandable considering what he put them all through.
The Criterion Odyssey
I feel like the single reason the film exists is Emmanuel Schotte. He is, at once, so terrible as an actor and yet so engaging to watch that his work transcends its content – it becomes a great performance because you genuinely can’t look away from him. You wonder how Schotte is going to react in any given situation, anticipating the next oddity he’ll bring to the screen. Dumont famously works with non-professional actors, and while I had reservations about lead David Douche’s work in “La vie de Jesus,” here I will bow down to Dumont’s decision – there has never been a performance like this onscreen before, and I doubt there ever will be again.
You’ll notice that I’ve been going for a few paragraphs and haven’t even touched on the plot yet, and that sounds about right. You remember Schotte about all else. He stars as Detective Pharaon de Winter, a broken man who lost his girlfriend & child recently and is still in the process of grieving. He’s investigating the rape and murder of a young girl, and we catch him in the midst of what I can only describe as one long nervous breakdown.
That said, the movie isn’t about the murder. Not really. Dumont is far more interested in how it affects Pharaon’s humanity. The writer/director also dives into different approaches to masculinity. The only real relationships that Pharaon has are with his friend Domino (Severine Caneele) and her boyfriend Joseph (Philippe Tullier). Domino is sweet with Pharaon and empathetic to what he is going through, insistent that he’s included as a third part of any outing she and Joseph go on. Joseph is nothing more than a blunt object – he insults everyone around him, doesn’t seem to care much for Domino and in general is a violent fucker. Domino doesn’t seem to like him very much either, and yet there they are.
Despite Schotte’s magnetism, there are a few moments where Dumont pushes things too far. I’m thinking specifically of the opening sequence, which is rightly praised visually… but the idea that Pharaon would fall over and basically be dead for a minute in the mud, eyes fixed and mouth agape long enough for a bug to crawl into it – it’s inhuman. And part of the reason we are drawn so much to Pharaon (and Schotte’s performance) is because he is always human… often the most intense version of human possible.
As written previously, “L’humanite” is almost two-and-a-half hours, and while it certainly feels long, the expanded running time allows Dumont more room to paint around the edges. This is more of a meditation than a movie when you boil down to it. It’s not a mystery and it’s not really a character piece because Pharaon remains an enigma to the very end. Roger Ebert called it a “prayer” in his review, and that is a fascinating description. I’m not sure that I agree with it, but in its best moments, it retains a power of movement and image that feels transcendent.
There is no soft intro to “Run Free” – Zimmer begins the propulsive movement in the first second of the cue. Almost like hoofbeats thundering across the frontier. I adore the main identity introduced here – one he would mature later as a love theme in “Winter’s Tale.” The cue increases exponentially in excitement as it goes along – look at the left turn it takes around 2:25. All in all, this is Zimmer working at the peak of his inspirational powers.
Though there are many highlights from the Robert Langdon trilogy, “Angels & Demons” represents the best score of the three, and the best mash-up of Zimmer’s rock sensibilities and his love for classical music. “160 BPM” has both in spades, pitching an insane choir of what I can only imagine are demon priests against his trademark drums and electronics. You finish the cue sweaty, exhausted… and exhilarated.
There are two kinds of Hans Zimmer fans: those that count “Beyond Rangoon” as one of their very favorite scores by the maestro, and those who have not heard it yet. The John Boorman film is barely remembered, but the music? It has persevered, remaining one of his most highly regarded works. This finale cue represents Zimmer at the height of his creative powers, deftly mixing horror, suspense and the awesomeness of the culture & landscape without allowing one aspect to overwhelm the rest. It’s a nearly impossible task, and yet here we are.
In 1995, “Crimson Tide” changed film music forever… and in 1997 Zimmer created its spiritual sequel in all but name. “The Peacemaker” is all blunt force trauma – deftly carrying over all the style and execution that made “Crimson Tide” groundbreaking. It doesn’t break new ground, but then again it doesn’t have to… there’s something to be said for an action and suspense score that simply embodies those feelings entirely. As will become normal the closer we get to the top, there are many cues here that could have been chosen, so I’m going with “Peacemaker” because it functions as an attractive summation of all the major ideas within the score.
Though I have little love for the “Inferno” score as a whole, and frankly think its mediocrity robbed us of one of the best film score trilogies of all time, I will nevertheless bow down to the excellence of “Life Must Have Its Mysteries.” Within these magical four minutes are the most outstanding rendition of Zimmer’s iconic “Chevaliers de Sangreal” theme. So beautiful is this iteration that it may lift the listener out of his or her chair with joy at the way Zimmer carefully enhances and toys with the original theme. Unmissable stuff.
The fact that “No Time For Caution” – one of the best Zimmer composed cues of all time – was not available on the original release of “Interstellar” is still cause for frustration by many fans. In fact, the entire release, with hidden cues only available if you scour different distributors, remains ludicrous, greedy, and something thankfully not repeated since. As to the music itself? Brilliant. Here is the best rendition of the ideas that Zimmer was exploring with the project – the organ, the slow build, the layers upon layers. It all clicks, it all works, and its brilliance is almost otherworldly (okay, I need to stop now).
This ten-minute monster of a cue serves as the climax to the original “Pirates” trilogy, and its high point. Nearly every major theme and idea Zimmer had conjured gets a nod here, and the rendition of the franchise’s love theme also gets a spectacular display for good measure. But to me, this cue – and the score itself – represents another climax and moment of transition for the maestro itself. With it, Zimmer takes all his sounds, statements and trademarks of his career, many tracing all the way back to “Crimson Tide” and brings them back for one victory lap. Though there are exceptions, after this Zimmer would alter his voice – leaning more toward ‘80s Vangelis (“Dark Phoenix,” “Interstellar”) or experimental (“Inferno,” “Dunkirk”). It’s a beautiful goodbye and glorious reminder of what he can achieve at the height of his action prowess.
As far as cues of relentless action, both within Zimmer’s career and within all film scores, you can’t do much better than “Burn It All.” Produced just as Zimmer was perfecting the sound that would represent his Remote Control Productions, there is not a wasted breath or note in these five minutes. Bold, loud and with distinct, well-used electronic manipulations… it breaks out the children’s choir just when you think it can’t get any more tense. In here, you can feel the sounds that he would mature fully in his other iconic scores like his three “Pirates” films, “Gladiator,” “King Arthur” – even the Robert Langdon trilogy.
It would be remiss of me to not take a moment during this countdown to praise all of the fabulous Co-Composers and collaborators the maestro has worked with throughout his career. Many of the moments on this list, including this and the previous cue, would not have been possible without their input. Here Zimmer teamed up with two of his most important muses: Klaus Badlet and Lisa Gerrard. Indeed, beyond composing, Gerrard’s voice is the one we hear singing throughout the transcendent four minutes. I encourage you to look back down the countdown to see how much of an impact they had – “Pirates,” “The Bible,” “Mission: Impossible 2” “Invincible”… Zimmer knows how to surround himself with the best and brightest.
If you asked me what single cue made the most impact in Zimmer’s career, my answer would be “Journey to the Line.” Not only is it one of his most brilliant single works, but it has been used endlessly (endlessly!) in temp tracking and trailers to this day. Hell, Zimmer himself would create variations on the cue in his famous “Time” from “Inception” and less successfully in “Solomon” from “12 Years a Slave.” It would be rude of me to call out other composers for using the music because it is more likely the fault of the directors for insisting on its inclusion, but a quick Google search would show you if you are curious.
For these top three scores, nearly any cue from them could have easily found its way onto this Top 100 list, so figuring out which one best represented the work has been… uh… weirdly stressful. At least I got to cheat a little bit with “The Lion King” because I included “Stampede” from the remake a little further down the ranking. It’s kind of shocking that the maestro has only won one Oscar – for this score – but at least it’s for one of the greatest works of his career and one of the best scores for an animated feature period.
And here we are. At the score that changed everything. There was adventure music before “Crimson Tide,” and then there was adventure music after “Crimson Tide.” Not only did it win a Grammy Award, but it was instantaneously a smash hit among score fans and everyone who mattered in Hollywood. Testosterone is the name of the game, and the music has the impact of a sledgehammer to the chest. It’s got everything that would become a hallmark of Zimmer’s methods – deep male choir, electronic enhancements of percussion and those strings… oh those strings. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer would love it so much that he would begin a long-lasting relationship with Zimmer, using him or his Remote Control studios for blockbuster after blockbuster, often booting the original composer after he or she failed to properly emulate the maestro’s sound.
While my head was telling me that “Crimson Tide” was the obvious number one pick, my heart kept telling me otherwise. In the end, I decided to follow the latter. If you’ve never heard “Chariot Race” before, that’s because you have the regular edition – the cue only exists on a special “Collector’s Edition” that was available at Wal Mart and is mostly filled with songs. But it is essential Zimmer and, for me, the best cue of his entire career. In other words, you need to track it down pronto if you have never heard it before.
What better way to showcase a cultural meshing of American and Mexican families than by meshing together strings and guitar? One of the very best of Zimmer’s lighter scores, the maestro plays the two off one another in various cues throughout, but the highlight has got to be “Bus Stop,” which deftly transitions from comedy to drama to emotion and back again.
Though as a whole, “The Dark Knight Rises” is a step down in quality from “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight,” both of which were co-composed by James Newton Howard, Zimmer pulls out all the stops for “Rise,” which serves as a climax to his work across the entire franchise. It manages to address both the bombast and explosive nature of his sound and the quieter, softer moments.
As I wrote in earlier installments of this countdown, mixing Zimmer and Africa will inevitably yield excellent results, and his work on “Tears of the Sun” is no exception. Reunited with several fantastic talents, including his “Lion King” collaborator Lebo M and “Gladiator’s” Lisa Gerrard, the entire score is an embarrassment of riches, never more so than in this final cue, which is centered around a beautiful song and melody guaranteed to give you goosebumps.
Okay, before your head explodes, calm down. I love the “Chevaliers de Sangreal” theme just as much as you do, and I agree that it is one of the maestro’s most transcendent pieces. So why is it all the way down here at 41? Because I like this rendition, despite it being the first iteration, much less than other versions of it elsewhere in the Robert Langdon trilogy. So stay tuned…
Zimmer completely re-envisioned Baker Street’s most famous resident here, making him sound off-kilter, quirky and just plain fun – and in the process uses every variant on violin playing possible. This approach would reverberate into dozens of other period scores for film and television shows that wanted to feel modern. Do I still prefer something like Bruce Broughton’s masterpiece “Young Sherlock Holmes” for the character? Yes. But Zimmer’s vision is nonetheless admirable.
Zimmer and his co-composers had little interest in providing a routine dramatic score for this historical drama. Here we’ve got soul music at its very best that is guaranteed to get your toes tapping. It elevated the film itself and every time this cue comes on, I can’t help but listen on repeat.
Perhaps Disney’s most popular live action character of all time, Jack Sparrow’s identity is fully explored here. He’s a perfect match for Zimmer’s more eccentric side, and the cue is playful and memorable throughout. Though there would be better individual cues within the franchise, this theme stands up above theme all, even the main “Pirates” theme from the first film.
With apologies to Danny Elfman, James Horner and Michael Giacchino – Zimmer’s main Spider-Man theme remains my favorite for the character (I know I’m in the minority here). “Cold War” is a mash-up of that, the Electro theme (which is much more famous and well-regarded) and some Goblin content. The mixing is a smidge off in places, but this is such a cool mash-up of great themes that you can’t help but love it.
Many people, myself included, consider George Fenton’s scores for the original “Planet Earth” and “Blue Planet” to be the best documentary scores ever created. So obviously Zimmer had quite a mountain to climb if he was to come anywhere close to matching that quality. And while I don’t think he quite managed it, his sequel scores are – on their own – absolutely beautiful. This suite is, for me, the highlight of both scores, and one I return to often. That last minute… wow. Just wow.
Wait, what?! “Time” is all the way at 25?! There must be some mistake! Argle bargle! Yes, I love “Time” too, and I recognize how it has entered the zeitgeist in a way few other pieces of film music have. Hello, even 2Cellos has covered it! But the reason it’s stuck at 25 is simple – it in many ways mirrors/pays homage to/rips off an earlier Zimmer cue. A better one. One you’ll read about tomorrow in my top 25…
This wonderful throwback to the early ‘90s Zimmer sound is underlined by a throbbing beat that almost reflects a tire spinning on the road. The cue, while it does certainly rock, is surprisingly tender for a movie called “Rush,” and works like gangbusters in the film itself.
Lesser known than his Jack Sparrow stuff, Zimmer worked on this other Disney franchise entry with pirates, and smartly does not get lost in the parody aspects so many other Muppet scores have. “Honest, Brave & True” is a beautiful, emotional cue, almost James Horner-esque in places, that climaxes at 3:20 – any kid who grew up with the Muppets remembers this specific musical moment and the goosebumps it causes.
Zimmer’s music only appears in the European version of “K2,” and this is one of those instances where the cue is over 27 minutes (!!!) long and a compilation of multiple moods, scenes and sequences. The quality is quite good throughout, though sound is an issue on album, and several sequences feel like what would happen if Zimmer scored a James Bond movie.
Zimmer had his work cut out for him creating a new theme and identity for Superman – John Williams’ work on the character may well be the most recognizable, beloved such theme in film history next to the one for James Bond. And though he didn’t eclipse Williams, what we got was still damn good – the slow build here to the explosive main theme is sublime.
Were it not for the recording issues, “Faith” would have probably cracked my top 30. Alas, something weird happened in the mixing (or the production couldn’t afford the full orchestra it needed), resulting in a cheap-sounding listen that nearly destroys the beauty and power of the composition. This slow-burn cue is begging for a re-recording with a gigantic orchestra that can capture its excellence.
This odd, neo-noir thriller stalker mash-up gets a score it doesn’t deserve. Zimmer creates great tension throughout, grand romance… and when that saxophone plays over the piano? It’s pretty damn transcendent.
One of the biggest, most pleasant surprises of Zimmer’s output in the ‘10s has been his music for nature documentaries. Between “Blue Planet II” and “Planet Earth II,” there is barely a moment that doesn’t hit the mark. “Surfing Dolphins” is the high point of the album, a playful, triumphant explosion of notes and choir that can’t help but inspire.
I have very mixed feelings about this cue, and “The Dark Knight” soundtrack in general. I intellectually appreciate what Zimmer was trying to do with his Joker theme… but it doesn’t work for me. For a long while I had “Harvey Two-Face” selected, because that is my favorite cue. And yet, I would be remiss if didn’t admit that, while I didn’t care for the Joker theme, I am in the minority – its impact among Zimmer fans and on film music in general is inarguable. It merits a place on the list if only for that.
Choosing Zimmer to score “The Simpsons Movie” seemed at first to be an odd choice, especially considering that the franchise’s sound is so engrained with the original theme by Danny Elfman or the series compositions by Alf Clausen. But Zimmer rose to the occasion, providing a funny, engaging, and smart score supporting the concept. This cue, a parody version of the original “Spider-Man” television theme (except… y’know… with a pig), throws in a male and female choir to make the cue as epic – and funny – as possible.
It’s difficult to know exactly where to rank a cue like “Supermarine.” Listened to it on its own, it is overbearing, loud and blunt… almost impossible to get through on album. Worse, in terms of content, the cue is almost completely a regurgitation of previous Zimmer mannerisms, then adds nothing to the table. All that said, I must admit that it works incredibly well in the film itself, which is the main purpose of a score. So I’m putting the cue at 99, throwing up my hands and moving on.
“Chappie” provided an opportunity for Zimmer to compose his first all-synthetic score in years, and it definitely brought out his playful side. This is never more clear than in his ode to all things arcade – “Illest Gangsta on the Block,” which is a grand bit of fun… if you listen to it in the right mood.
This little-remembered drama has a stacked creative team – directed by Mike Nichols, written by J.J. Abrams and starring Harrison Ford & Annette Bening. After disastrous sneak previews, master composer Georges Delerue had his very-good score removed from the film and replaced by one created by Zimmer. The result is light, emotional and airy, never more so than in the piano-driven “Walking, Talking Man.”
Though Zimmer was not the composer for the series itself (that would be Rupert Gregson Williams in season one and him again with Lorne Balfe in season two), he places his stamp on the series with this regal main title theme, which is fitting considering the content.
A beautiful slow-burn of a track, “Leave No Man Behind” functions as a tribute to our soldiers. Simple in its composition, it is also a surprisingly emotional listen that grounds an otherwise schizophrenic album experience.
This tense-as-hell ten-minute cue underlines that Zimmer should really be scoring more thrillers. A beautiful slow burn with pianos and violins (yes, those are the expected instruments, but they are beautifully used), it quickly gets under your skin and puts you on edge… but in a good way.
The sound quality of this otherwise awesome cue leaves much (much!) to be desired. The title says it all, but really, does that have to be a bad thing? The most notable thing in the cue happens at 2 minutes in – a beautiful section that points the way towards one of the most iconic themes ever produced at Remote Control.