Like any other story, music has always played an integral role in many great superhero movies over the years, whether it was Danny Elfman’s output on Batman or John Williams’ work on Superman. Given the impact of Elfman’s work on the Caped Crusader, Christopher Nolan’s reinterpretation of the character had some big boots to fill, and fortunately, he didn’t disappoint.
Not only did both Hans Zimmer and James Newton absolutely nail the score for Batman Begins, but the former further elevated his game in the sequel, especially with one particular theme. As for the process behind it, Zimmer confessed to making Nolan listen to almost 10,000 bars of music during the latter’s flight from Hong Kong to London.
Hans Zimmer recounts Christopher Nolan’s response to an anarchy-filled flight
After working closely on Batman Begins, James Newton and Hans Zimmer opted to split up their assignments on the sequel. Opposed to Newton’s pick of Two-Face, Zimmer chose to go with Joker, and to say that he crushed it would be an understatement (via Collider).
Interestingly, both Nolan and Zimmer took inspiration from Francis Bacon’s painting of the Pope for their interpretation of the Joker, and the composer even bought Nolan an iPod ahead of his flight to make him listen to his ideas. Elaborating on it, Zimmer recounted Nolan’s blunt response, detailing (via Happy Sad Confused):
I said, ‘Chris I got all these ideas, so I’m going to buy you an iPod, and you got that long flight ahead of you, and then you fly from there to London, so you have enough time, you know, 10,000 bars, and… he dutifully listened to it all, and I said, ‘Well what do you think?’… ‘It’s in there somewhere, but you know something, it hasn’t made me a better human being’.
It was indeed somewhere in between, and on top of basing the character upon Francis Bacon’s famous painting, the composer opted to make the theme more intrinsic, given Joker’s anarchist nature.
Hans Zimmer shed light on an age-old issue with Nolan’s filmography
Throughout Christopher Nolan‘s filmography, one aspect that viewers have often found annoying is the muffled dialogue, which stems from Nolan’s distaste for ADR. Zimmer had a similar issue with The Dark Knight. However, upon raising his doubts, it didn’t take long for Nolan to push back against Zimmer’s concerns (via Vanity Fair).
I told Chris the music was too loud—you couldn’t hear the lines. He said, ‘I wrote them. I can do what I want.’ He was right; people do remember the lines. He could have done 200 different cop-out endings, but he put that ending on. It’s hard to pull off a satisfying ending, if you’re that ambiguous. One second longer, or one sentence or note different, and it would have been a different movie.
Despite their slight disagreements, Zimmer’s working bond with Nolan continued to thrive post-The Dark Knight, and as a result, revered composer James Newton decided to step out of the threequel entirely.
The Dark Knight is available to stream on Max.
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