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Zimmer’s Super 8
Christopher Nolan’s highly-anticipated World War II epic Dunkirk doesn’t premiere in movie theaters for a couple weeks.
Lucky for us, one of the songs for the forthcoming war film by composer Hans Zimmer made its way out of enemy gun fire, via WaterTower Music (ie- Warner Bros.).
What is it with famed directors and composers and the word “super” and the number 8 (think J.J. Abrams, Steven Spielberg and Michael Giacchino of the science-fiction thriller Super 8)?
At 8-minutes in length (8:03, to be precise), the titled track, “Supermarine” is everything you’d expect from a Hans Zimmer-Christopher Nolan collaboration. That’s an intense, emotionally climbing tempo with a larger-than-life feeling that puts you squarely into the action projected on silver screens so immersive as to blur the line between the film and reality.
This is the point where you’re itching to play the song again. Go ahead. I’m doing the same thing. And if the soundtrack is already this powerfully engrossing, just imagine what the action sequences are that this music was acutely designed for…let alone the sound of the remaining soundtrack.
Mr. Nolan and Mr. Zimmer seem poised to present war cinematically and musically we haven’t yet seen and heard experienced.
As if “Supermarine” isn’t enough of a clue to confirm that declaration.
History’s Clock Never Stops Ticking
The present and the future becomes the past in a hurry.
Having said that, Christopher Nolan’s forthcoming World War II epic Dunkirk about the past during the mid-1940s is a heroic present for the 21st-century future.
400,00 men. 933 ships. 9 days.
The harrowing events portrayed in the film Dunkirk strive to capture the legitimately incomprehensible odds Allied soldiers faced against the merciless German army during World War II on the beaches of France. Incredibly, the battlefields of World War II may never be seen again in the context of the three figures listed above. Wars, throughout time, have contained many threads of commonality with innovative changes and strategies according to the century and respective technological advancements. Still, the magnitude of the Battle of Dunkirk is still staggering.
And it’s that reality of history, the scale of the Battle of Dunkirk, that sparks curious intrigue for Mr. Nolan’s first filmmaking venture into an event during a historic war that defined the 20th-century. Beyond Dunkirk being the first war film by Mr. Nolan, which is an exciting moment as a directorial benchmark and cinematic reference point, one of the storytelling gifts the aforementioned director gives movie fans is the skill to scale a moviegoing experience onto the largest IMAX screen while simultaneously grounding the story and characters in deeply intimate struggles (internal and external) with powerful acts of heroism, defeat, and mystery.
And mind-bending surprises in the finale.
Or, in another word, prestige.
Christopher Nolan’s Epic (Cinematic) War Takes Shape
The first full trailer for THE movie of this summer has arrived…
In a word: Dunkirk.
Director and screenwriter Christopher Nolan and BFF soundtrack composer Hans Zimmer appear ready to deliver yet another cinematic epic. The ticking clock at the beginning of the trailer and the ominous heartbeat at the end of the trailer signals an unrelentingly gritty war movie with just the slightest bit of hope barely visible in a living hell that will require the ultimate sacrifice, courage and cleverness to merely survive through the greatest obstacles of the body and the mind.
Welcome to Christopher Nolan’s first war movie: Stunning visuals rooted in realism, practical effects galore, brilliant writing with twists-and-turns and a supreme cast with the underrated wild card (cough cough Harry Styles). And being a film by Mr. Nolan, rest assured that there will a mind-bending aspect attached. How or what will it be?
As the cinema fan Christopher Nolan himself would say, “That’s why we go to the movies…to experience a film that connects with us on a deeply curious and enlightening level.”
And experience Dunkirk I will.
Jimmy's Daily Planet 