Untold Highlight Of The Dark Knight

After reviewing The Dark Knight a few weeks ago I was so wrapped in Heath’s performance and political references to spend enough time explaining how amazing the movie’s score was. After winning the soundtrack from the only place that devoted enough time explaining on how awesome it was, I’ve decided to take a look back at the music, too.

The similarities between Jonny Greenwood’s There Will Be Blood score and The Dark Knight score was perhaps the main reason I was immediately attracted to it. Interestingly enough, both have many things in common. Each use an array of stings in the same vein as Bernard Herrmann’s vision with Psycho back in the day. Some moments are very simplistic while others tend to fray into frantic orchestrations, sometimes even resembling tribal music.

Before I go on, let’s highlight the fact that The Dark Knight soundtrack isn’t quite perfect. It gets repetitious since many of the same techniques are used time and time again. It’s the execution that salvages this from becoming too annoying. I would’ve liked to hear some more diversity but the score does what it sets out to accomplish, that being to create the appropriate atmosphere for the cast to work in. Even so, the repetitious nature won’t bother most since no matter what you hear you’ll enjoy.

The best part about the score by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard are their changes from light orchestration to sudden mind fuck. Keeping the tension active is the driving force throughout the entire soundtrack. They often let it slip into a haze of technological scratches, then slowly wind it down with soft pianos or more appropriately, smear it with a combination of thunder-like cellos and drums.

One small victory accomplished within the soundtrack are the changes that occur with in each of its songs. Most of them tell the story of the Dark Knight by themselves. For example, “Harvey Two-Face” feels extremely tragic, resembling an ode to a fallen hero. Then, a few tracks latter, “A Little Push” is the perfect piece of music to accompany Hervey’s switch from good to evil. Many of the other tracks tend to have their own two sided arrangement, one featherweight and the other darkly aggressive.

This isn’t something you’ll want to listen to on a sunny Saturday afternoon or after breakfast on Sunday morning. Rather this is something you’ll find yourself listening to somewhere in between sunset and sunrise. That is, unless you’re me and you enjoy listening to some epic shit anytime during the day.