Research Paper on Orientalism and Exoticism in the Dune Film Score

“Why do all these science fiction movies have european orchestra, orchestral sounds, romantic period tonalities? We’re supposed to be on a different planet, different culture, we’re supposed to be in the future.” Hanz Zimmer, composer of Dune 2021, thought to himself as a child watching science fiction movies.  (Vanity Fair, 2022, 00:57-01:28)

Introduction:

The Hollywood machine is powerful and entertaining. Films can define a generation and influence culture. One of the most important aspects of any film's influence is its music. The 2021 Dune film by Denis Villenueve has now passed $400 million at the global box office. Both the storytelling and soundtrack have garnered awards, nominations, and global appraise. Dune tells the story of a young nobleman, Paul Atreides, who rises to lead a desert army in a battle for control of the planet’s valuable spice. The composer, Hans Zimmer, uses non-western sounds to depict the ‘alien’ planet Arrakis. However, the sounds were not created out of thin air, but rather inspired from neighboring cultures and people that the west has, throughout history, deemed as ‘less human.’ Many sci-fi film composers have used “world music” to create their ‘otherworldly’ soundtracks which begs the question: how has exoticism and orientalism been used in science fiction film soundtracks and what are the socio-cultural/ political ramifications of those musical choices? Orientalism and Exoticism are used in the sci-film score genre, specifically in Dune 2021, to convey “otherworldliness” regardless of the composer's familiarity or awareness with their inspiration and the cultural impacts.

Literature Analysis:

Said establishes the term “orientalism” to describe how the West has portrayed the East/ the “orient”. Said lumps Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East into the category of the “Orient '' and argues how orientalism is inextricably intertwined with imperialism, politics, and in service to power. (Said, 2021.) Exoticism in music is when people, places, and cultural practices are depicted as foreign from the perspective of the composer and/or intended audience. (“Exoticism”, n.d.) Ethnomusicologist Timothy Taylor argues that Exoticism is a vague stylistic label that puts distinctly different composers in the same box and that there is a long history of exoticism in western music. Through imperialism, Europeans created a dominating musical system as they tried to understand themselves in relation to the “other”. Technology and globalization did not change musical interpretations of nonwestern otherness but rather spread them throughout the world. Most music today is operating with the same agreements and understandings of otherness from centuries ago. World music today is most often used to sell something without any relation or authenticity to the traditional practices they come from. Taylor argues that the music taps into old western notions of escaping the ordinary and is used to signify “globalization”. (Taylor, 2007)

In their PHD paper, Evangelos Chouvardas observes how Hollywood is powerful and has historically scored film music to promote orientalism, exoticism, and fetishism of middle eastern people. Hollywood has a lack of depth, understanding, and overall superficiality when it comes to using middle eastern sounds for composition. (Chouvardas, 2022)

Arab representation in Hollywood movies and film scores has not always been so negative. Before 9/11, Hollywood films contained several “negative” and “positive”/ romanticizing stereotypes of the East like in Action in Arabia and Lawrence of Arabia. In recent years, physical and musical representation has become more authentic but only in terrorist films like The Siege, Zero Dark Thirty, or Argo  which have all white male composers. “Arab” and “Muslim” sounds like the oud, ney, and duduk instruments denote “otherness' ' however this unfamiliarity is used to forge associations between fictionalized terrorism and actual aspects of Arab music. Nearly every non-western sound is evil which validates the negative actions and associated sounds of Arab and Muslim characters. The lack of positive uses of Arab representation and sounds reinforce western identity and righteousness. (Woods, 2019) 

In the sci-fi alien film Arrival, the composer Johann Johannson creates an “exotic” sounding score through intervallic relationships, ornamentation, and timbres to evoke fear and unease. When first hearing news of the alien arrival, a low drone tone is used, reminiscent of an Indian tanpura, to convey fear, uncertainty, and curiosity. When the protagonist first meets the aliens, the timbre is reminiscent of a stringed Chinese instrument, the erhu. The score uses the phrygian dominant scale by rising half steps and descending by augmented seconds. Phrygian dominant scales are used in and associated with Arabic/ Egyptian music. The musical alterity induces fear and anxiety for the human characters and thus the audience. Whenever the aliens are present, Johannsson uses non-western chord tones, instruments, non-tonal, ethereal timbres or a disorienting ambient sound to heighten the alien visitors' perceived foreignness. In contrast, distinctly western classical music is used for scenes with humans. When the main character is confronted with heartbreaking memories of her daughter, the string piece by Max Richter “On the Nature of Daylight '' is used to accentuate the human feelings of love and grief. In another scene, the protagonist is at a gala where Antonin Dvorak’s “Larghetto”, of Serenade for Strings in E major, op. 22 plays in the background. The sounds of a violin melody with recognizably Western sonorities creates a dramatic change from Johannsson’s alien music. Guests are seen sipping cocktails, wearing floor length goals which creates an audiovisual combination that evokes western ideals of refinement and sophistication. The “high art” music musically represents the humans while non-western sounds accompany the dangerous, questionable aliens. The score intensifies broader themes that something different or foreign is dangerous or with malintent. (Zalman, 2022)

In Blade Runner, Near East and North African musical cultures are painted as homogenous and negative. Blade Runner is a science fiction film where specialized police find illegal, escaped androids on Earth. Earth is a grimy place where everyone is considered to be a lowlife.  The people are of mostly Chinese, Cambodian, Mexican, or Egyptian descent with snake pit bars associated with Arab countries. In contrast, the robots who are seen as superior, stronger, and more intelligent than humans are all of Caucasian descent. East Asian and Arabic music is heard for Earth scenes as acousmatic sounds. Acousmatic sounds are when one hears the sound without seeing its cause. They give the audience richer detail and understanding of a particular location. East Asian and Arabic music is used like traditional Japanese style singing, the Egyptian zurka/ zuna, and flute/ nay. (Hayward, 2004)

Even when world music is not used to signify negativity, it does denote a sense of “otherness” in science fiction media. Otherness can be defined as a process when a dominant group constructs one or many out-groups (“them”, other) by stigmatizing a real or imagined difference. Otherness can negate identity and be a motive for discrimination. (Staszak, 2008) 

For the sci-fi film Avatar, composer James Horner collaborated with ethnomusicologist Dr. Wanda Bryant to create an integrated and logical  musical culture for the Na’vi creatures. Working with an ethnomusicologist on a film score is unprecedented. Horner told Bryant that he did not want the music to be too recognizable from any culture. He wanted sounds that “no one has heard before'' by which Bryant knew he meant sounds “not recognizable by the average American movie-goer.” Samples were used from Swedish cattle herding calls, sounds of Northeast India, Central Africa, Persian, Arctic Inuit, Traditional Chinese, Celtic, Norwegian, northern California brush dances. The music was a global mash up that evoked “otherness” was described by a Mervyn Cooke in A History of Film Music as “generalized timbral exoticism.” (Bryant, 2012) 

Canadian university professor Scott Dunbar noted how Sanskrit mantras are used in science fiction film industry to evoke a sense of militancy and war rather than peace or tranquility. Dunbar notes how there is a trend in appropriating sounds from other cultures to market a science fiction film as ‘exotic’ or to “spiritualize” the subject as in The Matrix Revolution and Star Wars Episode I - The Phantom Menace. (Dunbar, 2008)

World music is used to evoke “otherness' ' not just in sci-fi films but also in tv and video games. Jonathan Stock, an ethnomusicology professor at the University College Cork noted how orientalism is used to create alien worlds in sci-fi media. Stock analyzed the movie Avatar, World of WarCraft Tv series, and video game Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome. He noticed that  sonic otherness is created while sidestepping the music’s existing geographical and cultural references. Soundtracks are increasingly diverse and allow for representation while also reinvigorating exoticist stereotypes. Musical orientalism reigns strong as Particular subsets of instruments and vocal sonorities are used to create alien worlds. Instruments like folk fiddles, bamboo flutes, duduk, taiko, gamelan, are used to create the “familiar unfamiliar”. Unfortunately, listeners build affiliations with the ‘alien’ sounds and trace them back to their real-world origins. (Stock, 2021)

Music Analysis

Name of Piece: Opening Scene/ Dream of Arrakis

Composer: Hans Zimmer

Date of Publication: September 16, 2021

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzqYZGTC2H8 

The movie starts with a pulsating beat that intensifies and quickens as the violence and native Arrakis people are introduced. One can hear horns, a lilting duduk melody, juddering drums, flutes, and zurnas. Pedro Eustache, a Venezuelan flutist, was commissioned to create a subcontra bass duduk with pvc. Eustache sung vowels into the duduk to create the sound of wind. 

Susanne Grunewald, a music producer and composer, wrote about typical composition tools and techniques for Hollywood sci-fi films. Signature sounds are created through new, advancing technologies and creating new instruments like the duduk Eustache made. These new sounds counteract the cliche and provide new representation for emotions and atmospheres. (Grunewald, 2020) 

In his earlier works like Gladiator, Zimmer used the duduk when the main character arrived in North Africa which is visually similar to the geography and culture in Arrakis. 

When describing the Gladiator scene, Zimmer said 

‘Once we were in Morocco, I wanted it to be really tribal, dirty, and gritty. I always wanted to use this one instrument in the Moroccan sequences called the duduk.” (Walking Trees, 2016, 00:22) Whenever Arrakis is mentioned in Dune, the duduk instrument is used as well as the phrygian scale which western audiences associate with the middle east. Omar Fadel a middle-eastern - american composer, calls the duduks Hollywood’s auditory shorthand for “ethnic instrumentation” 

“It’s funny. I never, prior to 2003 maybe, even heard of the duduk. But after the start of the Iraq war, suddenly anything ethnic, there’s like a duduk with a bunch of reverb on it.” (Baker-Whitelaw, 2021)

Name of Piece: Paul’s Dream

Composer: Hans Zimmer

Date of Publication: September 16, 2021

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdtiYwSP9ko

Paul’s Dream is played or remixed throughout the film whenever Paul Atreides is introduced in a scene, specifically scenes regarding his destiny in Arrakis. The track starts with a silvery D on piano and looming drone in the bass octave. The female voiced lullaby and strings play F, Ab, B, F, Ab, B at 0:32.. When the voice comes in, there is a wash of sound. There is a lot of reverb with different instruments like strings, horns, lute, deep drones to create an atmospheric echo and silvery glisten. There is a whispering chanting, a singer, and At 1:51, there is a classical choir, synthesizer, and juddering drum. At 2:32 the distorted guitar and cello come in. At 4:50, Loire Cotler’s arresting vocals break through the sound and the juddering drums respond. When the drums come in again, they are paired with a pentatonic scale in the bass of an organ. The choir becomes more rhythmic, using primal sounds like “Ha!”. 

By creating instruments and mixing sounds, Zimmer creates an unconventional soundscape. The audience cannot easily recognize or identify what sounds they’re hearing. When the juddering drums come in, there is much less reverb so they sound up front instead of mixed in with the background sounds. The raw, close sound creates an interesting division compared to the rest of the music. The drums cut through the noise like how “the voice” cuts through people’s minds. In the beginning of the film, when the audience first hears Paul use “the voice”, it cuts through and hits the audience. Zimmer plays with the voice in his sound track. Paul using the voice is very important in the plotline and the voices of the women in his life also play a very influential role.

Hans Zimmer said “The true driving force of this novel is always the female characters. It’s really the women that craft the destiny of everybody.”

This sentiment is heard throughout the Dune soundtrack. Zimmer used mystical sounding female choirs and voices to sing, whisper, and chant an invented language. Loire Cotler is a renowned rhythm vocalist who was trained at Berklee for jazz scat. Cotler comes in with a blazing war cry. Her voice is melismatic, ancient, and rhythmic. Cotler said she drew inspiration from Jewish niggun (wordless song), south indian vocal percussion, celtic lament, tuvan overtone singing, and John Coltrane’s saxophone. 

Paul’s Dream uses the double harmonic scale of D, Eb, F, G, A, Bb, Db, D or 1, flat 2, natural/ major 3, 4, 5, flat 6, major 7 which is a double harmonic scale most would describe as an “arabic type” sound. Inside one scale, there is a D major triad, Eb major triad, Eb minor triad, G minor triad, and an F# minor triad. A D and Eb alternate in the bass so the sound can keep alternating between major and minor. Then the audience hears a C minor sound which turns the scale into a phrygian dominant. The music shows the different moving elements of Paul Atreides' character. The bagpipes display his western, nobleman lineage while the middle-eastern mashup of sounds show his involvement with the Fremen people of Arrakis. 

Name of Piece: House Atreides

Composer: Hans Zimmer

Date of Publication: September 16, 2021

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi3na4qTW1o 

This scene is when the Atreides first step foot on their new fief of Arrakis. Atreides are coded as western colonizers with their European physical features, aristocratic costumes, and American accents. Their longtime home was a lush, green world called Caladan (similar to the Scottish word Caledonia) and the name Atreides comes from the ancient Greek language.  

  Throughout the movie, Zimmer uses Middle Eastern and non-western music to create a foreign, gritty, unusual sound to the western ear. However, when the Atreides are first introduced to Arrakis, bagpipes are played. There are bagpipes in Asia and Africa however the sound is typically associated with Europe as it is Scotland’s most iconic instrument and a familiar image of the British military. Villeneuve wanted the Atreides to meet the native people with a “blaze of colonial pageantry” and Zimmer thought bagpipes (1) would do the trick. At first the bagpipes might sound jarring compared to the middle eastern and synth sounds in previous scenes, however as the movie develops it creates interesting world building. Bagpipes are used several times in Dune when marking the arrival or presence of the Atreides. 

Bagpipes1 and drums are used to create a grand, royal entrance for the Atreides on Arrakis. The cadence is also very western as the most used chords are I and V with a diminished db.​ This is different from the harmonic minor and augmented 2nd intervals we hear in other parts of the soundtrack that are not associated with western sound. The music also paints the Atreides a positive, authoritative light with the strong V I cadence.  It is interesting how Zimmer chose instrumentation and cadences for the Atreides that are very recognizable to the western ear. 

1.  “One of the major and more surprising musical moments in “Dune” occurs during a ceremonious arrival on the desert planet Arrakis. The scene is announced with the portentous drone of bagpipes, an aural assault generated by a battalion of 30 highland pipers playing in a converted church in Scotland. Ear protection had to be worn: the volume reached 130 decibels, the equivalent of an air-raid siren.”

(King, 2021)

Name of Piece: Sardaukar Chant and Mobilization Scene 

Composer: Hans Zimmer

Date of Publication: September 16, 2021

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWK3nkJhneE

Half way through the movie, the audience is introduced to the planet Salusa Secondus, homeworld of the elite military force of the Emperor. The book paints the Sardaukar as violent, ruthless, fanatic, and supreme in battle. They are feared across the galaxy.

“The Emperor’s blades. Those who stand against us fall.” (Herbert, 2006)

The scene cuts to a rainy, rugged landscape and then an army in perfect square formation. The colors are grays, blacks, and the blood of the crucified men hanging upside down. The architecture is excessively large, overbearing, made of dark stones and sharp angles to create an air of intimidation. From a purely visual standpoint, this world is brutal. 

And then there are the sounds that create this world. 

The only sounds in this scene are the wind, rain, and throat chant. Throat-singing is used in indigenous groups of Russia, Europe, Japan, South Africa, China, and India but is most commonly associated with the Tuvan people. (Pegg, 2015) For the throat chant, Zimmer overused a recording device to create a “slamming” sound effect. By stretching out each word and slamming it against the compressor, Zimmer made each syllable sound “incredibly dangerous and violent.”  (Vanity Fair, 2022)

Discussion/ Conclusion:

Grunewald wrote their thesis on typical composition tools and techniques for science fiction films in Hollywood. Latest neuroscientific studies have collected proof between music and emotion to confidently state that timbre does affect the perception of emotion. Timbre, rhythm, pulse, and tempo are the main musical elements that produce powerful effects when intentionally and appropriately combined with images. (Grunwald, 62) Zimmer uses harmonic content, timing of tempo cues, and timbre/ sound to shape the reaction to the visuals in Dune.

Hollywood has a substantial impact on shaping cultural portraits. Hollywood not only influences how the world views certain people but how those people view themselves. Many science fiction movies, including Dune, perpetuates colonialist ideologies, fear of the racialized Other, exoticize, or fetishe non-western musical cultures. The homogenization of sonic otherness takes away the uniqueness and beauty of different musical cultures. Authentic musical cultures get lost, misinterpreted, and are never fully acknowledged which creates problems for real-world cross-cultural, interpersonal relationships. 

The music in sci-fi movies use orientalism, exoticism, and make non-western sounds evil or symbolic of the “other”. The music shows how colonial and imperialist impressions have shaped our music and engaging with other life forms. 

In modern day, the U.S and many other western nations struggle with ethical race relations, immigration and foreign policies. 

Dune is unmistakably about colonialism and can easily be interpreted as an allegory for oil consumption/ wars in the Middle East. Unlike the 1980s Dune, Villeneuve’s Dune seems to be aware of the 21st century landscape we live in involving the global war on terror. The Middle East and Africa is exotic, mysterious, beautiful however its people and traditions are deadly and westerners (predominantly white people) are their saviors. Hollywood sci-fi film scores like Dune reinforce western identity and righteousness. 

The uglier foundings of the United States of America have roots in colonization and white supremacy. America, as we know it today, is powerful and much of its success has come utilizing the same means in which it was founded. This conversation is vast and this paper is not able to go into thorough depth on the subject.

 After World War II, America for reasons good, bad, and “all shades in between” took on the role of the world police and a world power. In order to secure this position and keep the money/ power rolling in, large scale oil production in the middle east took off after 1945. In some instances, America would force their leadership on these countries for the sake of “democracy” and personal agendas/ profit however it did not always bode well for the people in those countries. America was also making oil on its own land however in 2020, because of policy change with the Biden administration and covid, oil production in the U.S ceased which deepened our dependence on the middle east for oil. Now middle eastern countries compete to produce cheap oil for America. 

Dune was produced around the same time that America deepened its dependency on oil. Did the film score in the majorly popular film influence people’s perception of the Middle East and thus on foreign policies? Film composers have influence and should wield that power wisely. Film composers have a responsibility to thoroughly evaluate the kinds of messages they send and how it influences the real world. 

“The moment we recognize to what degree film music shapes our perception of a narrative, we can no longer consider it incidental or ‘innocent’” (Gorbman, 1980, pp. 183) 

Money is a motivator in Hollywood. Production companies use “tried and true” formulas to ensure favorable reception, mass distribution, and lots of money being made. Genre cliches are created as musical ideas are continually recycled. However because of continuous exposure to new sounds like through electronic music, popular music, video games, advertisements, and contemporary film scores, the general public embraces sounds which were “considered noise a mere hundred years ago” (Grunewald, 2020) which proves that audiences are accommodating, flexible, and change may be profitable. 

In her work on Avatar, Bryant realized that ethnomusicologists aiding film score composers may lead to more musical awareness and cultural sensitivity of the American film audience and composers. Through experimentation, Chouvadres discovered that one can implement “exotic” sounds in more realistic, authentic, and creative ways. Through awareness of orientalism and exoticism in film scores, composers can implement change for healthier cross-cultural relationships and a better future. 

Bryant , W., & Landau, J. (2012). Creating the music of the Na’vi in James Cameron’s avatar: An Ethnomusicologist’s role. ethnomusicologyreview.ucla.edu. https://ethnomusicologyreview.ucla.edu/journal/volume/17/piece/583  

Chouvardas, E. (2022). Ethnic Roots and the Hollywood Sound: A Musical Experimentation in Time and Tradition. British Library EThOS https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.862862

Dunbar, S. D. (2008). Orientalism in outer-space: The ascendancy of Sanskrit mantras in Hollywood science fiction films and soundtracks. Journal for the Academic Study of Religion, 21(3), 366–385. https://doi.org/10.1558/jasr.v21i3.366   

Gorbman, C. (1980). Narrative Film Music. Yale French Studies, 60, 183–203. https://doi.org/10.2307/2930011

Grunewald, S. (2020). Exploration of sound-based music composition tools and techniques for hollywood style and science fiction films. De Montfort University. Doctoral thesis https://core.ac.uk/reader/475645796

Staszak, J-F. (2008). Other/otherness. International Encyclopedia of Human Geography.  https://www.unige.ch/sciences-societe/geo/files/3214/4464/7634/OtherOtherness.pdf

Stock, J. P. J. (2021). Scoring alien worlds: World music mashups in 21st century sci-fi and fantasy TV, film and video games. Malaysian Journal of Music, 10(2), 13–28. https://doi-org.proxy006.nclive.org/10.37134/mjm.vol10.2.2.2021 

Woods, G. (2019). Adventure, Intrigue, and Terror: Arabs and the Middle East in Hollywood Film Music. Honor Scholar Theses, 129. https://scholarship.depauw.edu/studentresearch/129 

Zalman, P. (2022). Colonial Encounters, Alien Languages, and the Exotic Music of Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival. In Sonic identity at the Margins (pp. 151–162). essay, Bloomsbury Academic . 

Cooke, Mervyn. 2008. A History of Film Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hayward, P. (Ed.). (2004). Off the planet: Music, sound and science fiction cinema. Libbey.

Said, Edward W. Orientalism. Penguin, 2021.

Taylor, T. D. (2007). Beyond exoticism: Western music and the world. Duke University Press.

Primary Sources: 

Herbert, F. (2006). Dune. Hodder Paperback.

Villeneuve, D. (Director) (2021) Dune [Film] Warner Bros. Pictures. Legendary Pictures Production. 

Villeneuve, D., Herbert, B., & Lapointe, T. (2021). The art and soul of Dune. Insight Editions.

Other Sources:

Pegg, C. (2015, December 15). throat-singing. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/art/throat-singing 

King, Darryn. “How Hans Zimmer Conjured the Otherworldly Sounds of ‘Dune.’” The New York Times, The New York Times, 22 Oct. 2021, www.nytimes.com/2021/10/22/movies/hans-zimmer-dune.html 

Baker-Whitelaw, Gavia. “Inside the Middle Eastern Influences of Hans Zimmer’s ‘dune’ Score.” The Daily Dot, 3 Nov. 2021, www.dailydot.com/unclick/dune-music-middle-east-hans-zimmer/ 

Walking Trees. (2016, April 16) Hans Zimmer about Djivan Gasparyun and armenian duduk [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iK5Yh85Hbcc 

Exoticism. (n.d.). Obo. Retrieved December 13, 2023, from https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780199757824/obo-9780199757824-0123.xml#:~:text=In%20much%20of%20the%20extensive

Vanity Fair. (2022, March 17). How ‘dune’ composer Hans Zimmer created the oscar-winning score - vanity fair [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93A1ryc-WW0&t=1s