New Review - David Arnold's Quantum of Solace

In my film music class last night, we were discussing how music can work to tell us new or deeper things about the characters we see on screen. One of my examples was John Barry's score for Goldfinger, a score often dismissed as "suited to the slick, hard-edge, dehumanized nature of those films."

I find the score a fascinating one because Barry conflates Bond's theme with that of Goldfinger's, in essence showing that both of them are cold, calculating, and deal in death. In other words, the music makes a more complicated figure out of Bond than we usual think.

This notion of using the Bond theme to dig at untold dimensions in the character began with Barry, but I find David Arnold keeping the tradition alive in his scores for the new Bond movies. I just reviewed Quantum of Solace and found new ways in which the Bond character is developed through the music. Hope you enjoy reading it.