(Unorganized Bloated Ponderings)
Musical elitism is not a particularly attractive trait, yet
I must admit in my early days as a film score fan, I exhibited it to some
degree (notwithstanding the fact that I rarely vocalized my thoughts on the
subject in any form, spoken, written, or otherwise). Any film music that had
any hint of rock or pop elements I dismissed as lowest common denominator pap. My
gradual appreciation of these elements, if done effectively, came slowly (Danny
Elfman’s “Costume Montage” from Spider-Man was an early favorite).
Despite my increasing admiration for more musical styles,
the rich, melodic orchestral idiom popularized by John Williams remains my
decided favorite. Lush, memorable melodies bolstered by sweeping, complex
counterpoint and clever harmonies—this is the kind of music that most touches,
excites, and even enlightens me. Unfortunately, this style of scoring has
fallen out of favor with many filmmakers, both talented and untalented. There
are still composers who write great melodies and who have impeccable ears for
orchestral color and thematic development—Giacchino, Elfman, Silvestri, and (of
course) Williams are a few. But good melodies seem to be harder to find these
days.
I will admit that when I heard the theme to Iron Man 3, by
Brian Tyler, I loved it. The word ”epic” is criminally overused these days, but
the theme does impart a sense of large-scale glory that I find invigorating.
When one looks closer, however, one realizes that the theme isn’t too different
from some of the others Tyler has written previously. Not only that, but it’s
rather simple, with basic harmonies and little counterpoint and complexity.
This puts the theme in “power anthem” territory.
Which brings us, as it always seems to these days, to Hans
Zimmer. Zimmer’s music is far from complex, yet lots of people find it
effective—probably more because of its similarity to rock and pop music than
anything else. Is Tyler’s Iron Man 3 theme, then, little more than a modified
Zimmer melody? I’m not a musicologist or composer, so I can’t tell whether
there are compositional differences between Tyler’s theme and the common,
garden-variety Zimmer anthem. What I do know is that I enjoy it, just like I
enjoy many of Zimmer’s early (up to 1998) scores.
While Tyler is not quite one up on my list of the top 10
film composers working today, I still prefer him to Zimmer post-1998. This
might be blasphemous, since so much of Tyler’s current style owes a debt to
Zimmer. But I do think Tyler has adapted that power anthem style well, and
Zimmer’s last really good power anthem was in The Peacemaker in 1997.
In fact, Tyler’s simplified style of writing these days
(exemplified by scores such as Battle: Los Angeles, Call of Duty: Modern
Warfare 3, The Expendables, and Transformers: Prime) resembles a path Zimmer
might have taken after 1998 and his wondrous scores to The Prince of Egypt and
The Thin Red Line. And I must say I may have been happier with his music had he
taken a similar direction—Tyler’s more modern music does have moments of
complexity not found in most Zimmer scores, but Zimmer in fact ended up going
the opposite direction. He began focusing more on creating “new” sounds, though
in honesty I don’t find them all that new or refreshing, and worse, the actual
music began to suffer as a byproduct. I understand Zimmer’s decision to move on
from his older style, but it’s the case of a film composer merely
doing something different (not better) in lieu of actual growth and
development; James Horner is another example. All this is my opinion, of
course. And I have churned up more words regarding Zimmer than most other
composers, so that’s something.
Anyway, the fact that I liked Tyler’s theme so much when it
is so simple made me wonder if it was just because there are so few good
melodies in film music today. That may be part of the story, but there are
plenty of other recent scores with melodies I’ve liked: John Carter, War Horse,
Super 8, Captain America, Alice in Wonderland, How to Train Your Dragon,
Kick-Ass, Dream House, Harry Gregson-Williams’s melody for Prometheus, etc. And
it’s not just the case of me going nuts over any old melody, as I’ve been underwhelmed
by tunes from scores like Jack the Giant Slayer, Mars Needs Moms, The Hobbit:
An Unexpected Journey, The Croods, and The Amazing Spider-Man (though with the
exception of the last, I did enjoy these scores—at least they had melodies!)
But it’s clear that relatively speaking, these melodic scores are sparse,
outnumbered by countless drone scores now in vogue—including the score for the
first Iron Man!
A bit of a tangent: It’s a microcosm within a microcosm, but
the scores for the Iron Man films have certainly gotten better. I am not
slamming John Debney’s great score to Iron Man 2 at all, but hearing that
wonderful melody he wrote in the track “I Am Iron Man” get used only once, and
almost buried by sound effects (when Iron Man suits up in the Monaco race
scene) was painful. And the full “I Am Iron Man” version itself never appeared
in the film—not even in the end credits! (Shades of Alan Silvestri’s score for
GI Joe: Rise of Cobra). I haven’t seen Iron Man 3 as of this posting, so I have
yet to hear whether the score is audible in the film. But at least the
filmmakers allowed Tyler to actually use and develop his theme as heard on the
album. And the less said about the first film’s score, the better.
Tyler has shown with his score to LEGO Universe that he can
still write in that robust, adventurous style that he established in early
scores like Children of Dune, Darkness Falls, Alien vs. Predator: Requiem, and
Eagle Eye. Perhaps it is Tyler’s background with writing this kind of music
that has allowed him to imbue Iron Man 3 with unidentifiable or subtle musical
elements that allow the score to connect with me more than the average MV/RC
score. Or I could be typing out of my posterior. If someone had told me that
Zimmer wrote the score to Iron Man 3, I might have believed it. But more
importantly, I still would have liked it, and hope that this would represent a
style that Zimmer would continue to explore (and develop) in future scores.
Ultimately, it’s all about what’s effective to each
listener. But this “essay” is an attempt for me to find out why I like
something, especially when it doesn’t fit into the more lush, complex (but
still accessible) style that I like and is more similar to the more simplistic
music that I find, for the most part, less appealing. Maybe my musical elitism
(if I ever had it) is being chipped away. Or maybe not; I still find the scores
to Christopher Nolan’s Batman films terribly pedestrian (aside from some tender
moments in the first two scores and, to a lesser extent, the Joker “theme”). And
I can’t really be accused of being a musical elitist when I‘m a fan of film
music, the “bastard child” of classical music (the little classical music I
own, mostly Mahler and Beethoven, I love, and I do realize I need to hear more).
In any case, I clearly haven’t been successful, and maybe that’s how it should
be. Over-analyzing something you like can kill your appreciation for it, but
that doesn’t preclude analysis period. However, it doesn’t take much to discern
that this piece is far from analysis, and more like scatterbrained
observations. One thing is certain, however: Despite listening to more than two
dozen of Tyler’s scores, Iron Man 3 will be the first Tyler-scored film I’ll
see (and the first I’ve wanted to see.)
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