La musique de 007

The documentary "The Sound of 007" enriches us with details about the construction and choices of songs/writers and performers for each of the James Bond films. Composer John Barry created the sound of James Bond, he mastered 11 of Bond's music scores. He invented the style and it was the basis of all other subsequent Bond movies.

Any of the 007 movies without the well-known opening theme doesn't sound like a James Bond movie. The theme became one of the main characters of the film, without it the film would be incomplete.

Aside from the opening theme, each Bond film brings the trademark of a song originally written to embrace the plot, this is for all 25 Bonds films.

The documentary focuses a bit more on the soundtracks from the 60s to the 90s and touches on the 2000s onwards. But the film manages to give a good view of how important a soundtrack is for the construction and identification of one character: BOND...James Bond!!!

John Barry wrote the most iconic music score in film history. Film and music have had an important integration that predates "talkies" when the only sound that came out were the musical scores played to fill the silence. Music sets the tone of films and amplifies the emotion of the scene, and has done so forever in movies. Try watching a film where the music score is eliminated and the difference is often startling.

No score is more identifiable than that composed and orchestrated by John Barry, who penned the immediately identifiable James Bond 007 theme. All one has to hear are the first handful of bass string electric guitar notes played to recognize it's the James Bond 007 movie theme. No other song is more connected to film.

'The Sound of 007" is the story behind how it all happened, and the amazing journey of artists and other composers, songs and performances involved over 60 YEARS!

Truly a worthwhile film to see, this is by a wide margin the best documentary on the subject, and a must-see for everyone interested in film and music arts.

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This was a great way to commemorate 60 years of Bond. Besides mostly being about the music, it really ties the plot and deeper meaning of the Bond films. Really thoughtful. For better or for worse, but it was interesting that they would talk about one movie's music, than immediately jump back to No Time To Die. It felt like they were just covering the movies they had the cast from and just skipping over some pretty big parts if they didn't have the singer of the song. However, it told the story of Bond in a more poetic. I just feel like they just waved the cast in your face and you are like "ya, I get it".

It touches upon the songs and the themes and covers a lot of the franchise, but it does give too much attention to No Time To Die and skips over some of the more interesting things. Credit to John Barry and David Arnold is definitely given, but entire bits dedicated to Amy Winehouse who almost wrote a theme and not a word about Chris Cornell's brilliant work on Casino Royale other than Rami Malek mentioning him as a favorite. I would have also loved some mention about John Barry's swan song score, Living Daylights where his orchestral and brass arrangements of aHa's theme are some of the best music of the entire franchise. The Dalton era is basically skipped over entirely. Amusing bit of Sam Smith saying he wrote his song in 20 mins and recorded it 20 mins later and given how crappy that song was, you could really believe him. Def worth a watch. Interviews with Shirley Bassey are a treat.

This and it's accompanying 007 Live at what I think was the Albert Hall have just appeared this weekend on Amazon Prime. The documentary is good however there's a bit too much Billie Eilish for my liking. Why she has so much screen time is beyond me, unless it's to try and appeal to the young. The focus tends to be on the themes of the Bond movies, less so on the scores which I would argue is more important. There is probably more time spent on the newer Bond movies as well which I wasn't keen on. It was interesting that LTJ Bukem appeared as he was one of the dance music artists involved with a remix project, which was never even mentioned. There are a few surprises straight out if the mouths of some of the biggest names associated with the franchise in terms of artist choice for theme songs etc. There are even sizable contributions from artist I either didn't know did a Bond song or had completely forgotten about. Jack White anybody? I certainly didn't know Lulu was ever involved. It's certainly worth watching and isn't too trainspotter-ish in terms of the musical discussions.

There is an accompanying live concert which was shot I believe on the 4th of October with a mix of new and older artists. Also on Prime. The newcomers struggled with the songs, Celeste who appears in the documentary seems to sing out of key while Paloma Faith sounds like she's doing a bad Tina Turner impression for karaoke. Also no Adele in this show. After watching the documentary you will likely find yourself clicking on the link for the live show, not a bad way to round off the evening but you won't miss much if you give the concert a miss.