A film is composed of many parts from acting, directing, writing, editing, cinematography and of course, score. A film’s score is one of the most important aspects of a film, giving it the tone and momentum that drives a scene. Imagine Star Wars without John Williams’ iconic theme or The Dark Knight without Hans Zimmer’s epic music driving the action. It seems that Mission: Impossible- Fallout‘s score may join the ranks of Williams’ and Zimmer’s due to Lorne Balfe’s score driving the acclaimed action film and it seems like the process of going through that was pretty damn ambitious.
Speaking to Collider, composer Lorne Balfe discussed his work on the film and it looks like the process of scoring the film was a lot of work and featured one hell of a large orchestra. He said:
“We probably had one of the biggest orchestras on a score in a long time. Every time there’s a new jump, or a new stunt, the next one’s even bigger. And then the next one’s even bigger, so the sheer epicness of it came from the visuals.”
Balfe was asked on the scores of the previous films as to whether he felt like there were routes the other scores had not taken before. To that he apparently didn’t not go too much into but he did discuss his attempt at pushing the film above and beyond or at least musically. He explained:
“I knew that pulse and pace were something that I wanted to delve into more, but also I just wanted to experiment with some of the instrumentation. Like bongos were always in the TV show, and I thought, “Why have one when we can have twelve? It’s very like the stunts. It’s trying to push things. I was just trying to push them to a larger form. So with the bongos, it’s hard enough for one bongo player to get a gig these days. For twelve, it’s a miracle. It was really being loyal to the past, but bringing it into the future. I think that that’s what the movie does.”
Balfe also jokingly said that all of the scenes were pretty hard when asked on which was the hardest sequence to score and that’s not much of a surprise considering how crazy the action set pieces are. He explained:
“I think the hardest was the mission brief. I think that it’s the same with all the Mission Impossibles. That mission brief is psychotic. It’s when you get told important information to what you’re about to experience, and there’s a thin line where the music can’t overtake the dialogue but has to support the story. That was the hardest scene”
Well, his contribution to the film will not be overlooked. Fallout is being showered with praise with some considering it to be one of the best action films ever made. It’s safe to say that the score also had a lot to do with that.
Source: Collider
