Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two, starring Timothée Chalamet, is the second of the two-part adaptation of the 1965 novel of the same name by Frank Herbert. The second part of the epic science fiction movie follows Chalamet’s Paul Atreides as he unites with the Fremen people to wage a war against House Harkonnen. The movie has a brilliant background score by Hans Zimmer, which is very much liked by the audience and the critics.
Upon its release earlier this month, the movie opened to a positive response from the audience and the critics. The visual effects showcased in the movie, along with the direction, storyline, background score, and performances by the cast were highly appreciated by the critics as well as the audience. Dune: Part Two was dubbed one of the best science fiction movies of all time by some of the reviewers. Hans Zimmer recently shared about his work on Denis Villeneuve’s Dune.
Hans Zimmer talks about the opening music of Denis Villeneuve’s Dune
In an interview with Cinema Blend, the German-American film score composer Hans Zimmer talks about the opening music of Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part One and Part Two. He explains,
“Both Dunes have that crazy voice. I was trying to explain to Denis [Villeneuve] this idea of a voice but how to technically do it because, at the end of the day, I am a field recording engineer, so I know how to do some of that stuff, but it was impossible to explain it to him.”
Zimmer continued to explain that he just asked Villeneuve to let him do it, and the voice the audience hears in the opening scenes of the movie was never supposed to open the movie. But the composer noted that it was Denis Villeneuve and Joe Walker who came up with the idea that the voice could open the movie.
The film score composer added that he is a big fan of such an idea. Citing an example from The Lion King, he added that the audience goes in thinking that it’s a children’s movie, a Disney movie that is going to have an orchestra, but instead, it’s just a raw African voice, and they instantly know that it’s not that sort of Disney movie.
To give some context, the first thing that the audience hears when watching Dune and Dune: Part Two are the growling, guttural voices, which are unsettling in the extreme. It was by accident that those voices became the opening sequences for both movies.
Hans Zimmer touches upon the subject of making music for dark characters like Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen
In his conversation with Variety, Hans Zimmer was asked about his process for making sound for new characters like Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, who is on the darker side. To which he explained:
“It’s less pure. The whole planet is black. His teeth are black. His heart is black. Everything he does is so incredibly outlandish. It’s a family picture, and that’s Austin’s family. I tried to give him this cold metallic sheen and industrial brooding sound. As with everything, it felt important not to overdo things.”
Zimmer continued that the acting is great, along with the cinematography, editing, and storytelling. He added that his idea was to just be there and support them, noting that the problem with composers (adding maybe it’s just him) is that they love doing evil stuff as long as it comes easy.
He expresses his gratitude by stating that the thing that he truly loves about his life is that he gets to work with Denis Villeneuve, and he allows him to have an extraordinary life because he gets to go and play in a huge sandbox and make one hell of a racket and work with people that he adores.
Dune can be streamed on HBO Max, but there has been no mention of Dune: Part Two’s release for digital platforms yet.
