寫在Dunkirk原聲帶CD抬頭的話（by Christopher Nolan）
British people are raised on the story of Dunkirk. The events of the evacuation are sacred ground, not to be ventured onto without great care. Daunting for a filmmaker. But the things that place Dunkirk so firmly at the heart of a nation's self-image are the very qualities that make it one of the greatest stories in human history. Irresistible to a filmmaker.
This film required a remarkable creative team, and Hans Zimmer, as well as having been a valued member in the past, knows how to assemble his own great team. From our first meeting, where I described to the percussionist, Satnam Ramgotra, the unusual rhythmic structure of the script and how it needed to be amplified by the music, through to the finishing touches applied by Lorne Balfe during our last weeks of mixing, the importance of teamwork was paramount. The process nicely echoed the circumstances of the events we were trying to honour - a triumph of communal effort not individual heroism.
When I called Hans one night with a one word suggestion - "Nimrod", I wasn't sure he'd accept experimenting with an existing theme for the climax of the film. To my surprise, he knew just who to call to achieve the deconstruction of Elgar's monumental theme, a theme as beloved to the English as Dunkirk itself, often played at ceremonial occasions and funerals. It's a theme which (I never admitted to Hans) I am incapable of hearing without feeling the surprising weight of my father's coffin on my shoulder. Hans brought in Benjamin Wallfisch, who, in collaboration with the great music editor Alex Gibson and myself, fashioned a modern reworking that grows out of the sights and sounds of the movie - tapping the original's resonances without feeling unearned. Hans's brass accents complete the piece's power to move without sentimentalizing.
Hans went on to incorporate Elgar's theme elsewhere in the score, a score that on this album has been divided into cues, but which in the film plays as one long piece with a unifying and complex rhythmic and tonal structure. The structure of the screenplay itself builds upon the shepherd tone concepts I first explored with composer David Julyan in the soundtrack for "The Prestige", but here Zimmer's team (in particular Andy Page and Andrew Kawczynski) and I added a whole new rhythmical structure. This can't be fully represented on the album, but in the film it is able to integrate sound effects and even story structure into the very fabric of the music in a new and unique manner.
This rigid structure, to which we adamantly stuck, at times proved frustrating for the musicians, but they persevered and produced extraordinary cues based on unusual solutions (such as a recording of my watch that Hans and his team adapted into many different rhythmic voices). The disciplined procedural approach stopped the music for "Dunkirk" from ever resorting to arbitrary cinematic emotionalism, something Hans and I always felt was vital, given the inherent emotional heft of the real life events. This has been a long and hard journey, but I am proud of the final results, and hope that you will share my appreciation for the talent of the artists who worked so hard for so long on this score.
Christopher Nolan
This film required a remarkable creative team, and Hans Zimmer, as well as having been a valued member in the past, knows how to assemble his own great team. From our first meeting, where I described to the percussionist, Satnam Ramgotra, the unusual rhythmic structure of the script and how it needed to be amplified by the music, through to the finishing touches applied by Lorne Balfe during our last weeks of mixing, the importance of teamwork was paramount. The process nicely echoed the circumstances of the events we were trying to honour - a triumph of communal effort not individual heroism.
When I called Hans one night with a one word suggestion - "Nimrod", I wasn't sure he'd accept experimenting with an existing theme for the climax of the film. To my surprise, he knew just who to call to achieve the deconstruction of Elgar's monumental theme, a theme as beloved to the English as Dunkirk itself, often played at ceremonial occasions and funerals. It's a theme which (I never admitted to Hans) I am incapable of hearing without feeling the surprising weight of my father's coffin on my shoulder. Hans brought in Benjamin Wallfisch, who, in collaboration with the great music editor Alex Gibson and myself, fashioned a modern reworking that grows out of the sights and sounds of the movie - tapping the original's resonances without feeling unearned. Hans's brass accents complete the piece's power to move without sentimentalizing.
Hans went on to incorporate Elgar's theme elsewhere in the score, a score that on this album has been divided into cues, but which in the film plays as one long piece with a unifying and complex rhythmic and tonal structure. The structure of the screenplay itself builds upon the shepherd tone concepts I first explored with composer David Julyan in the soundtrack for "The Prestige", but here Zimmer's team (in particular Andy Page and Andrew Kawczynski) and I added a whole new rhythmical structure. This can't be fully represented on the album, but in the film it is able to integrate sound effects and even story structure into the very fabric of the music in a new and unique manner.
This rigid structure, to which we adamantly stuck, at times proved frustrating for the musicians, but they persevered and produced extraordinary cues based on unusual solutions (such as a recording of my watch that Hans and his team adapted into many different rhythmic voices). The disciplined procedural approach stopped the music for "Dunkirk" from ever resorting to arbitrary cinematic emotionalism, something Hans and I always felt was vital, given the inherent emotional heft of the real life events. This has been a long and hard journey, but I am proud of the final results, and hope that you will share my appreciation for the talent of the artists who worked so hard for so long on this score.
Christopher Nolan
