Solomon Kane
Klaus Badelt. 2009.
You’ll like it… if you appreciate the skills to achieve much from few.
Avoid it… if you look for anything beyond functionality.
How would you save a movie when the script is just a cliché and the budget is reduced to the minimum? Spending as much as necessary to hire Klaus Badelt and the rest in production design. The proof: Solomon Kane (Michael J. Basset, 2009).
Born in Frankfurt, Badelt started his career in Germany in the 90s working for television (commercials and tv-movies). In 1998 he was invited by german-born Hans Zimmer to move to his musical studios Remote Control in Santa Mónica (California). Badelt became a ghost writer, assisting in soundtracks like The thin red line (T. Malick, 1998), Gladiator (R. Scott, 2000), Mission:Impossible 2 (J. Woo, 2000), Hannibal (R. Scott, 2001) or Pearl Harbor (M. Bay, 2001). From all this works with Zimmer, he got a taste for simple but memorable themes and the synthetic instrumentation trademark of the Remote Control studios.
Eventually his name came to first line with two works: the remake of The Time Machine (Simon Wells, 2002) and K-19, the widowmaker (K. Bigelow, 2002). In both of them Badelt showed a higher melodic sensitivity when constructing the themes and a more orchestral sound, mainly in the second one, which, due to the dramatic nature of Bigelow’s film, was much darker and mournful.
Due to contractual reasons, in 2003 his name was top billed in a soundtrack which, allegedly, Hans Zimmer, Ramin Djawadi, James Dooley, Nick Glennie-Smith, Steve Jablonsky, Blake Neely, James McKee Smith, Geoff Zanelli and Klaus Badelt himself had worked on. Too many composers for the musically poor Pirates of the Caribbean: the curse of the Black Pearl.
He retired (or was retired) from the franchise in the next chapter and since then has dragged his talent in projects much less commercial but more interesting from the musical point of view, not only in USA but also in France (Le petit Nicolas, Laurent Tirard, 2009; L’immortel, Richard Berry, 2010), China (The promise, Kaige Chen, 2005) or European co-productions such as this Solomon Kane (France, Czech Republic, United Kingdom).
The music for Solomon Kane stays close to the Remote Control rules, with strings and brass dominating the orchestra, choirs remarking the epic and elegiac moments and a minimal array of celtic instruments to give context to the story. However, using more craftwork than genius, Badelt develops through the score a leit-motiv easily identifiable and versatil enough, giving depth to scenes and performances that wouldn’t achive by themselves. In 2011, Atli Örvarson, also a Zimmer collaborator, wrote the soundtrack for Season of the witch (Dominic Sena, 2011), a film with many points in common to Solomon Kane but totally forgettable. It’s not that Basset film was a great movie, but it’s saved by Badelt’s superior effort.
Although Solomon Kane soundtrack hasn’t been officially released yet, the promotional album circulates on the net. Including only ten tracks (26 minutes of music) without any chronological order, it’s representative enough to make an evaluation. In addition, it includes the track ‘Get her back’, a real cinematographic peak and example of the power of the adecuate music at the right moment to totally transform a scene in memorable, no matter how low the budget was.
Tracklist
1. You must leave us (3:33)
2. Crucifixion part II (3:50)
3. Meredith (3:35)
4. Making camp (1:15)
5. Moving on (2:32)
6. Get her back (3:20)
7. Castle approach (2:34)
8. Father’s story (2:04)
9. Single blow (2:07)
10. Seeking refuge (2:19)
