美国国家公共电台 NPR 25 Years After Scoring 'The Lion King,' Hans Zimmer Returns To Pride Rock

 

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

The version of "The Lion King" that's out today features photo-realistic animals and celebrity¹ voices. There's Beyonce, John Oliver, Donald Glover. There are also some things familiar to fans of the original Disney film. Composer Hans Zimmer won an Oscar for that score. He has returned to Pride Rock, and as Tim Greiving reports, he's brought along collaborators new and old.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CIRCLE OF LIFE")

LEBO M: (Chanting in foreign language).

TIM GREIVING, BYLINE²: That's South African musician Lebo M. singing the iconic proclamation that opened the original "Lion King" in 1994.

LEBO M: I didn't even know anything about the movie. I just knew that it's something to do with conflict between a father and a brother that has a son in it - no detail.

GREIVING: Composer Hans Zimmer called on Lebo M. to help bring some cultural authenticity³ to this animated⁴ movie about lions.

LEBO M: I noticed the image of Mufasa. And my entire system went to, what happens when a important person in my country, my culture walks in? What happens when a king walks in? The musicality of my thought became (speaking foreign language) - then it translates to all hail the king. All bow down in the presence of the king.

GREIVING: Lebo M. fled apartheid-era South Africa in 1979 when he was 16. He eventually moved to LA in hopes of being a superstar but ended up living on skid⁵ row. A few years later, he was working as a coffee gofer for a music producer, which is where he met Zimmer. "The Lion King" felt personal.

LEBO M: I am the Simba, at this point, who grows up in exile. I don't go back home to take over the country, but I go back home a professional. And Mufasa, to me, becomes immediately the image of Nelson Mandela.

GREIVING: Heavy subtext for a Disney cartoon, but there's a seriousness that anchors the whole score.

(SOUNDBITE OF HANS ZIMMER'S "REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE")

GREIVING: Hans Zimmer, who is best known for grown-up movies like "Rain Man" and "Backdraft," originally took the job for two reasons.

HANS ZIMMER: I didn't like Disney musicals. And then they were going, great, that's exactly what we want. We don't want somebody who wants to do what we did before.

GREIVING: The other reason? His little girl.

ZIMMER: It wasn't for my daughter. It was for her dad because every dad wants to show off. I thought, oh, no, this will be good. It'll be a cartoon. It'll be funny. It'll be harmless. It's about fuzzy animals. And I didn't realize it was profoundly going to go and hit me in a really hard way because my dad died when I was 6 years old, which was her age.

GREIVING: In "The Lion King," Mufasa, the king of Pride Rock, tragically⁶ dies saving his son Simba from a wildebeest stampede. The rest of the movie is about how Simba deals with that.

ZIMMER: There I was, and the only way I could go and write the score was to open those deep and dark boxes and let all the darkness out.

(SOUNDBITE OF HANS ZIMMER'S "MUFASA DIES")

ZIMMER: Don't ever talk down to the children, they'll catch you at it. Be sincere. Be absolutely genuine. Be absolutely legitimate⁷ about this. Let's not make things easier. Let's not be funny for, like, the wrong reasons. At the same time, you know, the genius of the film is that you go from death of the father to fart jokes.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE LION KING")

NATHAN LANE: (As Timon) Pumbaa, not in front of the kids.

ERNIE SABELLA: (As Pumbaa) Oh, sorry.

GREIVING: Zimmer won his first and only Oscar for that score. When Disney asked him to score the hyper-realistic remake, he knew he wanted a fresh musical justification⁸. That's when he saw a video online of the Re-Collective Orchestra, a new all-black orchestra co-founded by Stephanie Matthews. They formed last year to record their own arrangement of the Kendrick Lamar and Sza track "All The Stars" from "Black Panther."

(SOUNDBITE OF RE-COLLECTIVE ORCHESTRA PERFORMANCE OF KENDRICK LAMAR AND SZA'S "ALL THE STARS")

SZA: (Singing) All the stars are closer. All the stars are closer. All the stars are closer.

STEPHANIE MATTHEWS: We were really inspired by "Black Panther." And so when the film came out, we decided⁹ to kind of do a concept piece. What would the orchestra of Wakanda look like?

GREIVING: Matthews as a session violinist and strings¹⁰ contractor¹¹, and she met Hans Zimmer in 2014 when she accompanied Pharrell Williams on "Saturday Night Live." But she was shocked when he emailed her saying he'd seen the video and wanted Re-Collective to play on the new "Lion King."

MATTHEWS: He was really, really passionate¹² about the diversity and representation of having these musicians collaborate¹³ with the LA session musicians, who are extraordinary players, and just elevate the level of this project.

GREIVING: Hans Zimmer's new "Lion King" score was recorded at Sony Studios in April. Many present, with decades between them, said it was the most diverse film-scoring session ever.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE")

UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST: (Singing, unintelligible)

ZIMMER: I was going for diversity. And then as soon as everybody started playing and sitting next to each other, it became this amazing thing which wasn't diversity at all. It was a unity¹⁴.

GREIVING: So even if you're fatigued¹⁵ by these endless remakes of classic Disney movies, it's hard to be mad when it sounds like this.

For NPR News, I'm Tim Greiving.

1 celebrity   

n.名人，名流；著名，名声，名望

参考例句：

• Tom found himself something of a celebrity. 汤姆意识到自己已小有名气了。
• He haunted famous men, hoping to get celebrity for himself. 他常和名人在一起, 希望借此使自己获得名气。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 authenticity   

n.真实性

参考例句：

• There has been some debate over the authenticity of his will. 对于他的遗嘱的真实性一直有争论。
• The museum is seeking an expert opinion on the authenticity of the painting. 博物馆在请专家鉴定那幅画的真伪。

4 animated   

adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的

参考例句：

• His observations gave rise to an animated and lively discussion.他的言论引起了一场气氛热烈而活跃的讨论。
• We had an animated discussion over current events last evening.昨天晚上我们热烈地讨论时事。

5 skid   

v.打滑 n.滑向一侧；滑道 ，滑轨

参考例句：

• He braked suddenly,causing the front wheels to skid.他突然剎车，使得前轮打了滑。
• The police examined the skid marks to see how fast the car had been travelling.警察检查了车轮滑行痕迹，以判断汽车当时开得有多快。

6 tragically   

adv. 悲剧地，悲惨地

参考例句：

• Their daughter was tragically killed in a road accident. 他们的女儿不幸死于车祸。
• Her father died tragically in a car crash. 她父亲在一场车祸中惨死。

7 legitimate   

adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法

参考例句：

• Sickness is a legitimate reason for asking for leave.生病是请假的一个正当的理由。
• That's a perfectly legitimate fear.怀有这种恐惧完全在情理之中。

8 justification   

n.正当的理由；辩解的理由

参考例句：

• There's no justification for dividing the company into smaller units. 没有理由把公司划分成小单位。
• In the young there is a justification for this feeling. 在年轻人中有这种感觉是有理由的。

9 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

10 strings   

n.弦

参考例句：

• He sat on the bed,idly plucking the strings of his guitar.他坐在床上，随意地拨着吉他的弦。
• She swept her fingers over the strings of the harp.她用手指划过竖琴的琴弦。

11 contractor   

n.订约人，承包人，收缩肌

参考例句：

• The Tokyo contractor was asked to kick $ 6000 back as commission.那个东京的承包商被要求退还6000美元作为佣金。
• The style of house the contractor builds depends partly on the lay of the land.承包商所建房屋的式样，有几分要看地势而定。

12 passionate   

adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的

参考例句：

• He is said to be the most passionate man.据说他是最有激情的人。
• He is very passionate about the project.他对那个项目非常热心。

13 collaborate   

vi.协作，合作；协调

参考例句：

• The work gets done more quickly when we collaborate.我们一旦合作，工作做起来就更快了。
• I would ask you to collaborate with us in this work.我们愿意请你们在这项工作中和我们合作。

14 unity   

n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调

参考例句：

• When we speak of unity,we do not mean unprincipled peace.所谓团结，并非一团和气。
• We must strengthen our unity in the face of powerful enemies.大敌当前，我们必须加强团结。

15 fatigued   

adj. 疲乏的

参考例句：

• The exercises fatigued her. 操练使她感到很疲乏。
• The President smiled, with fatigued tolerance for a minor person's naivety. 总统笑了笑，疲惫地表现出对一个下级人员的天真想法的宽容。