To preview or purchase The Dark Knight trilogy movies or mp3s, got to Amazon
Photo Credit: http://eyemdope.com/?tag=the-dark-knight-trilogy
I remember watching Batman Begins and wondering if I was watching a superhero flick or a military/espionage thriller. However minimalist at times, there was always a sense of a something being imminently revealed. In the same way the viewer could feel like every frame of the film was somehow crucial, Zimmer and Howard audibly elicit a sense of awe and hope that comes as a result of the Caped Crusader's ethical austerity. At once the score dances between a mission driven momentum and some dark primal honor.
The hype of theatrical performances aside (even though to an extent they are warranted), The Dark Knight's score added another element to this consistently dark and driven soundtrack in much the same way the Joker character introduced anarchy to Gotham City, and to Batman's soul. The opening shot of the movie provides the clearest example of what the composers imposed, the gradual sound of what to me sounded like a violin plugged into an amplifier with reverb on it. Now, like I've stated in previous posts, I have no musical training beyond middle school general music, so I may be totally wrong on what this effect is, but nevertheless, it's eerie in the same way Ledger's portrayal is. In fact, there was a sort of grunge/punk feel to much of the crazy clown's image and some of the music building dead-ended in electric guitar riffs. I found this to be crude at first, but once I embraced the film's psychological texture, I began to appreciate it.
The Dark Knight Rises is definitely the biggest and boldest of the three soundtracks and in my opinion the best of them. Zimmer and Howard continue their tradition of keeping a string driven, serious sounding score, lacking the big brass that we heard in Silvestri's work for The Avengers, which still impressive in its own right. But, at times, they got quite creative with the strings. In tracks like "The Fire Rises" we hear something new and even more chaotic than oddly timed guitar riffs. We hear the alternating strings unleash havoc like that of Bane; a sense that time is ticking out for us helplessly. With "Gotham's Reckoning" and its recurring chanting and bells throughout other tracks, I detect a possible theme for the villain, which makes me very happy. I really love different themes for different characters in movies, because they lend a sense of depth and culture. Still with tracks like "Why Do We Fall?" and "Rise" we're grounded in the emotion that is at the heart of any good heroic tale.
Zimmer has never disappointed me and neither has Howard. From what I know of Howard's work, primarily album's like the OST for Falling Down, he was likely a big influence on the crime thriller sounding realism behind The Dark Knight Trilogy. Not that Hans Zimmer is any stranger to this, but I do feel that he's more diverse of composer, addressing a wide array of genres. The fusion of these two provides this series with an musical ambiance that's just realistic enough to be believable, but epic enough to be the stuff of comic books.
