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Always a pleasure, @Univex
I think there's a really narrow view on both sides of what Bond should sound like. There's a perfectly flexible approach in the middle, one that other composers have already availed of in the series' history already. I don't see it as a simple case of either copying Barry's "sound" or not. There's more to it than that. It wasn't solely Barry's sound that made the Bond scores iconic to many, it was the sound coupled with a smart structure that, when it worked at its best, complimented a wonderful title song and made it stand out from the run of the mill soundtracks of its peers. A new potential composer can easily bring a new sound to that structure and make it seem Bondian, like Martin did. Like Hamlisch did. Like Conti did. Like Arnold (to many, at least) did.
It's fine to love the Barry sound. I love it too and will always welcome it when it's done well. I appreciate that there are some who are concrete in their association of it with Bond, as was I growing up. But I think Barry's true Bond legacy is that other thing......structure.
Which is why I wasn't exactly against Romer when he was hired. I had faith that he could bring his own thing to NTTD while it would remain true to the series.
But I also have faith in the filmmaker's decisions. And if they've decided to boot him, then they have their reasons.
An interesting way of looking at it. You're right, we'll never know for sure. But this is certainly a feasible scenario. As talented as Fukanaga is (and he really is), I'm sure the IT situation was a learning curve for him.
There is also the QOS cross-over of "You Know My Name" and the similar sounding melody of the David Arnold song "No Good About Goodbye" that is strung through the soundtrack.
I don't expect the song integration into the score either based on the recent change-ups, of course it's always welcome.
@talos7, it will be interesting if the background maneuverings are revealed eventually. Including demo tracks from Dan Romer and any other contenders of course.
You are taking this too literally. An actor can have similar attributes to Connery without going the full Scottish impersonation parody. Lazenby was similar in persona to Connery - tough looking, tall, dark hair, dark eyes, deep voice. Someone who looks physically imposing, threatening, a person you wouldn't want to mess with in real life.
Even Idris Elba reminds me of certain attributes to Connery, and he is a different skin colour.
It is more to do with looking for an actor that embodies the same style that Connery had, including the looks too. And this would typically be - tall, dark eyes, dark hair, deep voice, tough looking, charismatic, sexy. Typical alpha male attributes that an actor carries with him off screen as well as on screen.
It was a meant as a joke, but you obviously took it literally, whereas others recognised I was being humorous. Next time I'll put a smiley or wink after such a comment, in case it gets misinterpreted again...
;)
Here I agree with you. Since Babs took over the reigns, composer and singer being tied has becoming increasingly less important for EON. Arnold has tried to do this in the past, usually with discarded songs that are lucky if they end up on end credits, but occasionally managed to land the gig to write the main song too.
;))
Doubtful. Newman didn’t seem to have much or any input into Adele/Radiohead/Smith; Arnold only slightly into White and I doubt he picked him. Cornell is the exception, and then before that there was Madonna... and now we’ve gone back nearly twenty years.
Do you think the composer and main song are related?
Anyway, someone on Zimmer's site appears to be confidently claiming Wallfisch has bagged it, with Zimmer's involvement supposedly unclear.
When you say "I appreciate you sticking to your guns though" it feels very much a patronising head-pat: 'no you're wrong you silly little thing, but well done you for trying'. Hope that clears it up for you ;)
I also wouldn't say it's hypothetical that Barry would give his scores a flavour of the plot of the movie: YOLT is very Far East-tinged in many places.
My original point was that he "got as close as we’ve seen to trying to do a Barry score"- I didn't say he had copied him.
Bond score/Barry sound: in this context there's not much difference. In 1973 there was only the Barry sound when it came to Bond- I don't think George Martin redefined it. Other composers after him did (including Barry himself of course in the 70s and 80s) but here he's very much following the template set up by Barry and Barry alone, adding in a fashionable New Yorky funk and soul taste to suit the movie's plot, and very much taking the lead from McCartney's song (which as a side issue, is probably the most important a song composer has been to the film's score).
As per my original point, I don't think we've had another composer following Barry's lead quite as closely as he did.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. In 1972 there were seven James Bond scores you could listen to: if you're going to make an 'unmistakably Bond score' then you're going to draw a bit of inspiration from those. Are you saying he changed it into something new?
They did manage it, but you'd really not say that LALD is closer in instrumentation, style, melody to a Barry score than TSWLM? Hamlisch himself dips into a little Barry with the Liparus cue (it even has a little bit of Barry-ish discordance) but that's really the extent of it, giving the rest of the film his own interpretation. I'd say that Martin's interpretation (and I don't want to imply he was rubbish: he was clearly a bit of a genius) was to take the Barry sound, add in a soul and funk flavour, and use a lot of McCartney's song. Later composers did a lot more of their own thing, possibly even because Barry had started to move it away from the 60s style and it had opened up.
Gee thanks for explaining that in a non-condescending way :D
I think actually structure is one way he does deviate from Barry a little more. It's much less romantic than a lot of Barry's scores and he introduces his own secondary theme which runs throughout the film (such as in 'Bond to New York') which he uses for a variety of types of scene, not just action or romance, as Barry would use his themes.
Thanks for that. Lots of rumours swirling around here! If the MI6 report was the one that mentioned Arnold doing Rhythm Section isn't it also the one that mentioned Romer's next film too? Pinches of salt all round! :)
No, Wendy's info is on this web: http://filmmusicreporter.com/2019/12/25/dan-romer-scoring-benh-zeitlins-wendy/
No mention of NTTD...
Ah thanks. I guess it's possible that the website missed that off: it'd be more interesting to see the actual press release they took it from.
Still, it is interesting there's no mention of NTTD on his own website: http://danromer.com/
Obviously they might not have updated it yet, but I feel like you would, wouldn't you? I had a quick look on the Wayback Machine and as far as I can tell it was never on there.
Is it reliable?
I do like Benjamin Wallfisch.
Yeah it would be striking and confident, and different to what we've had before, which I'd be happy with.
Indeed it does. Part of the supposed reason Wallfisch and Zimmer did Blade Runner was precisely to bring the score closer to Vangelis' work and in interviews they definitely spoke about the importance of honouring that musical legacy and the steps they have taken to achieve that (eg using the same synthesisers etc). And Bond of course faces a similar conundrum with every film...maybe, if Wallfisch is indeed scoring, 2049 was the reference point.
Yeah, of course...that's my point. Zimmer paid Homage to Vangelis in Blade Runner 2049....but Michael Kamen's score in LTK sounding like Barry?....Ummmm, I don't know...am not too sure it does. I believe fans really missed Barry in LTK. After Barry delivered one of the best Bond scores in TLD.