As for Newman's score for
Spectre, it's clear that
the composer was headed in one direction while the production was rooted
in another. Despite all the film's tributes to Bond's past, Newman
largely abandoned his attempts to address the Barry and Arnold standards
of the franchise's sound that existed in
Skyfall and instead used
Spectre to push the concept further into his own stylistic domain
of preference. Listeners will have to separate the style of the
Spectre score from its substance, because while the style is
really lacking, the substance within this Newman realm is really quite
good. Lengthy arguments can be made about the tragedy of the loss of
high style and panache in Newman's music for Bond here. Gone are the
times when flourishes of jazz accompanied the character's swagger and
smug smirks. Gone are the readily accessible thematic mechanisms that
repeated endless in the Barry era to make their scores so memorable.
Gone is the free-wheeling sense of fun that you got from those scores,
often defined by infusions of rock elements. It's truly sad to hear a
score for
Spectre that espouses very little of the vintage Bond
"sound," especially in the context of this film's story, and, for some
listeners,
Spectre's soundtrack, along with the tepid song, will
be a significant failure. Even in comparison to Newman's own sometimes
flamboyant style in
Skyfall, this sequel may disappoint. The
highlights of these Newman scores are the locational transition shots in
the movie, and whereas these cues in
Skyfall often received
overwhelmingly harmonic, cymbal-tapping coolness, such applications in
Spectre are comparatively muted and abbreviated. Instead, Newman
seems to have approached this score as he would have a pure suspense
thriller, with more passages that will remind you of
Whispers in the
Dark than anything resembling traditional Bond material. There is
extreme subtly in the score for
Spectre, some of which quite
intelligent and admirable, but one has to question whether this
franchise, and especially this film within that series, is the right
place to be exploring clouded nuance. It's a boon in some ways for
Newman's own collectors, but it's something of a disservice to the
general population. Even for film music collectors, the number of cues
of ensemble romance or attractive, sustained action worthy of inclusion
on a Bond compilation will be minimal, with few truly standout moments
of excellence amongst a significant amount of introversion and
atmosphere.
The instrumentation employed by Newman for
Spectre is closer to that of his own career this time, dulcimer
and worldly woodwinds merging with droning electronic textures to anchor
the work firmly in the composer's trademark suspense sound. That said,
he occasionally uses a flute, the brass, and bass strings to evoke
certain reflections of Bond scores of the past (especially the flute),
though this usage seems token at times, especially by the time wild
trumpets make the their two or three most notable, short contributions.
Expect the lengthy sequences of ambient electronic texture to dominate
at times, especially in the latter half of the score as these passages
come to define the villains of the entry. On other hand, do not expect
the album presentation to exhibit many bursts of coolness, the trailers
for
Spectre utilizing Barry's
On Her Majesty's Secret
Service nothing more than an unfulfilled tease. You have a couple of
moments when Norman's theme is the basis of movement on the 80-minute
album (which omits only about 20 minutes of additional music in the
film), leaving the style of the score reliant upon Newman's own themes.
They are more plentiful than you might think, the composer providing a
couple of action motifs and a villain's theme that translates into the
score's main love theme, too. In
Skyfall, Newman devised a rising
brass motif of action reminiscent of Trevor Jones' reality-altering
theme in
Dark City, and that is heard here once again (perhaps
most obviously at 0:20 into "Westminster Bridge"). A much longer motif
of action is developed rather elusively by Newman (it is built upon
7-note ascending phrases usually heard in pairs) and is best heard in
"Backfire," arguably the score's top cue. The villain's theme (extending
out from Blofeld to represent the sum of Quantum and Spectre) is
introduced in "The Eternal City" and appearing in numerous
conversational and suspense cues before really exposing itself in
"Silver Wraith" and "A Reunion." For those seeking the progressions of
the idea clearly, seek out the second half of "Silver Wraith," where
ethnic accents grace its creepiness over pulsating electric bass. It's
not a great theme by any means; in fact, it's downright forgettable
outside of its purpose in generating a specific mood, but by the time it
morphs into the sparse love theme variant for "Madeleine" and "Out of
Bullets," it achieves greater purpose. Newman extends the romance into
"Donna Lucia" and the latter half of "Spectre," the tone much like the
composer's past morbid drama identities. It's pretty material but
definitely darkened compared to other love themes for Bond's
girls.
One element additionally missing from
Spectre's
score is a clear narrative, a surprising reality given the motific
coordination Newman afforded the film. The album release is particularly
challenging to enjoy in the absence of pre-credit highlights, a song, or
a truly satisfying payoff at the end. This circumstance leaves the album
as one to be pilfered for its individual highlights, a tactic that
worked quite well for
Skyfall. The quantity and snazziness of the
highlights here are diminished, however. The opening "Los Muertos Vivos
Estan" cue presents Norman's rhythm in an ethnic setting, blurting brass
notes on key a highlight of any performance of that theme. The choral
element in the score is a little awkward in how suddenly it explodes
into the scene, but it produces two of the scores best highlights: the
location shot at about a minute into "The Eternal City" (the underlying
descending phrase reminds heavily of
Skyfall's equivalent) and
the chase portion at two minutes into "Backfire" (which builds
anticipation to a harmonic resonance when the choir comes in that is
actually startling in its beauty). By comparison, the fight sequences in
"Snow Plane" and "Tempus Fugit" aren't as impressive apart from the
film. The source-like "Day of the Dead" is of little consequence. The
Jaws-like villain isn't given more than a thumping piano motif in
"Hinx," and the metallic grating of this cue is a bit hard to take. The
pair of "Detonation" and "Westminster Bridge" resurrect some of the
excitement from "Backfire," but not enough to ultimately salvage the
album's listening experience. Don't be surprised if the impression with
which you leave the
Spectre album is defined by the long
sequences of ambient, electronically-aided, vaguely worldly environment.
Cues like "The Pale King," "Kite in a Hurricane," "Secret Room" (aside
from its nice location shot sequence at the end), "Safe House,"
"Careless," and the first half of "Spectre" are all dedicated to
development of Newman's quietly bumbling suspense motif, and together
they cause the album to suffer serious pacing issues. Overall,
Spectre is graced with a sub-par song and an adequate but
somewhat misguided score. Newman's contribution here does not match the
quality of his replacement of John Williams for
Bridge of Spies
at any level. In that score, he tackled the topic using his voice in a
way that functioned just as well as a Williams score might have. In
Spectre, Newman proves that he still hasn't figured how to adapt
his voice to a franchise that thrives on a sense of nostalgia that
includes reverence for its past musical style. Hopes are high for a
David Arnold return to the concept for both song and score.
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