Encounters Between Electronic Music and Orchestras in Cinema - Text 9
One might wonder whether the composer didn’t slow down the piece, listen to the result, and then create an original orchestration based on it. This approach greatly resembles that of spectral music, in which, based on the scientific acoustic analysis of a sound, the composer breaks down the spectrum and then reproduces it with acoustic instruments. In the clip we hear very clearly, moreover, Édith Piaf’s voice slowed down. The symbolism becomes even stronger with time passing more slowly in each new layer of dreaming. In order to shut down debate over the source of the sound, the composer declared: “I didn’t use the song; I only used one note.”[17] This is in tune with Cécile Carayol’s view: writing about Zimmer’s music, she remarks that it is “a kind of radicalization of minimalism which sometimes goes as far as to negate all melody, replaced by a single note which has become an abstract texture [that] evokes despair, death or nothingness.”[18]
Following Hans Zimmer’s successes, there arose a degree of standardization in the music for super-productions in the 2010s: omnipresent brass and percussion; string-instrument ostinati; synth pads; putting the melodic quality of the themes in the background in order to highlight the timbre and rhythm, meaning that these themes are less easily memorized. This change was also a consequence, however, of the evolution of contemporary super-productions and of the use of digital technology. For Chloé Huvet, the acoustic material (timbre, harmony, register, style of playing and dynamic quality) have, in Zimmer’s work, become thematic.[19] Finally, Cécile Carayol notes “the inescapable temporality developed out of the minimalist synth pads,”[20] which changes the relations between music and image.
The use of technology amplifies the impact of original soundtracks, and removing the sound of the traditional orchestra is a welcome breath of fresh air. Nevertheless, it is unfortunate that this sometimes occurs to the detriment of compositional depth and results in an obligatory use of electronics rather than to aid a point of view or ideas about the film.[21] At the other end of this spectrum, composers adopt electronic music and incorporate it into orchestral music in a personal manner. Alexandre Desplat has declared that he uses electronics “for what an orchestra cannot do.”[22] This approach can be seen in the Luc Besson film Valérian et la Cité des mille planètes (2017); in it, electronic bass lines reinforce the acoustic basses, and solo passages colour the orchestra.
