Dream Is Collapsing By Hans Zimmer

Hans Zimmer is a German born composer and music producer who is recognized as one of the most influential and innovative musical talents. He is the head of the film music division at DreamWorks studios, and works with other composers through the company that he founded, Remote Control Productions. Raised and educated mainly in England, he has no formal musical education; he says the most he ever got was about "two weeks of piano lessons." Nevertheless, he took an early interest in electronic musical synthesizers in the 1970s, when these were large, bulky analog devices programmed usually by means of patch cords and individual oscillator settings. For nearly three decades Zimmer has composed music for over 100 films including some critically
acclaimed film scores, such as The Lion King, Gladiator and The Dark Knight. Some of his recent compositions for motion pictures are Sherlock Holmes (2009), Inception (2010), Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011). Being nominated numerous times for all of his compositions he has won one Academy Award for the Lion King and two Grammy Awards throughout his career.
In the movie Inception the main credit music that is called “Dream is Collapsing” gives an overall sense of drama for the movie.
This piece of music is actually a piece of an old song called, Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien by Edith Piaf. Hans Zimmer used this piece of music by slowing down the song. The music tends to be slow and continuously fades in and out in order to create a sense of drama. The slow music is linked with constant beats of percussion accompanied by an orchestra to give the movie a sense of mysterious yet thriller feeling. It has a moving bass with insistent notes forming an ostinato pattern. This just grows organically with different instruments entering, some changes of tone and more brass chords. Repeated sections of low violins creates a dark and mysterious undertone to the scene it is played with. However, because Inception is a film with many sub genres other than thriller, the music must accommodate themes and genres such as mystery and action all in one piece. Fast drumbeats behind strong violins suggest a fast paced action scene and often fit with things like explosions happening on screen. Trumpets can be heard at certain points and suggest danger due to their deep notes. As the beats get faster and faster the excitement increases as the audience awaits the next scene from unfolding. The rapid change of pace of each instrument and the change from one instrument to another depict the urgency of the film and the action and the overall sense of drama it’s
trying to support.
“Mombasa” is a music cue that uses a mickey-mousing technique to follow the action, and at times the percussion is faster than the actual action on the screen. The music is at first extremely fast, sounds very urgent, and the audience can feel the danger. "Mombasa" changes the tone almost like a dance track. It has a beat plus percussive thumps very much reflecting an escalation of the actions sequences on the screen. When the actor finds a café to hide in, the music gets softer which suggests that he is temporarily safe, but still with that sense of urgency with the fast playing strings suggesting that there is still danger in the men finding him. When the men find him, the music returns to being louder and faster. At the end of the cue the excitement and urgency increases with low-end trombone/French horn sounds. When the actor gets into the car and is finally safe from the enemies, the music completely dies down altogether. This cue supports the action and at times elevates its emotions by the fast beats of the percussion.