‘Dunkirk’ score a feat unto itself
of the theme.
“I didn’t really say this to Hans,” Nolan said, “but it played at my father’s funeral a few years ago. I just find it unbearably moving.”
In a three-way phone interview, Zimmer and his collaborators, Benjamin Wallfisch and Lorne Balfe, described the process of creating what Zimmer called “the most intimate” work he’d ever made with Nolan. He was speaking from New York, where he was due onstage for his concert tour, and Balfe and Wallfisch were on the line from Los Angeles.
Nolan spoke separately, from Vietnam, where he was taking a brief break from promotional duties.
Did you want the tension in the music to ever resolve?
No. I have to believe that the tension will be unbearable and the outcome will be tragic — and, in a way, I have to pretend they will never get off the beach. If there are Method actors, I suppose I’m a Method composer. I went to the beach (at Dunkirk). This sounds insane, but I was in the neighborhood, and I went knowing they were shooting there on the grayest, most foul day. I picked up a handful of sand and put it in a jar and took it with me. There was something good about having that next to me.
Did you have other reference points?
It was very important to forget any other war movie I’d seen. This movie is more about time than any other movie we’ve ever done — about time running out.
I never thought of it as a war movie. I always thought of it as a thriller.
I asked Hans not to write any emotional music. What I said to him was I wanted objectivity ... (that) it’s all about suspense and tension and not at all about emotion. (The music cues he sent during shooting) were not emotional cues; they were very much about pacing. We could (use them via an iPad) when we were thinking about what the rhythms of the shots would be. This film was really very much about rhythm.
Did you use any unusual instrumentation?
There’s a double bass that’s played in the extremes, high-register. I try to keep a small group of musicians playing always at the extremes of capabilities.
We had 14 cellos who were always ... playing too high.
I was really trying to be in sync with what Richard King was doing with sound effects. Richard would send over the sound of Moonstone, the boat, and then it would become a musical instrument.
That’s something you’re not necessarily aware of — the sound effects of boats and motors were in same tempo as the music.
You’re all British, or have lived there. Can you explain the significance of Elgar’s “Nimrod”?
It’s part of English culture. ... It’s quite the opposite to the national anthem — it’s more the emotional anthem to a nation.
Quite often you’re asking music to do something that you weren’t able to do with the picture or dialogue. Hans didn’t use that crutch. There’s only emotion in the music when you just can’t not have it. The tension doesn’t feel resolved. ... And that’s where the Elgar theme came in. There’s a moment at the end where the music goes back to the most basic form of the ticking, and then it just stops. There’s something about that that I found very energizing.