By Kathryn Kalinak
The world of film lost one of the greats on Sunday: composer John Barry. British by birth, he carved a place for himself in Hollywood, winning five Oscars over the course of his career. He cut his teeth on James Bond films – Dr. No, (1962), From Russia With Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965) – and went on to compose seven more. There was something both elegant and hip about these scores, a kind of jazzy sophistication that connoted fast cars, beautiful women, and martinis, shaken not stirred, that is. A jack of all musical trades, he turned to Born Free (1966) and gave it a lush symphonic score and hit song. By 1966, when he won his first Academy Awards (and he won two that year: Best Song and Best Score for Born Free), he became one of the most high profile film composers in the world. He was only 33.
He had an eclectic taste when it came to choosing films – small independent films, huge studio epics, and everything in between – coupled with wide-ranging and versatile compositional skill that could produce a twangy country and western-inspired score for Midnight Cowboy (1969), a jazz-infused score for The Cotton Club (1984), an anxiety-filled score for The Ipcress File (1965), a sensual score for Body Heat (1981), a synthesized score for The Jagged Edge (1985), and a symphonic sound for Out of Africa (1985). He will largely be remembered, though, for those Bond scores – as well he should. They musically define the texture of those films, their time and place, and above all Bond himself with the electric guitar riff that Barry brought to the 007 theme.
But it is the score for Dances With Wolves (1990) that I will remember him for. Like Out of Africa, it is lush, symphonic, melody-laden. But like no other western score that I know of, it manages to avoid the stereotypes for Indians that riddle many of Hollywood’s best western film scores. And I am certainly not the first or the only one to notice this: no tom-tom rhythms, no modal harmonies, no use of fourths and fifths, no dissonance to represent the Sioux
There’s nothing more exciting than meeting a new small person who has embarked on the adventure of exploring the world–and that was the gift I was given when my buddies from Brooklyn came to town with their ten-month-old son. It was sheer, unadulterated joy to see Charlie enchant an entire coffeehouse without making a sound, simply through the radiance of his smile and the bouncing enthusiasm of his little body. He knows that everyone he sees will soon be his friend, and the delight that he finds in everything around him makes him irresistible.
Charlie’s father is a writer, and Charlie’s mother and I love many of the same books, so of course I wanted to know what have they read to Charlie? And of course, their answer was a story.
It was the end of the day and Charlie and his mother were snuggled together, when she realized that this was the perfect evening for their first bedtime story. She found Goodnight Moon, arranged the pillows on her bed to the proper level of support and comfort, placed the book so that Charlie would be able to appreciate the pictures while she read–and then Charlie’s father entered the room.
” Are you going to read Charlie his first bedtime story?” he asked, and then said, “No–wait.” He went off to his bookshelves and came back with the perfect words for his son’s introduction to the ritual of bedtime reading. That night Charlie’s parents prepared him for sleep by reading him The Odyssey.
As a parent who read Out of Africa, The Wasteland, and A Child’s Christmas in Wales aloud to my infant sons, I understood and loved this story. When we introduce our babies to words read aloud, we want those words to resonate, to imprint our children with the majesty of literature–then from there we turn to more conventional choices that are filled with color and delight and pleasure.
It’s no wonder that people not only love books, they are deeply attached to them. For many of us, being read to is one of our first memories, and our love for language on a page is intertwined with our memories of being warm, being snuggled, being secure, and being loved.
What was the first book you read aloud to your child?
