"Inception" soundtrack - love it!

Right now, I can't stop listening to the "Inception" soundtrack. Clever how the composer uses 3 simultaneous musical motives of varying rhythmic speeds to suggest the relative speed of time in the 3 dream layers (normal, slower + slowest - at least that's my theory!). Love the film, by the way. Seen it twice so far, going for a 3rd next week.

I realised today what the final track (12 - Time) reminded me of... a favourite moment from the wonderful "The Thin Red Line" (T. Malick), a sequence which I have used for years in Film Studies A-Level lessons as an tremendous example of the use of sound (sound effects, soundtrack music, voice-over...). First up, they are in the same key, secondly there's the same rate of chord change (with similar-ish chords), thirdly they are roughly the same speed, fourthly they both make use of a 'pulse' motif, fifthly some motivic + orchestration similarities, and sixthly and finally they are both slow burn minimalist constructions based on repetition of the same basic 4-chord pattern, starting quiet with a thin texture, building up to a harrrrrumphing climax, then falling back down again...

But hey, what I didn't tell you is that they are by the same composer, Hans Zimmer! So we'll let him off. I don't mind someone plagiarising himself. Even the greatest composers do that.

Here, listen to the 2 tracks and make your own mind up.





Comments

Anonymous said…
Bluffant! Il faut avoir une sacré culture et une très bonne oreille musicale!

Fr. Alain

Popular posts from this blog

District 9 - a sci-fi anti-apartheid allegory and the first handheld camera masterpiece?

God You don't need me, but somehow You want me - Tenth Avenue North, “Control”

Transcendent God