I played this CD today and it's really rather good. Big, brooding Russian choir and orchestra and bits that sound like Gladiator and Red October. His main theme is very good too. As I never play Crimson Tide cos the CD is just one hour long blocky mess and Hunt For Red October is only sporadically enjoyable to me, I think this might be my favourite score about submarines with Russian connections.
I don't have a problem with the music, par se. It's one of Zimmers' stronger efforts. But it's an inpenetrable block of music to separate or get through, at least for me. It's just a mess of an album.
Hmmm. I love the selection and presentation myself -- and its beautiful culmination in "Roll Tide". Great ebb and flow throughout (no pun intended). For me, it's the ultimate submarine score. Yes, even besting DAS BOOT.
When we were shooting it I asked Kathryn Bigelow who she was gonna hire to score it and she told me David Hirschfelder who she had just worked with on “The Weight of Water” and that he would be writing Russian folk music that she wanted us to sing or hum at some point but that never came to be. The next time I mentioned it she told me Zimmer was on-board. Obviously they had temp-tracked it with Gladiator and Zimmer passed it off to Badelt. It always bugged me how much it obviously sounds like gladiator.
The movie also went through tons and tons of rewrites (we shot an alternate ending which still hasn’t been released) and just as many writers. When we started, Ford had grown a big beard for the part but the studio shot it down. There was also lots of back-and-forth about our accents and if they should be outright Russian or just “European”
There were a lot of deleted scenes and even whole characters.
I realized on that set that people don’t always appreciate movie nerds like us. I was sitting around outside with a bunch of cast and crew including the producer - Edward S. Feldman. He was like a Hollywood dinosaur who had worked with practically everyone and had done some really fine movies. He was telling some cool stories, the only one I remember now is how he claimed to have picked the sunglasses that the girl wears in Lolita. I mentioned that I liked Goldsmith and he mentioned Forever Young which he had produced. He said something to the effect of: “Goldsmith?? I think that guy’s got a room full of writers somewhere helping him out!” which I though was ironic since he was all gung-ho about hiring Zimmer. He brought up The Golden Child at one point and I asked about the rumors that John Carpenter was offered the chance to direct. His mood instantly changed and he looked at me and said “Carpenter was never involved in that picture. You’re one of those kids who knows a lot about movies, aren’t ya? You people give me the creeps.”
I kinda avoided him a bit after that. One thing I clearly remember was him assuring everyone that this movie would be a huge hit - “No submarine movie has ever flopped. They always make their money back”
Thanks for info sharing, Mutant. Interesting stuff. I'm always amazed how indifferent or oblivious actors and such like are to the minutiae of filmmaking, when I see them interviewed on the likes of Graham Norton. They're so obviously not film fans in general. I was amazed when Jamie 'Billy Elliott' Bell said, after a clip from Tintin had been shown on Graham Norton, something like 'the John Williams music in that clip is amazing'. It was so unusual to hear an actor mention something like that. Obviously it's a bit different if they move onto producing or directing. Fascinating hearing Feldman describe Goldsmith in the manner we know Zimmer works in!!
The movie also went through tons and tons of rewrites (we shot an alternate ending which still hasn’t been released) and just as many writers. When we started, Ford had grown a big beard for the part but the studio shot it down. There was also lots of back-and-forth about our accents and if they should be outright Russian or just “European”
Ha, ha. Yes, because Italian sounds so much like French, which sounds so much like Finnish, which sounds so much like Serbian.
