“The very fabric of time”: Hans Zimmer on his most technically innovative score
Of all the definitions of an industry veteran, few names capture the title as thoroughly as Hans Zimmer. Having composed or contributed to the scores of over 100 films, Zimmer’s impact on the film industry is truly extraordinary, with many of his compositions so well-known that his reputation precedes him. However, even someone as proficient as Zimmer encounters challenges from time to time.
Across all creative industries, there are pockets of visionaries who are terrified of slip-ups. However, when you’ve accrued credits as exhaustive and nuanced as Zimmer’s, it’s expected that some will be less revered than others. The Fan, for instance, seems to haunt him to this day, but not because it’s bad. In fact, the movie failed even to land among audiences, making the score seem like a failed attempt at experimentalism.
However, Zimmer knows that that’s a part of the deal when you take on passion projects, and it’s not that he didn’t do a good score. Rather, it had more to do with the film’s lack of resonance and struggle to place it among other, more popular tracks in his setlists. Still, if for nothing else, it taught him about his desire to switch things up every now and then and test the waters: “I don’t think an audience is interested in playing it safe,” he told Vulture, “They want to have an experience. They want to be right at the edge of disaster. And that’s where I live.”
Considering his involvement in some of the most impactful contemporary epics, from Pirates of the Caribbean to the more recent Dune – Part Two, the “failures” seem neither here nor there, and for Zimmer, the excitement of the challenge far outweighs the fear of doing something wrong. While it would be easy to suggest which presented the biggest hurdle, the one Zimmer actually regards the most technically innovative was his work for Inception.
In his words, this only ignited his passion further, especially after he realised he was doing the one thing no one in his arena had done before, save for some innovators in horror movies—using a pipe organ. “Inception because I managed to go and fuck with the very fabric of time,” he said during the same Vulture interview. “There’s a point where three things are going on.”
He continued: “It’s like trains crossing, all at different tempos, but then they all meet and they’re all harmonising with one another and then float away into their own little worlds again. Interstellar is also interesting because we used a pipe organ. Nobody other than a horror film has used a pipe organ.”
In many ways, this makes complete sense. While it’s easy to argue that most—if not all—of Zimmer’s compositions are technically innovative in one way or another, opting to place Inception above the rest seems oddly fitting, not just considering the convoluted nature of the film’s storyline. It also required him to truly think outside of the box, utilising instruments like pipe organs to create tension in new ways that hadn’t been done before.
Most regard compositions for big blockbusters as centred around tension, but few had thought to merge elements of the horror genre to reach new heights, creating a more immersive sound that blurred the lines between the two. While the movie wasn’t traditionally scary, it incorporated many psychologically thrilling facets that allowed Zimmer to shine beyond his usual style.
