What if Goldeneye had an amazing score?

goldenswissroyale

DarthDimi wrote: »

True! I have yet to hear a Barry score that doesn't bring the magic. Whatever my thoughts on TMWTGG, the score for that film is simple but effective and bloody good. The thought that Barry put it all together in, what, 3 weeks or so?, makes it all the more fantastic. Barry's scores also elevate weaker or stranger Bond films to a higher level. Where would the likes of DAF or MR be without the Barry magic? And Kevin Costner got lucky with Dances With Wolves. It's a great film as-is, but Barry's score makes it perfect.

As for GE, I'm sure a Barry score would have made the film "lovelier" but it would also have made the film different. And that's something I'm not sure I'd want. Example: Onatopp's little car chase game with Bond. Okay, that's some weird 'new age' funky stuff--almost undefinable. But here are these two larger-than-life characters in their supercars under a beautiful sun in one of the most enigmatic places in all of Europe. And this isn't serious stuff; this is about Bond playfully showing off the size of his ... engine. Technically, it's also the first time we see James Bond in the 1990s. The music makes that time-jump literal. It screams "wild '90s" to me. And lest we forget, when the night falls and Bond goes a little more into "spy mode", Serra brings a pretty Barryesque suite to the iconic casino scene. Right there and then he's telling us that we needn't worry, it's still Bond alright.

But when the Tyger gets stolen and the Severnaya thriller begins, electronic music emphasises the "high-tech" nature of the story. Let's not forget that Arnold went there too, in DAD for example. That score is replete with artificial sound effects, weird remixes of orchestral pieces and techno beats, especially when there's some super-techy stuff on the screen. Serra simply did it first. And I, for one, like his almost surreal music.

Let's zoom in on the final act of the film. Xenia kicks Bond's ass. I have no name for what Serra does there, but Bond really does get his ass kicked and the music underlines that perfectly. Yet then we see the dish coming out of the water, and Serra brings a slow, synthetic "march" that stresses the threatening and imposing nature of this installation, not entirely unlike the music Hamlish wrote to get us really frightened of the Liparus as a metallic monster in TSWLM. Once inside the dish installation, when all the dangerous computer stuff begins, dark and thunderous sounds take over, suggesting that this is serious business and Bond is facing off against one of the toughest adversaries ever. But when Alec goes after him like a madman, the music hits like lightening when a steel door slams shut and Bond finds himself a fleeing and open target for Alec's loud bullets. The GoldenEye re-entering our atmosphere is not a particularly speedy event and so neither does the music falsely suggest "ACTION!"; instead, it's a moderately rhythmic musical "pounding of the heart" that ends on the villain's failure. And when Alec sees that Bond has chosen the mission over the friend and, in fact, has a pretty effective and (on all accounts) delicious ally coming to his rescue, the soft synth that parallels the quiet sound of the wind high atop the antenna brings relief like a cold afternoon breeze on a hot summer day. The grand apotheosis comes with the explosion of the antenna and Bond's leap of victory onto the helicopter, a moment Serra effectively captures with a bit of heroic over-exposition, but nothing that lasts long enough to overstay its welcome. Lastly, some soft romantic tunes segue comfortably into TEOL, which brings one of my favourite Bond films to its close as end titles start rolling.

Granted, a lot of GE's score relies on sounds and short cues rather than on whistle-along melodies and warm compositions. But somehow, that fits the first computer-era Bond, like DOS commandos being inserted cold and matter-of-factly over a flickering cursor--in stark contrast to when we wrote polite memos and consulted dusty books. The Cold War is over, the film says, and we know it is. But not just because of Brosnan. Many elements in the film make that clear, but few as effectively as Serra's score. While TND returned to the "private villains" of old, giving Arnold an opportunity to go brassy and symphonic once again, GE wasn't necessarily going for warmth and tongue-in-cheek fun. It's a thriller, a somewhat more serious film than most of the Bonds, a film that makes the gap between LTK and this new Bond pretty in-your-face. Would any of the previous Bonds have shown Bond mowing down countless Russian soldiers in cold blood the way he does in GE? Or make Ourumov's pursuit of Bond in the library such a tense scene? The only time this film gets playful is during the tank chase, and so I guess it was the right choice to deviate from Serra's composition for that specific scene alone. But that one slip-up of Serra's notwithstanding, I am a staunch defender of his work for GE. If most other Bond films are warm wood or beautiful marble, GE is strong but cold steel. I doubt any other score would have intensified that feeling the way Serra's score did.

Perfect comment. Thanks for this. I'm looking forward to my next watch of GE even more now.

RogueAgent

The MI6 podcast watch along to this movie was hilarious. As snippets of Serra's score was introduced at random moments. :))

mattjoes

Cool to hear Yannick Zenhäusern scoring GoldenEye 25 in the classic Serra style.

https://twitter.com/YannickZen/status/1271904430498156545

GadgetMan

mattjoes wrote: »

Cool to hear Yannick Zenhäusern scoring GoldenEye 25 in the classic Serra style.

https://twitter.com/YannickZen/status/1271904430498156545

Cool....Eric Serra's Bond style Indeed.

mtm

Is that another remake of the video game?

mattjoes

Yes.