1894 replies to this topic

[The Shark]

I love Thomas Newman's score. Love it. But the fact that he gets nominated for Skyfall and Arnold was never nominated for any Bond work is beyond a joke. Now, I'm not saying Arnold wrote Oscar-worthy scores, necessarily. Obviously many of you will pounce and say he didn't. But the irony of it all is, I have to admit, hilarious.

Better to laugh than cry, eh?

Sorry.

[MattofSteel]

Ha. It's just the cruel irony of it. Arnold's scores are, in my opinion, just such great Bond scores. Barely any critical recognition. Newman comes in, does a fairly great one-off, and scores an Oscar nod.

[Professor Pi]

The Academy hasn't distinguished itself of late with recognizing good film scores.  These are the people that gave an Oscar to Trent Reznor for a handful of notes repeating throughout The Social Network over Hanz Zimmer's layered Inception score.  And they didn't even nominate Daft Punk for Tron: Legacy.  I do think Skyfall deserves a nomination as it's one of the top soundtracks of 2012.  But here's what they opted for the years David Arnold scored Bond films:

 

Slumdog Millionaire, Babel, Frida, The Red Violin, The Full Monty (comedy) and The Titanic (drama).  His work on Tomorrow Never Dies was worth a nomination, and Casino Royale probably too.

 

The Academy was more respectable during the Bond releases of the 80s:

 

Little Mermaid in 89, Last Emperor in 87, Out of Africa in 85, The Right Stuff (Bill Conti) in 83 (over Jedi), Chariots of fire in 81 (FYEO score not nominated, song was).  These weren't Barry's best Bond scores (except maybe TLD) but at least he won for Out of Africa.  The Living Daylights should have been nominated in 1987, IMO.

 

In 1979 A Little Romance won, Moonraker not nominated.  In 77 Marvin Hamlisch's Spy lost to Star Wars (no surprise there), 74 went to Godfather II, and 73 Hamlisch got one for The Way We Were (George Martin's LALD not nominated, but was in 1964 for A Hard Day's Night.)  Curiously, Michel Legrand and Burt Bacharach won in 69 and 71 and both scored non-official Bond movies.  While OHMSS and DAF weren't nominated, Barry did win in 1968 for Lion in Winter and '66 for Born Free, years between some of his best Bond scores.

 

If nominated, YOLT, Goldfinger, Thunderball, and FRWL would probably still have lost to the likes of Marice Jarre, Elmer Bernstein, Mary Poppins and Tom Jones (movie not singer.)  And even if Monty Norman was solely responsible for Dr. No's James Bond theme, Maurice Jarre would still have won for Lawrence of Arabia (whose theme later appeared in The Spy Who Loved Me.)

 

It struck me that all Bond composers save Monty Norman, Michael Kamen, and David Arnold have been nominated or won Oscars for their work.

[x007AceOfSpades]

Reznor and Ross' score for The Social Network was much better than the generic score Zimmer gives as of late.

[seawolfnyy]

I actually like Zimmer's scores. I thought his scores for TDK, Inception and TDKR were very good. The one for TDKR was one of the few positives of the film.

 

 

and from Inception

 

[Professor Pi]

The Dark Knight Rises is a lot of fun to drive to.

[seawolfnyy]

If there is one thing Zimmer can do very well, it's create a very emotional and poignant ending track for a film. The tracks at the end of the TDK/TDKR and Inception are some of my favorite tracks.

[The Shark]

The Academy hasn't distinguished itself of late with recognizing good film scores.  These are the people that gave an Oscar to Trent Reznor for a handful of notes repeating throughout The Social Network over Hanz Zimmer's layered Inception score.  And they didn't even nominate Daft Punk for Tron: Legacy.  I do think Skyfall deserves a nomination as it's one of the top soundtracks of 2012.  But here's what they opted for the years David Arnold scored Bond films:
 
Slumdog Millionaire, Babel, Frida, The Red Violin, The Full Monty (comedy) and The Titanic (drama).  His work on Tomorrow Never Dies was worth a nomination, and Casino Royale probably too.

Elliot Goldenthal's FRIDA and John Corigliano's THE RED VIOLIN are both wonderful scores written by two very distinguished American composers, and are more deserving of merit than anything David Arnold's ever written (AMAZING GRACE arguably comes the closest), let alone his two most overrated Bond efforts - TOMORROW NEVER DIES and CASINO ROYALE.

I'm not a big fan of Reznor's THE SOCIAL NETWORK, but I still applaud the Academy for going for an inventive and somewhat avant-garde choice.

[x007AceOfSpades]

If I had to choose Reznor and Ross' work on either The Social Network or The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, I'd go with the latter.

[Berni99]

After the Nomination of the Academy Award, hopefully they release a Deluxe Edition with the complete score (including Gunbarrel/Bond Theme, Helicopter arrival at Silvas Island...)

Edited by Berni99, 13 January 2013 - 01:24 PM.

[thecasinoroyale]

Of course it is - Top 5 at the most!

 

It adds to the feel and character of the film and at no point does it take over, or do something it's not meant to by lagging or get distracting. Plenty of the other films scores either do too much repetition of themes from the score itself, come across a little disjointed in the different themes played or simply or too generic.

[Berni99]

Look at this

 

http://www.ebay.com/...=item5d3920f30d

[DamnCoffee]

As far as I can tell, it's just the same tracks from the soundtrack split up to make it look longer and expanded. 

[Vauxhall]

Nice item. The tracks have clearly been renamed and reordered to make it easier for Academy members to place them within the chronology of the movie. Shame they spelt "Yacht" wrong though...

[x007AceOfSpades]

That price is just ridiculous.

[PPK_19]

Newman's score is just ridiculous... ...ridiculously good! Ahahahaha

[Berni99]

As far as I can tell, it's just the same tracks from the soundtrack split up to make it look longer and expanded. 

 

I think the Tracks "Cyanide" & "Train Jump" are not on the Original Soundtrack.

 

 

We need the Complete Score with all Cues from this amazing Movie...

 

Skyfall Trailer without SFX...

 

https://soundcloud.c...all-us-domestic

Edited by Berni99, 21 January 2013 - 05:41 PM.

[Bond... Raybond]

Unfortunately you would need to edit it with the OST to get a more complete score, as the Academy promo apparently has the Bond theme edited out (and therefore the Gunbarrel music is missing) along with the SkyFall quote in 'Komodo Dragon'.

[The Shark]

 

As far as I can tell, it's just the same tracks from the soundtrack split up to make it look longer and expanded. 

 

I think the Tracks "Cyanide" & "Train Jump" are not on the Original Soundtrack.

 

 

Right. It's also possible that "Elevator Cat & Mouse" contains the bit as Bond climbs out from under the lift that was removed from the original album.

 

Other new cues (from the looks of it)

 

"Ronson" (much longer film version of the first quarter of "Grand Bazaar, Istanbul")

"Coffins" (second of the film's three quotes of the M theme)

"Lobby" (reprise of the buildings clusters and rhythmic material from "Ronson")

"Severine" (film version of "Modigliani")

"5 Agents" (don't remember any underscore here, but this would be for the scene where M clicks on Silva's Youtube video)

"Komodo Dragons" (fight between Bond and the heavyset bodyguard - the very end of this can be heard on "Granborough Road")

 

Sadly still no sign of "Waste of Good Scotch/Silva's Capture" or "With Pleasure/End Credits."

 

Why Skyfall Deserves the Oscar for Best Score
By J. Bryan Lowder
Posted Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2013, at 9:03 AM ET


Daniel Craig stars as James Bond in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures/Columbia Pictures/EON Productions’ action adventure SKYFALL.

Last autumn’s Skyfall, the 23rd of the 007 movies, brought a welcome change of mood to the decades-old spy franchise: It feels darker, more melancholy. Ben Whishaw’s new Q also struck a new note for the series—as did Javier Bardem, who, as the deliciously effete villain, managed to deliver more sex appeal than the latest Bond Girl. Less obvious, but no less important, was the introduction of a new composer to the series, which for the last 15 years has been single-handedly scored by David Arnold.

While moviegoers have mostly fixated on Adele’s delightfully bombastic theme song, it’s Thomas Newman’s fresh, inventive work on the rest of the film’s musical landscape that really gives a new sonic sheen to our beloved secret agent. Happily, the Academy acknowledged that work last week with an Oscar nomination. In a year rich with great scores from genres more often recognized for their music—e.g. fantasy and period pieces—Newman’s nod felt like a long-shot. But he deserves to win.

In fact, the only entry among the four other nominations that even approaches Newman’s is Mychael Danna’s gentle, shimmering score for Life of Pi. Danna’s sincere music floats and swirls around the fantastic story, providing flecks of vaguely Orientalist percussion, plucked strings, and vocal work; it’s great stuff and was rightly rewarded on Sunday night with the Golden Globe. (Skyfall was replaced on that otherwise identical docket by the lovely score for Cloud Atlas, which we explored here last year.)

Alexandre Desplat’s workmanlike Argo is catchy and appropriately suspenseful in its way, but feels half-hearted; Dario Marianelli’s charming, winking renovation of Russian Romantic music for Anna Karenina is lilting and lush, but not much more than a well-crafted exercise. Finally, there is, of course, the always expert John Williams, nominated this time for Lincoln. Williams brought a lighter touch than usual with this score—its syrupy brass, bird-like winds, and big, rolling, church-choir chords have a fresh-dew-on-the-morning-of-our-freedom quality. Shaker hymns, Negro spirituals, and Appalachian jigs show up in snatches. Having seen Lincoln twice, though, I don’t think the music features prominently enough to warrant the big prize.

So what makes Newman’s approach in Skyfall more worthy? Newman’s a long-time collaborator with director Sam Mendes, but pairing his musical voice with this particular film wasn’t an obvious choice. He’s known for iconic work on films like American Beauty, Wall-E, and, a personal favorite, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, where his dark, quirky sensibility and uncommonly expansive musical vocabulary (especially with respect to instrumentation) brought those unique worlds to life. In pleasing opposition to his skill with playful recitative, Newman also has a penchant for tender arias—just listen to his heartbreaking theme from Meet Joe Black, for example.

These are all wonderful qualities in a composer, but not obviously the ones best-suited to a driving, muscular action movie. Yet somehow, in Skyfall, it works. Newman is clearly an aesthetic stranger to Bond-land, but this unfamiliarity allows him to hear it fresh and pull out new ideas. For example, his feline approach to action sequences—sleeker, more poised and restrained than the bravado that previous scores trafficked in—better suits a Bond hemmed in by bureaucracies and reliant on technology that has little to do with brute force. Newman applies a surgical touch to the classic Bond theme, extracting the uncertainty and even sadness of those tangy chords while leaving behind all the brash posturing. We know we are in a new era when the iconic two-chord punch violently drops into a much more tentative, roiling texture in Newman’s opening cue.

But what recommends Newman’s Skyfall score most is the emotional affinity between the composer and the new Bond Mendes has given us: Both are fundamentally creatures of melancholy. Newman’s music shines most when it examines the peculiar beauty that can be found in the shadier, wandering moments of life. Adrift in a baffling world that deems him no longer necessary, Bond now travels in on similar roads. The two are a match made in purgatory.

Newman also deserves the award this year because he’s been wandering those roads for a very long time. He is currently the most nominated living composer to have never won an Oscar, with 11 nominations. When Adele takes home the Oscar for best song in February, let’s hope Skyfall’s other musical genius finally gets recognized as well.

http://www.slate.com...mas_newman.html

[Grard Bond]

Look at this

 

http://www.ebay.com/...=item5d3920f30d

There is another one on ebay, but that is just one cd and the only difference with the original cd is: the last number is missing and there fore you got the Adele titlesong. It looks like a bogus one, not the genuine thing.

[Berni99]

Skyfall End Credits (with light SFX)

 

https://soundcloud.com/antovolk/skyfall-end-credits-with

[The Shark]

Thanks to a DVD rip of the film, I picked up another short but very effective unreleased cue. I'll call it "Ballistics Report." It starts on Mallory's "Good luck 007. Don't cock it up," and ends on the establishing shot of Bond in Trafalgar Square on his way to meet Q. It's in C minor (C-D-Eb-F-G-Ab-Bb), (with hints of G Harmonic Major (G-A-B-C-D-Eb-F#-G) first part is a low C drone with an eerie high synth oscillating between F# (C-F# being the tritone - the devil's interval) and G, plus an electric guitar repeating a C-G pattern, The harp plucks C-F-G (Csus4) and then string and muted horns form C-G-D (Csus2 voiced as as open fifths) with a bass drum thump - resembling the open chord of Adele's title song. When the three users of the depleted uranium bullets are shown on Tanner's laptop, there's a sinister triplet turn played by the muted horns (C-D-Eb D), later moving up to Eb and F#. When Bond touches the screen to point at Patrice, there's a nice Barry-esque bit of Mickey-Mousing (reminds of the shot of the South African minershowing the diamonds in his teeth to the dentist, with the accompanying stinger) a Cmadd9 or Cmadd2 in second inversion (G-C-D-Eb) - played by vibraphone with motor on (giving it a whirring, tremolo sound - like a Leslie Speaker) and some other bell-like instrument or synth. Throughout this there's a cymbal tapping out steady 8th notes.

What follows is the signature chord progression as in the first half of "Day Wasted" - Cm to D with a low pedal C in the bass, which appears throughout the film in different keys. What follows is a variation on the Bond theme at end of "Day Wasted", without the bongos Ending in a cadence, bearing a resemblance to both the title song and end of "Tennyson" - Cm, Bb, Gaug7, G - and when M tells Tanner Bond didn't pass the tests - an Csus2 on strings and an electric guitar with tremolo. Cut to National Portrait Gallery...

[The Shark]

[delfloria]

Regarding the double FYC SKYFALL CD.  EVERY reference to the James Bond theme (melody or base line) and Adele's SKYFALL melody has been carefully removed so that it only contains Newman's original material. 

[The Shark]

Yep, we know that.

[Vauxhall]

Following this evening's successes, I'm sure Messrs Wilson and Broccoli will be leaning on Newman at the BAFTA afterparties tonight to encourage him to return for BOND 24.

[thecasinoroyale]

A well deserved win for Newman and the film!

[seawolfnyy]

My two favorite tracks from Skyfall are easily Brave New World and Shanghai Drive. They are both very exotic and fit Shanghai very well.

[Berni99]

So anyone interest in an Expanded Edition of the Score - PM me

Edited by Berni99, 12 February 2013 - 08:15 AM.

[sharpshooter]

A well deserved win for Newman and the film!

Absolutely. A big round of applause to Newman.