I don't have anything particularly great to add but just wanted to say that The Living Daylights is by a decent margin my favorite Bond score. Barry really knocked it out of the park on his final effort, IMO. The film also is one of the few pre-Craig era Bond films I can sort of take seriously. I really loved Dalton's Bond and wish he'd had a better second film that wouldn't have temporarily killed the franchise. Licence to Kill feels like an entirely different world from The Living Daylights...(and I'm not mainly talking about the music)
Dalton was such a breath of fresh air after some uninspired Moore efforts. Barry's score was remarkably well-crafted and managed to be respectful of the past while still sounding modern and exciting. This was also produced during a low-ebb in orchestral film scoring and a time when LP records were transitioning to CDs...I still remember having to special order the CD at my music store only to find out weeks later it had been "cancelled".
Out of interest, how many man hours would it have taken Barry to compile his work on paper before even confronting the orchestra?
Burlingame reports that Barry said he had "just four weeks" to write it all. That became a standard amount of time by the 1970s. In the 60s, Barry had more time, so wrote out the orchestrations himself. With the greater time constraints in the 70s, that job went to the orchestrator. But make no mistake, the scoring was still all Barry's. Nic Raine orchestrated THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS and actually A VIEW TO A KILL as well, but he himself said that there was nothing creative for him to do. It was more like following instructions than adding anything of his own. This makes it all the more remarkable that Barry was able to complete the score and orchestration (apparently by himself) for THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN in only three weeks, the shortest amount of time he ever had.
My *guess* (maybe Jon can confirm) is that four weeks was the time for actually scoring the picture, but I'm guessing Barry would have had time to work on creating thematic ideas in advance of that.
My *guess* (maybe Jon can confirm) is that four weeks was the time for actually scoring the picture, but I'm guessing Barry would have had time to work on creating thematic ideas in advance of that.
But like I said, just my guess.
That's probably the case. Burlingame does say that Barry's work on THE GOLDEN CHILD was completed in late September 1986, "allowing Barry to begin thinking about the Bond film script that was about to begin shooting."
It's hard to know since no one knows just how much thought a composer gives to a score before putting pen to paper. I know I spend a lot of time mulling ideas over before writing things down. And Barry did say about GOLDEN GUN that he felt rushed with the song in particular as so was never satisfied with that result, though he did like the score.
It would be fascinating to have a thorough study of Barry's compositional process. Hopefully the series of film score guides by Scarecrow Press come out with a Barry edition in the not-so-distant future.
Thanks, guys. It has often struck me that no matter how hard a composer mulls things over and gets on with the mechanical process of churning out the notes, the final article will never cease to be under scrutiny by someone, somewhere. I suppose the same is true of any artist making some sort of mark for all the world to see. I must be thinking of the music as a form of information whose appreciation, scrutiny or whatever will end up costing an awful lot more than the time spent in it's creation. That leads to the inescapable idea that some piece of creativity will be the most appreciated of all, because the sum total of consumers of that work (say a piece of music) will expand and increase over time. I wonder what that particular thing is at this precise moment in time?
I really loved Dalton's Bond and wish he'd had a better second film that wouldn't have temporarily killed the franchise. Licence to Kill feels like an entirely different world from The Living Daylights..
Nothing what you said here is true. License To Kill did fine in theaters and has a 75% on Rotten Tomatoes. The six year delay until Goldeneye was due to the ongoing litigation from Kevin McClory against MGM/UA over some of Bond's ownership since Thunderball.
After it had been ironed out six years later, Dalton stepped away from the series on his own, even after being asked if he wanted to do a third.
LTK was considered a box office disappointment in 1989, at least domestically. It was an unusually crowded summer (Indy 3, Star Trek 5, Ghostbusters 2, Batman...) and it never really found a foothold, in part due to an uninspired ad campaign.
I don't think he was officially offered a third film in 1994 after his contract had expired. I think it was one of those "mutual decisions" allowing both sides to walk away quietly. I doubt New York's UA offices were ever too keen on Dalton and don't think they would have ponied up a full budget for another Dalton Bond.
I loved the film back then and it's still enjoyable today. In many ways it was ahead of its time.
So glad to hear I'm not the only die hard LIVING DAYLIGHTS fan here. "Mujahadin and Opium" is one of the most gorgeous things Barry ever wrote, IMHO... and it's only one of several highlights in this amazing score.
It is a fact that LTK was a disappointment relative to expectations and budget, in North America at least. The term is well established and its meaning is well-known. I am not sure why you fail to grasp it.
LTK was considered a box office disappointment in 1989
"Box office disappointment" doesn't mean anything, it has no intrinsic value anywhere. It's an idiot colloquialism parading as fact.
Superman Returns was a disappointment, but it still made more than Batman Begins.
Phantom Menace was a disappointment because it "only" made 30 million in ticket preorders for its opening day.
Star Trek Into Darkness did great in theaters... But because it didn't set new records, it was disappointing.
History is rife with all sorts of unsubstantiated opinions.
There was no litigation from Kevin McClory against MGM/UA during that time, the legal issues were between MGM and EON. MGM was going through changes in ownership at the time and apparently used the valuable broadcast rights of the Bond films as a bargaining chip without EONs permission and they ended up suing each other. Thus the six-year delay.
The legal problems with Kevin McClory didnèt start up again until Goldeneye reinvigorated the franchise and McClory announced plans to launch a rival Bond film.
I really loved Dalton's Bond and wish he'd had a better second film that wouldn't have temporarily killed the franchise. Licence to Kill feels like an entirely different world from The Living Daylights..
Nothing what you said here is true. License To Kill did fine in theaters and has a 75% on Rotten Tomatoes. The six year delay until Goldeneye was due to the ongoing litigation from Kevin McClory against MGM/UA over some of Bond's ownership since Thunderball.
After it had been ironed out six years later, Dalton stepped away from the series on his own, even after being asked if he wanted to do a third.
There was no litigation from Kevin McClory against MGM/UA during that time, the legal issues were between MGM and EON. MGM was going through changes in ownership at the time and apparently used the valuable broadcast rights of the Bond films as a bargaining chip without EONs permission and they ended up suing each other. Thus the six-year delay.
The legal problems with Kevin McClory didnèt start up again until Goldeneye reinvigorated the franchise and McClory announced plans to launch a rival Bond film.
I really loved Dalton's Bond and wish he'd had a better second film that wouldn't have temporarily killed the franchise. Licence to Kill feels like an entirely different world from The Living Daylights..
Nothing what you said here is true. License To Kill did fine in theaters and has a 75% on Rotten Tomatoes. The six year delay until Goldeneye was due to the ongoing litigation from Kevin McClory against MGM/UA over some of Bond's ownership since Thunderball.
After it had been ironed out six years later, Dalton stepped away from the series on his own, even after being asked if he wanted to do a third.
"The song is actually written by Pål Waaktaar and Magne Furuholmen in a-ha. John Barry wasn't involved with the production of the song. Barry was credited as a producer, but this is wrong. He never actually touched the production of the track, at all. Like Waaktaar once said in an interview: "He wanted to produce the song, but he never showed up in the studio"
Barry was angry at a-ha because they didn't want to credit him as a writer to the track, but the track had already been written a couple of months earlier by Pål Waaktaar. while on tour with a-ha.
Thanks, Thomas. I discovered this in the earlier thread you posted, but it certainly deserves re-posting. Looks like it was a case of two parties knowing exactly what they want and not being willing to give an inch.
As I imply in the last of my Bond posts, I think Barry's marginalization of the title song in the score was intentional and due to the difficulties he had in working with a-ha. What's not clear is whether he actually disliked the song as well as the band. In other words, do you think he would have made more prominent use of the title song had he and a-ha got along better? Who knows, really.
But it's interesting to note that the song is quite different from many of Barry's title songs in that it lacks a large interval near its start. Maybe he also felt it wouldn't have fared so well as a main theme or leitmotif.
