Batman v Superman: Who's had the better music?

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is now out in theaters, continuing Hans Zimmer's reign as DCs current musical architect. This time out, though, he co-composes with longtime collaborator Junkie XL (whose scores for last year's Mad Max: Fury Road and this year's Deadpool got a lot of people's attention) in a move designed to mimic the film's antagonistic nature.

Since Zimmer originated the new sound of Superman with Man of Steel (2013), he maintained that as his responsibility while Junkie XL became responsible for the new Batman, freeing Zimmer from revisiting a character he so defined not long ago — in the Dark Knight movies.

Starting with Christopher Reeve as Superman and Michael Keaton as Batman, it's interesting to look at the cinematic lineage of each character. In a battle of the scores, who would win?

Superman

In modern movie history Superman came first, with an iconic score by John Williams for Richard Donner's hit 1978 film. It's a heroic work, with brass often taking the lead representing America (via Korngold, via Wagner). Representative of blockbuster scores at the time (especially those composed by Williams), which were very classically orchestral, it's a time capsule of a very particular brand of scoring not often happening today.

Tightly cued and distinctively classical, it's a signature score of Williams's that has been hard to separate from Superman. It didn't try to challenge any norms, but worked to give weight to the franchise at a time when the very idea of a superhero film was questionable. So strong is Williams's work that every one the several Superman films — well into the 21st century — came back to the main cue created by Williams.

It wasn't until Man of Steel that Williams's cue and musical structure were forgotten entirely as Hans Zimmer was tasked with inaugurating a new era of Superman, created in the wake of Christopher Nolan's Batman franchise and the developing Marvel universe. Zimmer's score became a dividing line for the sonic palette of Superman, introducing much of the composer's signature bombasticism and experimental composition techniques in tandem with a deeper register and agitation we'd never hard from Williams. This was not a strictly heroic Superman, and you hear this in the lower strings and percussion performances as well as the interesting choice of an upright piano poorly played by Zimmer developed as the actual theme rather than something more orchestral and sweeping.

Batman

Batman has had a very different sonic palette than Superman in recent decades. The first two Batman films (discounting early films including the campy 1966 takeoff from the TV show) were directed by Tim Burton, who brought aboard his key collaborator Danny Elfman. From the opening of Burton's Batman (1989), the music is far from heroic. It is complicated, dark, and disconcertingly childlike; utilizing the lower registers of strings and brass along with the signature percussion techniques of Elfman long before Zimmer brought his take to Superman.

The arrangements spoke to establishing a world where the music was confrontational and integral to the narrative, with arrangements not typically heard in big blockbusters of the time. They are difficult compositions that want you to be aware of their presence rather than just cueing up the action on the screen and are still some of Elfman's greatest achievements.

After Elfman, Elliot Goldenthal took up the reigns and brought an understandably different palette. Stemming from a more avant-garde classical sensibility, his scores are the best thing about Batman Forever and Batman & Robin, hitting film noir notes while also alluding to ideas of abstraction and surrealism that were definitely not on the screen. They are strange scores in all the best ways, with his brand of sonic effects mixed in with offbeat horn and percussion arrangements. They are really sensational works that speak to an aesthetic we will probably never hear again.

Nolan took over with Batman Begins in 2005, working with Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard for the first time. This first excursion was quite reserved compared to the later Dark Knight and Dark Knight Rises: more of the arrangements lean on the classicism of James Newton Howard. There's a lot of strings in the lower registers and percussion techniques that sound like Howard rather than Zimmer. It's a quieter film, even in the bigger action set pieces, as it set up an entirely new way of looking at these characters on the screen.

The Dark Knight was when we came to hear what is now the common thread for these films. The opening bank robbery scene was a successful experiment for Nolan and Zimmer, who pulled in weirdly agitated strings and sonic escapades. One also hears the sensibility of Howard fading to the background with Zimmer's becoming more and more present — highlighting the more violent nature of the action on screen. This continued with Dark Knight Rises as Zimmer worked without Howard and created one of his most bombastic and "Zimmeresque" scores to date. There was little room for peace and quiet in Nolan's final installment, and it's a sentiment now showing itself fully as Batman and Superman come together.

Who wins?

When it comes to testing the boundaries of cinematic music there is no question Batman has been more interesting. The darker elements of Batman's narrative opened frontiers of creativity that — at least until recently just didn't fit Superman's heroics. It was only in the renewal of Superman, when many discounted the need for a reboot at all, that something interesting was allowed to develop.

As the DC franchises are now moving to compete heavily with Marvel, it's obvious that their direction is darker, even as Marvel seems to be going the same way. Whether or not the films work, hopefully we'll at least get some interesting music.

Garrett Tiedemann is a writer, filmmaker, and composer who owns the multimedia lab CyNar Pictures and its record label American Residue Records.

Gallery

Fullscreen SlidePrevious Slide

1 of 1

Next Slide