Thomas Newman – Film Music Notes https://filmmusicnotes.com Understanding the Art of Film Music Thu, 22 Jun 2023 15:22:21 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9 https://filmmusicnotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/cropped-Site-icon-2d-32x32.png Thomas Newman – Film Music Notes https://filmmusicnotes.com 32 32 Oscar Nominees 2014 (Part 6 of 6): Prediction, Best Original Score https://filmmusicnotes.com/oscar-nominees-2014-part-6-of-6-prediction-best-original-score/ https://filmmusicnotes.com/oscar-nominees-2014-part-6-of-6-prediction-best-original-score/#comments Sun, 02 Mar 2014 04:47:15 +0000 https://filmmusicnotes.com/2014/03/02/oscar-nominees-2014-part-6-of-6-prediction-best-original-score/  oscar-statue

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All five of this year’s Oscar nominees for Best Original Score have something obvious going for them. The score for Gravity is for one of the year’s biggest blockbusters, that for Her has sentimental appeal, Philomena is a solid thematic score, Saving Mr. Banks captures the emotional tragedy of the main character, and The Book Thief is yet another well crafted score by John Williams. But on March 2nd, only one score will take home the prize. My pick, for reasons outlined below, is Steven Price’s score for Gravity.

Past Oscar Wins

In each of the last ten years, the film that won the Oscar for Best Original Score was also nominated for Best Picture. This suggests that the scores for Gravity, Her, and Philomena have an advantage this year, their films having an accompanying nomination for Best Picture. But this pattern runs somewhat deeper, as seven of the last ten winning scores years were from films also nominated for Best Director. Of this year’s nominees, only Gravity fits that bill.

Other Awards

The BAFTA for Original Music in a Film has tended to be hit-and-miss as a predictor for the Best Original Score Oscar. Only four of the past ten winners in this category have gone on to win the Best Score Oscar. But it is worth mentioning that this year’s BAFTA went to Gravity, which at least gives the score some momentum over the other nominees.

Although the Golden Globes are decided by a different demographic than the Oscars, they have been a better predictor of the Best Score Oscar than the BAFTAs, with six of the last ten going on to win the Oscar. This year, however, the score that won the Golden Globe—Alex Ebert’s All is Lost—wasn’t even nominated for an Oscar. But I would point out that two of the nominees for the Golden Globes are also Oscar nominees: The Book Thief and, notably, Gravity.

Subjective Aspects

Price’s score for Gravity contains several aspects that draw attention to themselves in a way that meshes well with the film, thus lending the score a particularly memorable quality and giving it an edge over the other nominees. First, there is the highly emotional quality the score adds to certain events by being coordinated with them, events such as potentially life-threatening collisions and life-saving changes of setting, as I discussed in my analysis of the score. Second, Gravity contains the least amount of dialogue of all the nominees, so the music is more prominent than in the others. Third, there is Price’s use of what I’ve called the clipped crescendo, a technique where the music cuts off to silence just as a massive crescendo is about to reach its peak. Since it is heard at both the beginning and end of the film, as well as at critical points in the narrative, it vastly increases the score’s memorability and leaves viewers with a strong impression of the film’s score.

Comparison with Other Nominees

The great Max Steiner, who began scoring for films with the development of film sound in the late 1920s and who is often dubbed the father of film music, once said that

Some pictures require a lot of music and some of them are so realistic that music would only hurt and interfere.

While this overstates the case in modern films, the underlying point still remains true today: films that tend to need a good deal of prominent music are those based on some sort of fiction or fantasy, while more realistic films tend to need a smaller amount of less prominent music. Of the five nominees, three are based on real events or take place in a real historical setting: The Book Thief, Saving Mr. Banks, and Philomena. Hence, their sense of being part of the “real world” generally means that less music is required to give them a believability that is crucial to audience engagement. What music there is tends to remain in the perceptual background for most of the film, rendering the score less memorable (though no less effective).

On the other hand, films based on more imaginative ideas generally require a substantial amount of music to suspend our disbelief and draw us into the film’s more fictional world. Both Gravity and Her fulfill this criterion and indeed highlight music as an essential part of the film. In the case of Gravity, the film seems to ask “can you imagine yourself in this nightmarish situation?”, employing music to further immerse audiences in the film’s engrossing 3D presentation. In the case of Her, the fictional aspect of a man having a romantic relationship with an artificially intelligent being questions our reliance on technology and suggests that we need to re-connect with one another in more physical, indeed more human, ways. As I argued in my analysis of the score, music plays an integral role in conveying this message to audiences since it is such an important part of the relationship between Theodore (Joaquin Pheonix) and his computer’s operating system, Samantha (Scarlett Johansson). In addition, Her is the only nominee to also have a nomination for Best Original Song, as did last year’s Best Score winner, Life of Pi. Thus, it could help boost Her to win Best Score. From these perspectives, Gravity and Her have the edge over the other nominees.

Box Office

We must not forget that the production of films is a business like any other with profits as the bottom line. From this point of view, Gravity once again has the advantage since it finished 2013 with blockbuster status at #6 in box office revenues—the highest of all the nominees. Of the other four nominees, only two others are in the top 100, and a great distance from Gravity: Saving Mr. Banks at #44, and Philomena at #84. Her and The Book Thief fall just outside this range at #102 and #109 respectively. Gravity is also the only score associated with a 3D film, which is precisely the kind of film Hollywood is not only pushing these days, but also attempting to incorporate into more serious films, as Martin Scorsese did with Hugo in 2011.

Conclusion

Given the evidence above, Gravity would seem to be the clear favourite to win the Oscar for Best Original Score. One factor that may work against it, however, is its very non-traditional sound, much of it consisting of ambient sound-effect-type music rather than themes and incidental music. Such a score may not appeal to a majority of the Academy. My feeling, though, is that the several other factors involved will likely propel it to a win. The only other score that seems to have any chance at all is that for Her. But even that I view as a distant second to Price’s Gravity. So in short, I would be very surprised if Gravity does not take home the Oscar Sunday night. That said, this is the Oscars, and one must always be prepared for the unpredictable…

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Oscar Nominees 2014, Best Original Score (Part 2 of 6): Thomas Newman’s Saving Mr. Banks https://filmmusicnotes.com/oscar-nominees-2014-best-original-score-part-2-of-6-thomas-newmans-saving-mr-banks/ https://filmmusicnotes.com/oscar-nominees-2014-best-original-score-part-2-of-6-thomas-newmans-saving-mr-banks/#respond Tue, 04 Feb 2014 04:52:20 +0000 https://filmmusicnotes.com/2014/02/04/oscar-nominees-2014-best-original-score-part-2-of-6-thomas-newmans-saving-mr-banks/  saving_mr_banks

Saving Mr. Banks earned veteran Hollywood composer Thomas Newman his 12th Oscar nomination and the 2nd in consecutive years following last year’s nomination for his score to Skyfall. Being a film about the making of Disney’s 1964 film Mary Poppins, one might expect the non-diegetic score of Saving Mr. Banks (that is, the music that the film’s characters do not hear) to draw on the latter’s classic songs such as “Chim Chim Cher-ee”, “A Spoonful of Sugar”, and “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”. But the film’s score is instead planted firmly in Newman’s own style, which avoids the danger of the songs becoming parodies of themselves and allows the film to tell its story with a musically fresh palette.

Regarding style, Newman’s music is often dubbed as minimalist since the repetition of short segments of music (ostinato) plays such an integral role. But the “Newman sound” also incorporates unusual combinations of instruments (especially involving percussion and/or plucked string sounds), a high proportion of sampled sounds, and syncopated rhythms that betray a rock and pop influence. Thus, the style of Newman’s music is probably better described as “eclectic minimalism”, his score to Saving Mr. Banks being no exception.

The film tells the tale of the innumerable objections raised by the author of the Mary Poppins books, Pamela L. Travers (Emma Thompson), in having the Disney Studios bring her story to the big screen. As the film unfolds, we learn through a series of flashbacks that the deep meaning of the books for Pam lies in their intimate connection with her childhood and love for her father, Travers Goff. Pam’s attachment to the books, however, nearly paralyzes the filmmaking process, a conflict that is played out mainly in her relationship with Walt Disney himself (Tom Hanks). It is therefore no surprise that the three most prominent themes in the film’s score revolve around these two characters.

In the following film music analysis, I provide a detailed look at these three themes and discuss their use in the film. With the exception of the Disney’s theme, Newman’s themes tend not to represent characters or things in the manner of a leitmotif, but are more diffuse, each one expressing a consistent feeling that applies to each scene somewhat differently.

Pam’s Lighthearted Theme

This theme is first played during Pam’s first flashback, which shows her father jokingly asking her where his daughter (Pam) has gone. The scene demonstrates the close relationship between the two and is essentially one of Pam’s happy memories. Newman mirrors these attributes in his music for the scene, given below.

01-Comedic-Theme

Most obvious in the theme is its bustling, energetic quality, signalled by the continuous stream of bopping eighth notes and its peppy irregular meter. But notice that the theme is composed of Newman’s favoured technique of ostinato (two separate but related ostinatos are shown here), and that in the inner voices there is a near constant use of the notes Eb and Bb, the two tonal “pillars” of the theme’s E-flat scale, being the tonic and dominant notes, respectively. Combined with the sunny major-key setting and the jaunty, mild dissonances of the pop-style chords, the overall effect is one of an energetic playfulness that aptly characterizes the scene.

The theme, however, is also heard in two other scenes. In one of these, Pam is picked up by the chauffeur Ralph, who drives Pam around during her American visit. Pam is unhappy with everything Ralph says to her and the music obviously suggests that we see the humorous side of all this. In the other scene, Pam is seen typing away at another Mary Poppins book after finally signing on to the rights of the film. Here, the music suggests the cheerfulness and rejuvenation Pam feels in having the weight of the film lifted from her shoulders by resolving her disputes with Walt Disney, an interpretation that Newman’s theme makes crystal clear. Given the theme’s usage in the above scenes, I refer to it as Pam’s Lighthearted Theme.

Pam’s Tender Theme

We first hear this theme in another flashback, this time of Travers telling Pam that their horse is actually an uncle who was turned into the animal because a witch hated the sound of his laugh. The music Newman writes for the scene is as follows:

02-Tender-Theme

As the film proceeds, we begin to understand that moments such as this were formative for Pam since her bonding with Travers through stories of fantasy had an enormous influence on her creation of the Mary Poppins books. Hence, Newman infuses the theme with warmth through its moderate tempo, lyrical melody, and lush accompaniment. But the harmony plays an important role here as well, as the first sixteen bars are composed of only two chords: I and IV, or the tonic and subdominant. Chord progressions that move between I and IV tend to have a very relaxed sound and can even take on a spiritual tone, especially when placed in a warm setting as here. (Indeed, when a IV-I progression ends a piece, it is often colloquially referred to as a “church cadence” or “amen cadence” since they are often set to the word “amen” at the conclusion of a hymn.) These musical features help to emphasize the strongly emotional quality of Pam’s relationship with her father, and hence I call this Pam’s Tender Theme.

This theme returns at three other key places in the film. First, after the young Pam witnesses Travers nearly get fired from his position at the bank for drinking on the job, Travers impresses on Pam the importance of holding on to ideas of fantasy in order to cope with the difficulties of reality. We hear it again when Ralph tells Pam about the difficulties his disabled daughter faces on a daily basis. And it is heard one last time when young Pam sees her father just after he has died. In all three cases, the theme is rescored largely for the piano, lending the scenes a more intimate and poignant quality.

Disney’s Theme

The introduction of the character of Walt Disney in Saving Mr. Banks is accompanied by the following music:

03-Disney's-Theme

Certainly, this is authoritative music, befitting of the head of a major company. But this is no ceremonial march. Instead, it is buttressed with orchestral blasts (seen in the left hand), many of which are syncopated rather than occurring on-beat, and its string ostinato (seen in the right hand of the first bar) has an energy that goes beyond a march-like accompaniment. Finally, it uses nothing but the simple chords of I, IV, and V. All of these features are suggestive of the Copland-esque sound of Americana that made its way into film with the famous American western films The Big Country (1958) and The Magnificent Seven (1960). Listen, for example, to the openings of each below.

The Big Country (listen up to 0:37):

The Magnificent Seven (listen up to 0:28):

While nothing in either clip is directly quoted in Disney’s Theme, the same Americana flavour is unmistakable in the latter through its syncopated accompaniment chords, driving ostinato, and simple harmonies. Thus, the suggestion of Disney’s Theme is not of just any corporate boss, but a specifically American one.

Disney’s Theme is heard at one other point in the film: when Pam reluctantly arrives at Disneyland for a visit to the park with Walt himself, all in an attempt to prevent Pam from keeping the rights to the Mary Poppins story and further obstructing the film. The presence of the Disney Theme at this point is thus hardly inappropriate, as Walt is once again making a splashy entrance, this time at the gate of his own park. But the music also implies the extravagance and bustling nature of the amusement park as a whole.

Conclusion

As we have seen, Newman’s treatment of the first two themes above is broader than the traditional leitmotif in that his themes are not simply a signal of a particular character or object, but rather of an emotional expression that applies to a particular character in various situations. And even his theme for Walt Disney is itself widened to include the grandeur of the Disneyland park, thus again moving beyond a simple theme-to-character relationship. This more diffuse approach to theme composition fits the film quite well as the very small number of themes allows for a high degree of continuity in a film that relies heavily on a disjointed narrative through several flashbacks. In addition, Newman’s score for Saving Mr. Banks draws largely on the composer’s own personal style rather than on the classic songs from Mary Poppins. In this way, the contrast between the cheerful fantasy world of the Mary Poppins story and the “real” world of Pamela Travers with her more serious story that wavers between tragedy and comedy is brought poignantly to the fore.

Coming soon… Alexandre Desplat’s Philomena.

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Oscar Prediction 2013: Best Original Score https://filmmusicnotes.com/oscar-prediction-2013-best-original-score/ https://filmmusicnotes.com/oscar-prediction-2013-best-original-score/#respond Fri, 22 Feb 2013 02:39:01 +0000 https://filmmusicnotes.com/2013/02/21/oscar-prediction-2013-best-original-score/  oscar-statue

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Life of Pi

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This is the last in a series of six posts on the 2013 Oscar nominees for Best Original Score. I have already parsed each of the five nominated scores in some detail in my previous posts. So what is my prediction for the winner? Mychael Danna’s score for Life of Pi. Although this probably comes as no surprise, it is worth considering many of the things that this score has going for it.

Past Oscar Wins

Data from the last ten years of the Oscars reveals some interesting patterns in the winners for Best Original Score. First and foremost, 90% of scores that won were for films that were also nominated for Best Picture. This year, Life of Pi, Lincoln, and Argo have nominations for both Best Score and Best Picture. The last score to win whose film was not nominated for Best Picture was Eliot Goldenthal’s score to Frida all the way back in 2002. This is not to say that scores for films without a Best Picture nomination won’t win, but certainly the odds are against them.

Of the past ten years of Best Score winners, 60% of them were for films that also had nominations for both Best Picture and Best Director. This year, only Life of Pi and Lincoln have these other nominations. It’s not as if Argo is out of the running, but the vast majority of recent winning scores are linked to these other nominations.

Other Awards

Besides the Oscars, we might also consider the histories of two other prestigious prizes, the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs. In the past ten years, 70% of Best Score winners also took home the Golden Globe earlier in the year. And in fact, Golden Globe score winners have also won the Oscar for the last five years in a row. This year, Life of Pi won the Golden Globe.

Some might say that because Thomas Newman’s score for Skyfall won the BAFTA this year, that it will have an advantage on Oscar night. But in the past ten years, only 40% of BAFTA winners went on to win the Oscar as well. From this perspective, things look better for Life of Pi than for Skyfall.

Subjective Aspects of the Score

Life of Pi is the only film to earn its composer two Oscar nominations, one for the score and one for the song, “Pi’s Lullaby”. Even if the song loses to Adele’s and Paul Epworth’s heavily favoured “Skyfall”, the nomination speaks well of Life of Pi’s score since the song is actually a part of Mychael Danna’s original score. In addition, “Pi’s Lullaby” occurs over the main titles, which introduces the sense innocence and wonder of Pi’s childhood with a delightful montage of various zoo animals that the music suits perfectly. The sequence is therefore a “money scene” for Danna’s music, in other words a scene in which the music is both highly emotional and unforgettable.

Life of Pi is also the kind of film that calls for prominent, foregrounded scoring in many scenes. So it is unlikely to come away from the film not having noticed the music at all. But more than that, the emphasis on consonant chords and lush, sustained harmonies in the score suits the highly spiritual and emotional nature of the film. Consider, for example, the music we hear as Pi helplessly watches the ship with all his family members sink into the ocean’s depths. Its solemnity and beauty creates a heart-wrenching effect that is hard to forget, especially with the use of a choir, which enters at 0:25 in this clip:

Comparison with the Other Nominees

The score for Life of Pi also looks very strong when compared to the other nominees. Neither Skyfall nor Anna Karenina are nominated for either Best Picture or Best Director, a fact that, as we saw, significantly decreases their chances of winning Best Score. Moreover, both films have an extra strike against them. Anna Karenina was the only film of the Best Score nominees not to break into the 100 top-grossing films of 2012, a fact that certainly harms its chances in a business that is intensely profit-driven. Skyfall earns the extra strike because, incredible as it may seem, a James Bond score has never taken home the Oscar.

While John Williams’ score for Lincoln is a sensitive treatment of the subject matter, it is not what you would call prominent film music. Since most of the film is given to elegantly polished dialogue that must be heard above any other sounds, space for the music is far more limited than in most other Williams scores. In addition, most of our attention during the film is focused on understanding the complexity of the dialogue, the political motivations of each of the characters, and even trying to keep the names of many characters straight. Again, this leaves little room in our memory for music, no matter how well crafted it may be.

In Argo, Alexandre Desplat gives us a fully competent score that fits the emotional ups and downs of the narrative. But, like Lincoln, there is so little music in the film that it becomes difficult to remember afterwards. Most of the score is devoted to atmospheric music rather than themes and leitmotifs that stick out in one’s mind. The most memorable music in the score occurs when the American hideaways have safely made it out of Iran by plane. But even so, this scene is at the end of the film. The music we have heard up to this point is hard to recall, especially as much of it is placed under the all-important dialogue.

Factors Against Life of Pi Winning

Now of course I’m not saying that Life of Pi is sure to win, only that it is the most likely of the five. So we ought to consider some of the factors working against a win for Life of Pi.

Although a Bond score has never won, Skyfall has the advantage of being the 50th-anniversary film of the Bond franchise. Newman is also a veteran of the business that many believe is long overdue for an Oscar win. Many Academy members may feel the same way. Finally, as I mentioned, its title song is favoured to win and that could carry over into a win for the score, even though the song is not Newman’s.

Despite the subdued quality of Lincoln’s score, the film seems tailor-made to please the Academy. According to an L.A. Times study, 94% of the Academy is Caucasian, 77% are male, and the median age is 62. A film that glorifies the actions of a prominent white male of about the same age might well appeal to most members. It might well be the case that most members vote for this score not only because it is a well done score by one of the all-time greats of film composers, but also because they appreciate Lincoln as a whole and wish to recognize its merits with awards in several categories.

And while Desplat’s score for Argo may not be all that memorable or lengthy, the film has claimed the Best Picture award from the Golden Globes, the Producers Guild Awards, and the Directors Guild Awards. This momentum that Argo has built up could translate into a win for Desplat.

But in the end, all of this evidence in favour of Life of Pi could be entirely moot. After all, this is the Oscars, and as we know, anything can happen.

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Oscar Nominees 2013: Thomas Newman’s Score for Skyfall https://filmmusicnotes.com/oscar-nominees-2013-thomas-newmans-score-for-skyfall/ https://filmmusicnotes.com/oscar-nominees-2013-thomas-newmans-score-for-skyfall/#comments Wed, 13 Feb 2013 21:19:41 +0000 https://filmmusicnotes.com/2013/02/13/oscar-nominees-2013-thomas-newmans-score-for-skyfall/ This is the fourth in a series of six posts on the 2013 Oscar nominees for Best Original Score. After discussing each of the five nominees in separate posts, the sixth post will give my prediction for the Oscar winner and my reasoning behind it.

Skyfall_posterThomas Newman comes from a family with several film composers that began with Alfred Newman, who was the long-time head of the music department at 20th Century Fox and wrote for many films from Hollywood’s golden age in the 1930s and 40s. Thomas himself is a veteran of the industry, having scored dozens of films including Scent of a Woman, The Shawshank Redemption, American Beauty, Finding Nemo, and WALL-E. Although Newman has yet to win an Academy Award, he has been nominated ten times, most recently for his score to the 50th-anniversary James Bond film, Skyfall.

With such a long-standing franchise, the creation of a Bond film poses unique challenges to all involved. On the one hand, it must uphold enough of the traditions for audiences to recognize the connection with previous installments. Yet on the other hand, it ought to introduce new elements as well in order to keep the series feeling fresh with each outing. The music is no exception, and Newman’s score for Skyfall is a combination of both the old and the new, as I demonstrate below in a film music analysis

Cross-Pollination of the “Skyfall” Song and the Score

Much praise has been lavished on the film’s title song both for Adele’s highly expressive performance and for the song itself—indeed, it has earned Adele and Paul Epworth an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song. But even though the song is not part of the film’s original score, it deserves mention because there is much cross-pollination between the music of the song and that of the film.

For instance, the song both begins and ends with a sustained version of the minor add-9 chord that begins the famous gun-barrel sequence in Bond films:

000018---Minor-add-9-chordThis chord creates an instant connection with the music of the whole franchise and informs us that what we are about to hear is not just any song, but specifically a James Bond song.

The Bond sound, however, is worked into the “Skyfall” song in a more fundamental way. After the add-9 chord, we hear a repeated three-chord progression in C minor: i-VI-iv(7).

000018---I-VI-ivAt first, there is nothing strange about the progression as it is a fairly standard one in pop songs. But when the rest of the band enters with electric guitar, bass guitar, and percussion, the progression changes ever so slightly to i-VI-IV-iv. That is, the last chord is transformed into a major chord before returning to its original minor form:

000018---I-VI-IV-iv

This subtle change allows the guitar to sound the notes G-Ab-A-Ab in harmony with the progression, as shown in the top line of the example above. The resulting four-note motive is one of the most recognizable in Bond films. It’s the accompaniment figure we hear at the start of the gun-barrel sequence that slyly glides up and down chromatically, and which some have appropriately called the “suspense theme”. When this motive appears in Bond films, it is usually over an unchanging harmony (again, recall the gun-barrel sequence):

000018---Suspense-Theme

Hear it in the clip below:

In the “Skyfall” song, this theme is harmonized with a new set of chords, giving it a sound that is now associated with this specific song. In other words, it is as if the old suspense theme is given a new coat of musical paint, one that we can easily trace back to the title song.

Hear this new version of the theme in this clip from 0:59:

There are several scenes later in the film where Newman incorporates this version of the suspense theme:

  • When Bond washes shrapnel from his shoulder and delivers it to MI6
  • When M orders Bond to go to Shanghai
  • When Bond receives new gadgets from Q (last note of theme omitted)

Also, when Bond enters the casino in Macau on a gondola, we hear an instrumental version of the song with its melody (from 0:14):

These techniques of blending old Bond themes with the title song and using that song in the original score are not unique to Skyfall—the same occurs in several other Bond films, notably Goldfinger. But because the song itself is new and because the song features the Bond suspense theme, it ensures that Newman’s Skyfall score will maintain continuity with previous films while at the same time adding something new.

The James Bond Theme

The James Bond theme is the familiar main theme for the Bond films that made its debut with the very first of the series, Dr. No. Composers for the Bond films often develop ideas from either its first section (with the famous guitar riff) or its more bebop middle section, shown below.

000018---007-Theme

Hear it in this clip from 0:40:

The large leaps, chromatic “added” notes, and angular shape of this melody give it an energetic, suave, and jazzy sound. It is no surprise, then, that we usually hear it accompanying Bond doing something heroic in tense action scenes. In Skyfall, for example, the theme appears when:

  • Bond is in the excavator on the train at beginning, deflecting bullets shot at him
  • The helicopter convoy rescues him as a result of his using the mini-transmitter
  • He enters the courthouse and saves M
  • He’s setting the gas tanks to explode in the Skyfall house at the end

Newman therefore maintains this tradition of Bond films and retains a sense of the old within his score to Skyfall.

At the same time, Newman is not averse to developing the old Bond themes into slightly new shapes. Take the suspense theme, for example. In the spectacular motorcycle chase at the film’s opening, we hear this theme continue rising up instead of falling back down as it usually does. You can hear this in the clip below from 3:26:

Bond Themes with Old Bond-Film Scoring

In addition to using the musical themes of the previous Bond films, Newman also occasionally scores them with the same jazz-band instrumentation as in earlier films. This is particularly noticeable since the majority of Newman’s score is a mixture of synthesized and acoustic instruments typical of contemporary Hollywood scores. Listen to the first few seconds of the following clips and you’ll know what I mean:

Juxtaposed with this style, the jazz scoring really stands out. The very start of the film, for instance, gives the audience the two brass blasts that usually open the gun-barrel sequence at the beginning of Bond films. But even though that sequence is postponed to the tail end of Skyfall, the association remains strong enough that anyone familiar with other Bond films will recognize that these brass chords signal the beginning of a James Bond film.

When we finally do get the iconic gun-barrel sequence at the end of the film, it is heard in the jazz-band scoring of previous Bond films:

Incidentally, it should be noted that this sequence is not always scored in precisely the same way since the guitar’s low-pitched melody has been played by various instruments. As Jeff Smith points out in The Sounds of Commerce:

Often these small variations in the orchestration are done to accommodate more global patterns of instrumentation within the individual Bond score. The shrill and brassy sound of Goldfinger’s “Bond Is Back,” for example, is consistent with the brighter instrumental textures of the score as a whole. In contrast, A View to a Kill begins with a darker toned, more somber rendering of the Bond theme, one that conforms to the score’s overall emphasis on traditional orchestral forces, particularly the low brass and strings.

Within the film proper, the most prominent use of the old-style scoring occurs when Bond takes M to his Aston Martin and drives her to Scotland to flee from the villain Silva. The music begins as soon as M resigns herself to getting in the car. And what should we hear at this point? The James Bond theme, of course! The very same music as in the gun-barrel sequence. Its appearance here, in the ‘60s-style scoring, is the perfect accompaniment to the ‘60s Aston Martin that Bond was first given in the Goldfinger. Bond verbally emphasizes this connection with the past in this scene when M asks him where they are going, to which he replies, “Back in time. Somewhere where we’ll have the advantage.”

References to Hans Zimmer

Newman’s score is not limited to his own musical style, nor that of previous Bond films. In one scene, the score references Hans Zimmer’s Batman themes from the Dark Knight films (likely due to their use in the “temp track” – the temporary score heard with the film before the final score is written, composed of bits and pieces of pre-existing music). The scene in Skyfall shows Bond in Shanghai following Patrice, the man who made off with the all-important list containing the identities of undercover British agents. Patrice, on his way to carrying out an assassination, takes an elevator up a high-rise. Just as the elevator begins to ascend, Bond dashes over to it, leaps up, and hangs from its bottom, unnoticed by Patrice (in a glass elevator!). This heroic act is accompanied musically by two themes in D minor, Batman’s key in Zimmer’s Dark Knight scores. The first theme takes after a theme we hear near the start of The Dark Knight, and the second is a very close emulation of Batman’s “heroic” theme (see Part 1 of my Dark Knight posts), which sounds the progression i-VI, with the second chord being blasted out from the brass instruments. Newman even uses a very similar accompaniment to Zimmer’s repeating F-F-D-D pattern as a background for the themes. Compare the two below:

First theme of Zimmer’s quoted (from 0:10-0:19):

Second theme of Zimmer’s quoted:

Newman’s themes in Skyfall (from 0:00):

Why does the score (or why did the temp track) reference Zimmer in this particular scene? It likely has to do with the fact that Bond is ascending—or rising—while doing something heroic. The act of rising is a major component of The Dark Knight Rises, especially in a scene where Bruce Wayne climbs heroically out of a prison built inside a pit. In that scene, we hear the same “heroic” Batman theme (see Part 5 of those posts for a full discussion of the climbing scene). The Zimmer reference therefore occurs at a place in Skyfall that, at least in an abstract way, parallels the Dark Knight films through its images.

Coming soon—Dario Marianelli’s score for Anna Karenina.

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