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Karen Han is a writer based in New York City. Though Zimmer’s music hurtles and propels the events of the film towards that tipping point, it’s Howard’s work that tips the balance. As the Joker says, “Madness, as you know, is like gravity. As the composer responsible for musically charting Harvey Dent’s arc, he not only accounts for the way that Batman emerges in the D.A.’s story, but twists Dent’s theme as the character begins to fundamentally change. The idea of balance is a crucial part of The Dark Knight’s narrative, and it’s Howard who provides that in the score. Though Howard credits Zimmer as being the “ designated leader” when it came to composing for The Dark Knight, his contributions can’t be overlooked. Like Dent’s original theme, the notes are also constantly rising, yet the brass is gone, replaced by dissonant strings that twist the once-heroic theme into something tragic. It’s a relatively quiet piece, unlike the more driving, anarchic music that plays whenever the Joker is present again, it’s a “prettier” composition. It’s fitting, then, that the music for the final confrontation between Batman and Two-Face has Howard’s touch. It’s mirrored in the composition process though the rest of the score seems to have been much more collaborative than the way that those two themes were divided, it still would appear that Howard handled more of the “ prettier stuff” as Zimmer tackled the action scenes, eventually meeting in the middle as the characters’ storylines - and their respective tones - intersect. The space between the Joker and Dent’s respective themes is an aural gradation between the black and white opposites that they represent, meeting in the middle as Batman emerges.
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To quote Zimmer, “They evolved just the way the world has evolved.” The shift from more classical sounds in the first film to the experimental, electronic tone in the sequel is also deliberate. Nothing in a film score is ever done by accident even the introduction of the Batman theme at the very end of Batman Begins instead of using it throughout was intentional, meant to signal a transformation of Bruce Wayne.
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In a movie this austere, this grand, The Dark Knight’s musicality pushes the human element forward. As Harvey becomes Two-Face, however, his musical theme becomes darker, becoming slightly less melodic and relying less and less on the bright sound of the brass section. “I wrote Harvey as an American hero,” Howard said, describing how he focused on brass instruments for Harvey’s orchestrations, and used American composer Aaron Copland as a source of inspiration. The music that accompanies Harvey’s appearances for the first half of the film is much more melodic than even Batman’s, in keeping with his front-facing, “pure” persona. After all, though the film’s central conflict may be between Batman and the Joker, it hinges on Dent’s transformation into Two-Face. It’s harder to track, as it’s more melodious to begin with, but that’s not to diminish its importance.
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Harvey Dent’s theme experiences that same shift. As Zimmer says on The Dark Knight DVD, “I wanted to write something people would truly hate.” But that wailing subsides bit by bit as the movie progresses, mixing with and being subsumed by Batman’s theme as the hero catches up. The cue wails and scratches, the product of razor blades sliced along string instruments. The Joker’s theme in The Dark Knight remains the most often discussed piece of music, and with good reason: it doesn’t sound like anything else. In other words, the two major new themes present in the film, the Joker’s and Harvey Dent’s, are composed by Zimmer and Howard respectively, instead of being attributable to both at once. “ Hans and I both to dig in and not only just collaborate on pieces of music, which we often do, but to each separately be working on pieces of music associated with one character or another.” “Because the characters are so distinct, so clearly defined and so powerful, it was conceivable there could be musical identities attached to each one of them,” Howard said, speaking of the process of composing for The Dark Knight. The Dark Knight composers Han Zimmer and James Newton Howard Bryan Bedder/Getty Images