Hans Zimmer: the Hollywood rebel (Netflix) is a documentary produced by the BBC and originally released in 2022. Narrated by Lolly Adefope – aka the noblewoman Katherine “Kitty” Higham on the original British version of Ghosts – and with appearances from filmmakers like Christopher Nolan, Steve McQueen, Ron Howard, Stephen Frears, Barry Levinson and Gore Verbinski, Hollywood Rebel sketches the career arc of Hans Zimmer, from keyboardist of the 1970s and 1980s to highly sought-after, Academy Award-winning composer for major Hollywood films. “It’s about seeing the big picture,” Zimmer says of his process in the document. “It’s about understanding what moves someone. It’s all about the game.”
The essential: There are many examples from his nearly 40 years of composing for films. But listen to Hans Zimmer’s music for Denis Villeneuve’s 2021 film Dune, and it’s hard not to bite the grain of Arrakis between your teeth, or not to let yourself be drawn into something strange and spiritual by the eerie tone of the music. Zimmer won an Oscar for his work on Dune, a score that draws from his respected bag of tricks and experiences, and Villeneuve says it proves the composer’s genius. “He has the incredible ability to reinvent himself without losing his identity.” Now working at Remote Control Productions, his sprawling studio complex in Santa Monica, Zimmer is the kind of in-demand composer who turns down one high-profile project to work on another. Christopher Nolan had to find someone else to score Principlebecause Zimmer had already booked Dune.
Perhaps it didn’t seem like music would remain a career, in post-war Germany of the 1950s, when young rebel Hans Zimmer took exactly two professional piano lessons. But once he moved to England with his mother, studied at a progressive music school, and discovered the first generation of keyboards and synthesizers in the late ’70s, Zimmer’s musical career was launched. And it wasn’t going to be in traditional rock bands. “You could suddenly have access to computers, so the idea of doing things on stage was much less exciting than the idea of ’How far could I push this technology?'” Zimmer explains in Hollywood Rebel. The manipulation and application of sound enabled by synths, sequencing and sampling would become a mainstay of his film music.
Rain man in 1988, True romance in 1993, and the Oscar-winning music for The Lion King in 1994: once Zimmer broke through, he never looked back, and Hollywood Rebel includes highlights from the composer’s 2022 European concert tour, during which he performed many of his most moving themes on stage with a large band. The doc also features testimonials from Nolan, Villeneueve and other notable directors on key aspects of their collaborations: Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski says Zimmer doesn’t read scripts; instead, it’s just vibrations – but it’s most telling when the doc dives deep into the places where technique meets philosophy. Can the various misdeeds and motivations that drive Captain Jack Sparrow be represented and accentuated by just a few specific musical notes? Hans Zimmer says yes. And then he shows you how.
What films will this remind you of? 2017 Music: A documentary on film music also explores the process of uniting music and image to tell a story and includes interviews with major composers like Zimmer, Quincy Jones, John Williams, Rachel Portman and Trent Reznor. And if you want to see Zimmer in his element, watch the 2017 documentary Living in Prague.
Performances to watch: It’s the studio, man. Even in this documentary, Hans Zimmer’s home studio is presented as an inner sanctuary where his creativity is truly expressed. All the filmmakers interviewed describe being inside as a crazy experience. And once you take a look at the Doepfer A-100 modular analog synthesizer that Zimmer has literally built into its walls, you’ll wish you could visit it too. “It’s kind of a samurai thing, you know,” says filmmaker Steve McQueen, who worked with Zimmer on 12 years of slavery. “This room looks like an old Buddhist temple or something, what’s going on with the keyboard and so on?” And you just sit on a nice couch, and you feel it, and you talk about it, and he’s on the keys, and he feels it. He’s talking to the keys while you’re talking about them.
Memorable dialogues: Zimmer’s music for Dune earned him his second Academy Award for Best Original Score. But for the composer, the work is another example of his desire to overturn received ideas. “I don’t think anyone has ever won an Oscar for music that is overtly bagpipes, heavy metal guitars and a woman yelling at you.”
Sex and skin: None.
Our opinion : “It was everything music school tells you you can’t do.” It is with quotes from the man himself that Hans Zimmer: the Hollywood rebel lives up to its title. There is a curiosity that has very clearly been a driving force for the composer since his beginnings, and a desire to use technology to pursue where that sense leads him. Zimmer, sitting in front of a row of massive monitors hooked up to computers and keyboards, begins playing parts of his music for 1998. The thin red line. “They’re all minors, and it’s asymmetrical,” he says of his score. “Music school will teach you that you’re not supposed to do things according to these parallels. These are not agreements. A chord needs three notes. It’s always two notes. And it sort of meanders, while that note always stays, which makes for some really interesting clashes, a new language in cinema. Nerd moments like this are the best part of Hollywood Rebel, because it’s the same as a director breaking down shot selection, or even a musician using a soundboard to isolate sounds from a recording. When film music is created, we are sometimes unaware of its representative parts. But with access to the composer’s mind and hands, the meaning expressed in the music becomes as integral to a film as the actors’ performances.
Our call: Spread it. Hans Zimmer: the Hollywood rebel is particularly aimed at fans of film music – it offers access to the mind and mechanics of a major composer. But movie fans also have reason to listen and watch, since Zimmer’s work has become entwined with many memorable Hollywood moments.
Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is a free-lance freelance writer and editor in Chicagoland. Her work has been published in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media and Nicki Swift.
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