A Different Kind of "Knight" Music

GAMBIT is simple yet extraordinary: a superhero without a theme song. Say Batman, Superman, Indiana Jones -- the list goes on -- and a theme clicks in. Hear a theme, and the mind plays the visual. Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard have tossed that tradition out the window for The Dark Knight: Batman gets two notes. The Joker, only one.

It's a radical concept for a film score, a technique more likely to be found in a Wagner opera. Those notes do not sit alone or on top of a brash comicbook score either. This is a score inspired by minimalism, repeated motifs that echo the work of Steve Reich's “Music for 18 Musicians" and Philip Glass.

A Joker-like smile came over Zimmer's face as he talked about his favorite aspects of the score, a feeling that he has achieved some sort of mischievous goal. “It's odd to put avant garde touches on a blockbuster," he said. “It's tremendously enjoyable in an obsessive way. Once we stepped away from supplying a hero's theme, we spent most of our time getting rid of notes."

ZIMMER, HOWARD and director Christopher Nolan worked together on the score for 2005's Batman Begins. At that time, the idea of a jointly composed score by two of Hollywood's most sought-after composers seemed like pure novelty. Dark Knight is hardly an encore -- Zimmer and Howard gave Nolan an iPod filled with 10 hours of music cues based on just the script, which Zimmer contends the director memorized on flights to and from Hong Kong.

The score, which includes pieces composed prior to filming, has elements culled from Bach and hard rock in addition to the minimalists, and, listened to on its own, manages to get the heart palpitating.