How Hans Zimmer Builds & Collapses Our Dreams.
One of his most epic pieces. Lasting for under 3 minutes. And hence, a lifetime.
Okay, let’s first bust the cloud here. Hans has openly agreed to using “Non, je ne regrette rien” by Édith Piaf as the basis of the entire Inception Theme. You can listen to the comparison here.
This week, it’s Hans Zimmer’s Dream Is Collapsing from the Inception soundtrack.
Now let’s get to the music.
It begins with a light electric guitar. A slight hint of a storm coming. Violins assisting. Few more steady notes. And then the cellos and trumpets join in.
And now, it’s an ensemble. They’re all in.
The crescendo forms like a wave in your mind. More present than being futuristic. With every note, the anticipation keeps building.
The story keeps rolling.
The music keeps seeping through the ears.
And when finally the note comes to an orgasm, there’s a huge lump of heavy trumpets and horns blaring through the instruments.
Each note like a countdown. Just like it should be.
Each sound heavier than before. The violins increase the intensity now all the more. And this carries on for what feels like just a moment but is more than a minute. All hell breaks loose!
Isn’t this EXACTLY what this music is about? Manipulating time!?
Now is the perfect time to see the crux of this brilliant piece of audio.
The Science behind all this.
This music is heavily influenced from Edith Piaf — Non, Je ne regrette rien, an old French Song.
Hans Zimmer slowed down “Non, Je ne regrette rein” according to the intensities and times as per the movie scenes. Dream within a dream has a faster music than dream within a dream within a dream.
Halves, triads and all the combinations that were necessary to slow this down enough to match the feel of the movie scene it was morphed onto.
The whole point of this song was to make it sound like a countdown.
And I bet it succeeded to make you feel the same.
Personally, these are my favourite moments from the whole movie.
Without much further ado, here’s the original and an alternate that I like.
Song Of the (Previous) Week
Song of the ( Next Week )
