More Great Film Scoring: "Inception"

A couple of weeks ago I started looking at the genre of film composition on this blog. I hope to eventually delve into the inner workings of the film scoring industry, but for now I'd like to just look at another score that I consider influential to me:

Hans Zimmer's original soundtrack for Inception.

This recording marked the first time I fell in love with a film score before even seeing the movie. As I perused iTunes one afternoon in 2010, I saw that the Inception soundtrack had already been released at least two weeks before the film was due to premiere. Since I was eagerly anticipating the movie, the score's early appearance intrigued me and I decided to listen to all the available samples.

Even before I'd seen the film, the music alone managed to take me on an aural journey. Sure, the titles (like "Dream Within a Dream") were evocative and inspired my imagination, but the music told its own story - one of intense thought and focus, even of confusion and disorder.

Having heard the soundtrack before hand, watching the movie was all the more exciting; it was fascinating to see just what events the music was juxtaposed over. The marriage of music and film here was so cohesive - each one enhanced the other and combined to form an amazing result.

When I experienced the effect of the soundtrack in this way (i.e. listening before seeing the movie), I realized again that movie music, when done right, can be a force of its own.