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John Barry Not Bonding With The Modern 007

'I haven't been a Bond fan in a long time...'

New Bonds fail to strike a chord with John Barry

October 3rd, International Express. Article by Chris Goodman
John Barry talks about why he has so little faith in the modern 007.



“I haven’t been a Bond fan in a long time” he tells us in his soft Yorkshire brogue. “I gave up after Living Daylights in 1987. I had exhausted all my ideas, rung all the changes that were possible. It was a formula that had run its course. The best had been done as far as I was concerned..

Barry identifies co-producer Harry Saltzman’s sale of his share of the franchise to United Artists in 1975 as the turning point. “There used to be one solid school of people. When that broke down, I didn’t know who was running the show anymore. That’s why when you see them on television, you don’t say “Oh no, it’s an old Bond”, you say “Wow, it’s an old Bond, that’s great””.

“You see one of the newer films on and you think “Forget it, I’ll watch something else””.

He is still friends with Barbara Broccoli, current Bond producer and daughter of original Bond co-producer Cubby, but Barry will not be rushing out to see the new film (Casino Royale).

Barry sees Bond soundtracks as a clumsy excuse to advertise pop songs, inserted into action with little thought. As a result he does not even visit cinemas now, let alone work on soundtracks.

Barry also talks about his problems with Saltzman, who had told the composer that he hated the song Goldfinger, before it became a massive international hit. The song only made it into the film because it was too late to take it out.

The success of the Bond movies, Barry maintains, was a result of everyone working at the top of their game in a very special period. It is difficult to imagine that anyone involved in Casino Royale will have such a unique set of influences to draw on as did Barry. Maybe the golden age of Bond really is over?

Chris Goodman, International Express.

Weak.

He's never been shy about slamming the Brosnan outings. I doubt he's purposely picking on Casino Royale, he probably hasnt been following it and doesnt know it's going to be a different kind of Bond film.

Perhaps Casino Royale will cause Barry to take notice and come back for the next one?

I was hoping he would at least make some reference to David Arnold. Arnold has always said he is a big John Barry fan, and certainly some of Barry's style has rubbed off on him.

He's never mentioned the other composers in the series, I see no reason for him to mention Arnold.

I give him credit for being honest. He could be a money grubber and turn in sub-par work for big bucks, but decided not to. Nothing wrong with that.

Barry was to score "Licence to Kill," but had heart heart trouble at the time and didn't recover until "Dances With Wolves" in 1990. I've heard he suggested Michael Kamen for LTK.

By the time the series returned in 1995 the producers had changed the films stylistically so much, I'm sure Barry felt pretty disconnected from the series.

Let's face it, Barry probably didn't approve of the Eric Serra score, and David Arnold just hasn't knocked it out of the park with his scores. I still feel Arnold's best was "Tomorrow Never Dies," which is really a great score, particularly when scoring the Bond theme. But after that, I think Arnold has been pushing the techno vibe to the extreme, while still trying to utilize Barry's style and it just doesn't always work. Arnold needs to find his own approach and be more confident with his own contributions, which I hope he'll do so with "Casino Royale." He has the talent and ability...

Yes, it seems a few people got disgruntled with the Bond series after leaving it.

Agree about Arnold, DC. I think he's not let himself go, just kick out the jams, so to speak. Not sure if he has it in him, but I'd still give him a try I guess. CR looks to be "different," hope he takes his cue from that.

I remember when David Arnold was on a British kids TV show called "Live & Kicking", talking about how he wrote the jaunty theme tune for the show!! And he had a hit with Bjork - "Play Dead".

Even then he sounded Barry-esque. But Barry seems to think that the Bond scores are just wrapped around pop songs.

interesting, considering he was on the verge of coming back for TND....

Really? I didn't know that...

It's not unusual for an ex-eployee of any film or TV series to be down on the projects that came after them. Doesn't happen ever time but not out of the ordinary.