I enjoyed the new documentary on James Bond songs and scores, The Sound of 007. See it now on Amazon. It’s a fun overview of the history of Bond music, with valuable contributions by my pal, Jon Burlingame, and a lot of great archival footage.
I guess there’s some criticism that it didn’t cover everything—well, how could it?
There’s a lot of great stuff about John Barry, including a funny moment where Duran Duran call him “a dick”—but with affection.
Here’s a 1985 interview with Barry and the band, by the way:
And here’s an interview with the documentary director, Mat Whitecross, where he tells a lot of interesting stories about the material that was cut for time.
Here’s the director on Barry: “We spent a lot of time talking about his history and his relationship with his dad and how his dad was someone who really didn’t give him the love that he deserved, and it created this melancholia in him, which I think made him a great artist. It’s there. It’s in all his music, but it doesn’t make you happy in life probably, and so I think he was a little bit tortured.”
Interesting!
There’s also a bit on the unused Radiohead song, “Spectre,” which I love. Here’s a video where somebody put it into the film:
It may be a few years before we get the next Bond film. It will be interesting what they do. It’s such a different world now, and they did a lot to mature the storytelling with the Daniel Craig films, although they got a bit too soapy for me by the end.