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I fear that if Mendes comes back, so will Newman. Sam seems to get into comfort zones with people for different things and it also appears that Newman is his "house composer".
I'd also prefer Arnold to return and if not, then someone else other than Newman. And I'd add Arnold's first effort in TND (and a better first Bond effort than Newman's) to CR and QOS as Arnold soundtracks that are not only more memorable than SF, but also sound more Bondian. Newman's good stuff in SF isn't demonstrably better than Arnold's except for in a technical sense, and that doesn't replace feel and emotional content. Being a musician I can understand those who say Newman is better simply because he's more technical, but on that premise alone it's just musical snobbery.
And then there's the Barry dilemma. Some people think that no one other than Barry should be allowed to deliver "Bondian" music in the vein he created. Whereas I am one of those who appreciates someone who creates Bondian music yet tries to add something of themselves, hence Arnold with techno, and something you also hear Newman doing. So could it be conjectured that maybe, just maybe, Newman followed a little of Arnold's lead, which came from Barry in the first place? Or does 11 Academy nominations, mostly garnered because his family are Hollywood elite which makes many of those noms more of a political deal than recognition of the actual music in question, trump that?
Where are they? I always made a point of being a fan of Arnold´s music. I never compared him to Barry. I never hailed him as any "second coming".
If you talk about amusing, then it would be more amusing that lots of people complained that Arnold´s Bond scores were bland and generic, yet Newman is overly praised, even though his Bond score is the blandest and ost generic one in Bond history.
All originality is of no use if the score doesn´t come to some conclusion overall. If I listen to Brian Tyler´s Iron Man 3 score for example, Tyler may be on the one-dimensional side, but that score at least is a clear statement, standing proud and strong.
I couldn't whistle a single theme from this score right know, let alone in 5 years but that doesn't mean it isn't the best Bond score in decades. Great, modern scores are not about tunes that you can whistle.
I don't think you'll easily find someone here, or even a review anywhere, claiming Kamen's work on LTK is amongst the great ones. He has the excuse of being a very late replacement brought in because Barry had to go under surgery. I take it from you as a snobbery of liking Kamen basically because he's not Arnold...
Sorry but if you can't remember any of the score than that's a bad thing imo. A "great, modern score" shouldn't be forgettable.
Lumping two different groups of people into one there.
Wow, careful here. I have never said that I don''t like David Arnold! Never. I actually liked his first score for TND a lot. And to a lesser extend I also liked TWINE. But from there on it went downhill if you ask me.
I do agree with you that Kamen wasn''t the best, but taste is something subjective as you know. For LTK I think the rougher edged sound of Kamen was way more effective. On the whole I actually meant to say: I think Thomas Newman's score for 'Skyfall' has been the most effective Bond music ride since the late 1980's. Focus on that sentence.
Moreover, let''s talk about Barry''s work for TLD. I think no one truly matched that score, quality-wise. The closest person approaching that kind of craftmanship IMO is Thomas Newman.
Because the scene is Bond being chauffeured through London, a city that some pundits in recently years have pejoratively dubbed 'Londonistan?' One of the most multicultural cities in Europe?
As a born-and-bred Hackneyite (Hackney being a suburb in the the traditionally poorer East End) - the New Digs makes perfect sense. Same goes for the Mid-Eastern influences in Quartermaster, Train Jump, Healthy & Safety, Granbrough Road and the second half of Enquiry.
BTW Gustav - if you like the strings in Health & Safety - listen to Bernard Herrmann's scores for PSYCHO, CAPE FEAR and OBSESSION.
For me, Newman's score was a refreshing change from Arnold's crash bang wallop approach to scoring Bond movies. The Skyfall score had mood, atmosphere, a sense of place. Arnold admits that if he runs out of ideas he just uses the James Bond Theme.
Skyfall is a great score that shows what is possible when you don't have a composer who is continually trying to recreate John Barry's sound for the iphone generation.
Thanks Shark! I will look into it. I hope it is as subtle and multi-layered as Thomas Newman''s work. Is Bernard Herrmann still active btw?
Stupid! I just looked into it on IMDB. His last movie apparently was 'Taxi Driver'. And he won an Oscar. Thomas Newman is also part of a big music family. His father was the late Alfred Newman: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000055/. He won an incredible amount of Oscars, 9 in total. His efforts for 'Camelot' (1967) are wunderful as well.
Completely agree, every time I watch Skyfall I enjoy his score more, Mendes actually points out the Herrmann's influence on Newman's score in the commentary, sue me I liked it more than any of Arnold's bar QOS, his last Bond score showed he was starting to make his own identity.
So if Sam gets TN back that's no problem with me plus it amusing listening to certain people getting their knickers in a twist about it, the disbelief displayed by some about is Oscar nom is also greatly entertaining.
To me it sounds as an explanation for explanation sake, frankly. I don't think there's any actual explanation of this kind, but I just wanted to see if someone would try to answer. Turns out it didn't come from some of the most vocal Newman fans here (although I suspect some "Newman fans" here only know Skyfall score from him ! )
Wow, so you're a "true movie music fan" who writes a 1200 word essay on why no one here understand Newman genius because we, poor souls, only love "easy action music", and in the same time who has yet to hear some Bernard Herrman music ? Why don't you just write you're interested in it and willing to learn, instead of talking like giving some masterclass ? Check the score of THE BIRDS then, and take some inspiration from it :)
Oh I'm a vocal Newman fan alright, just not not here. :)
He died in 1975.
As for Newman I've heard his work plenty of times before Skyfall, as for these great Arnold scores TND for instance, pretty much all of his Brosnan era relies on the Bond theme, it was only when he had to work without cueing it up every minutes with the CR score he actually started to make his own identity, QOS saw an ever better improvement but that was his fifth Bond score, he has his fans but he's been trying to get it right for so long and his fans keep saying he's getting there.
Newman's not to everyone's taste but I heard something refreshing in his score and yes maybe there was some Arnold influence, I did hear Barry for sure but it wasn't some pale copy or like that truly awful Sky Plane sequence from CR nothing Newman did dropped to that level of lazy pastiche.
As for his score containing lots of pounding percussion I can't say I noticed it like I do with an Arnold score, I found his Skyfall one very subtle at times, some of the moments like the cue from M standing in front of the Coffins or one as Bond and M enter Scotland are some of the most haunting I've heard in a Bond film for years. No his score is not perfect and at times a little nondescript but Arnold's no stranger to that kind of thing.
Remember that there is one track that is played during the credits called "Adrenaline", that may have been the ending track otherwise.
I do have one wonder about the soundtrack though, am i the only one who can't find a similarity between Adeles "Skyfall" and the track "Komodo Dragon"? They sound nothing a like..
According to filmtracks.com, this Komodo Dragon track was recorded after the rest of the score so Newman could use the Adele song at least "somewhere".
And as for Gustavs comments about Nicholas Dodd, the man is a fantastic conductor. The material himself and Arnold produced for Stargate and Independence Day are far better than anything Newman will ever produce. Fabulous scores.
I actually want the Bond theme throughout a Bond film. I want all kinds of lovely music, weaving in the theme song, too; but yeah, I've got to have my Bond theme.
Dammit, you fool. You haven't read the whole post huh? I welcome any suggestions from any other poster. I openly admit that after checking IMDB he died already in 1976. I start downloading immediately his stuff, and all YOU can do is picking out that one sentence and make me ridiculous for no apparent reason this time.
I think if you listen to today's movie composers, from Michael Giacchino to Hans Zimmer, from John Williams to James Horner, from Alexandre Desplat to Danny Elfman and from John Powell to....Thomas Newman, you hear it's in essence a more common development. Today's movie scores don't have melody or theme statements like John Barry always used. Movie music today is indeed more atmospheric.
And it's important for Bond music to continue the tradition of melody based scores when everything around theme is reduced to merely atmospheric noise. That is THE Bond sound that Barry established. And of the composers you mentioned, Giacchino, Horner, Williams and Elfman are probably the most melodic composers around right now. Giacchino's music for Star Trek, Mission Impossible and in particular The Incredibles all feature fantastic, developed melodies - The Incredibles being the perfect homage to the Barry Bond style.
It's just not entirely true that Thomas Newman isn't composing great melodies. I think the art is to compose melodies that BOTH enhance the atmosphere, the specific tension of a scene AND that are easy enough to whistle with. I think two of Newman's examples you can find here down below:
But please don't attribute 'problems of lack of melody' to Thomas Newman himself. Ever since 'GoldenEye', the Bond producers have separated the development of the James Bond title theme and the production of the entire music score. John Barry always had the possibility to do both. And David Arnold effectively had two times the possibility to incorparate the melody of his own composed Bond title song in the music score: 'Tomorrow Never Dies' and 'The World Is Not Enough' are the most effective ones IMO.
So perhaps for Bond 24 Thomas Newman can also work on the title song. Perhaps he can be given more creative freedom this time around? And also, don't forget where Thomas Newman comes from. He jumps into the Bond family together with Sam Mendes and he openly admitted that he -at times- found it difficult to carry the weight of 'Bond music' on his shoulders. You can never be completely...free working on such a franchise film. So let's judge Newman a bit milder ok?
As good as that particular cue is from Skyfall. It is merely one cue with one melody that is only developed in one singular cue. In fact, the only piece of music from Skyfall that holds a candle to anything Barry ever did - and like it or not he will always be the standard against which Bond scores are judged - is "Severine".
RE: Title song incorporation
That first part isn't true. The producers often separated the development of the title theme and score on a number of occasions during Barry's era too, leading to numerous rows between them and Barry - The Man With The Golden Gun and The Living Daylights being two examples. Of the 5 scores David Arnold worked on, he developed a song and incorporated the melody from that song into three. They're all extremely strong. But, granted, this is all irrelevant, as Newman didn't have this opportunity. But even without working on the title theme, Arnold created great and developed melodies in Quantum of Solace and Barry did the same in The Living Daylights.
I'll judge him milder when people stop declaring the score to be one of the best in the series, which it clearly isn't. It's functional, sure, and at times a very good score ("Tennyson", "Severine", "She's Mine") but as a Bond score it doesn't hit all the marks. I do like the score, but it's just lacking that bit of passion, and no amount of technical proficiency or superior sound mixing will change that.