Zimmer CD Reviews: Prince of Egypt and Thin Red Line

The Prince of Egypt ***

Steven Schwartz & Hans Zimmer

Dreamworks DRMD-50041. 19 tracks - 76:10

Resisting the temptation to produce Red Sea playsets and "Moses McNuggets" Happy Meals at McDonald's, DreamWorks made it clear that their lavish animated spectacle The Prince of Egypt would not be merchandised in the same manner as its Disney counterparts. That, however, has not stopped them from releasing no fewer than three soundtrack albums, only one of which will be of interest for soundtrack collectors.

That honor, obviously, goes to the movie's soundtrack album, which contains 76 minutes of music from the film, including Steven Schwartz's songs and a sufficient dosage of Hans Zimmer's score. Opening with the melancholy "Deliver Us," Schwartz's songs are agreeable but don't rank with his work on Pocahontas and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. "Through Heaven's Eyes," as performed by Brian Stokes Mitchell, is one of the few standouts of Schwartz's efforts, most of which are redundant and forgettable. The big ballad, "When You Believe," is completely transparent, even more so when you hear pop divas Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston vocally spar with each other in the vacuous duet they share at the beginning of the album.

Zimmer's score, which by itself measures under 20 minutes on the CD (though there's additional underscore in many of the songs), is of the standard orchestra-and-synth variety that most listeners will instantly recognize as being the composer's. It's lyrical and predictably loud, though perhaps not as bombastic as some of Zimmer's work on The Lion King. Recorded in London, the score includes a few credits for "additional orchestrations" and song tracks alternately arranged/produced by Zimmer, Harry Gregson-Williams, John Powell and Gavin Greenaway.

The soundtrack CD is rounded out with a hideous pop performance of "Through Heaven's Eyes" by K-Ci & JoJo and an inoffensive take on "River Lullaby" by Amy Grant, before finishing with the massive R&B collaboration, "Humanity," featuring everyone from the cast and the several big pop artists. (Where else can you find a teaming of Boyz II Men with Jeff Goldblum and Danny Glover?) Unfortunately, it's a wash-out, as is the a cappella mix of Boyz II Men's passable ballad "I Will Get There" thrown on at the end as an appetizer for the "Inspirational" album.

Speaking of which, many R&B performers join with Boyz II Men on the "Inspirational" Prince of Egypt soundtrack (DRMD-50050, 18 tracks, 72:16, **), including Cece and Bebe Winans, Brian McKnight, and Take 6. Boyz II Men's "I Will Get There," written by pop meister (or is it meistress?) Diane Warren, is probably the best of the bunch, especially in its original mix heard here. Still, the "Inspirational" tag refers more to the fact that the music was inspired by the movie (and is not in the film) than its qualities as being actually uplifting; most of the songs are standard-issue, forgettable fluff that will only appeal to fans of the respective performers.

The "Nashville" effort (DRMD-50045, 17 tracks, 71:07, **1/2) is along the same lines, featuring many talented artists including Randy Travis, Vince Gill, Wynonna, Faith Hill, Clint Black, Alabama, Alison Krauss... and many others, but it says something when you can't really point to any of the various tracks as making much of an impression. Soundtrack fans will note that Steve Dorff arranged and conducted strings for a handful of the tracks here. --Andy Dursin

The Thin Red Line ***1/2

Hans Zimmer

RCA Victor 09026-63382-2. 11 tracks - 58:54

One of the most eagerly awaited pictures of the year, Terrence Malick's Guadalcanal WWII epic turns out to be an inward, disappointing study of nature as juxtaposed with the aberration of war. It's either a 90-minute, Paths of Glory-tale blown up to three hours, or a nine-hour epic reduced to incoherent excerpts. Characters come and go, each with similar-sounding, poetic voiceovers, and the harrowing combat footage is seemingly at odds with endless romantic flashbacks and shots of wildlife. It's still an impressive achievement which will be remembered as an awesomely crafted, laborious misfire full of breathtaking photography and a few gripping sequences.

Hans Zimmer's score is an ode to stillness. If made 15 years ago, this would be all-electronic, a la Vangelis or Maurice Jarre's efforts for Peter Weir. Today, it is fully orchestrated and a model of simplicity and restraint. Zimmer toiled for most of 1998 on the film, writing and recording reams of music which Malick tried endlessly in the grueling editing process, during which the director discarded two characters (played by Bill Pullman and Lukas Haas) and most of the story in an attempt to "find" his picture. Ultimately, the soundtrack album is an hour-long collection of raw materials which is far from the "score" Malick eventually assembled out of Zimmer's 4+ hours total of music (!) and pieces of the temp track. Curiously, the native song which is the most memorable piece of music in the film (performed on-screen at one point) is absent from the CD.

It is never the most respectful approach to describe a score by what it is not, but the deliberate nature of Zimmer and Malick's collaboration requires it. Unlike Saving Private Ryan, the score for The Thin Red Line is not a hymn for American soldiers which speaks of memories of the war. Instead, it is wholly apolitical, and despite its subtle use of "ethnic" and electronic touches, does not evoke the landscape in literal terms either. It neither catches the action, nor builds into Morricone-styled, stand-alone pieces like in Casualties of War. In the film, Zimmer's elegiac music often plays through the combat sequences, but does not achieve the Mahlerian sophistication of Toru Takemitsu's Ran score for Kurosawa. One of the themes, used for the character who has the romantic flashbacks, seems like a cousin to George Delerue's Le Mepris, but Zimmer aspires to similar textures as the late Frenchman--not the joy or beauty of his melodies.

If anything, Zimmer uses the orchestra holistically, as an existential organ which combines classical and new age gestures. If this reading is correct, it speaks of Malick's fundamental statement of the timelessness of nature and the true impossibilities of trying to understand, well, anything. One just wishes the movie was up to the task. The album is eminently listenable and a fine achievement from Zimmer, hampered only by the stillness of its aesthetic. Two tracks spotlight a "cosmic beam" instrument performed by Francesco Lupica, which is probably a relative of Craig Huxley's "blaster beam" from Star Trek: The Motion Picture: "Beam" (3:44) by John Powell, and "Sit Back & Relax" (2:06) by Lupica. --Lukas Kendall

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