A number of blogs have already commented on yesteday’s passing of film-music composer John Barry, aged 77, and I have little more to contribute except to note that a number of his scores rank among my all-time favorite music of any genre. (Yes, this formerly mullet-wearing rock-and-roll fan does have other musical interests, believe it or not!) Everyone seems to be focusing on Barry’s work for the James Bond films, but personally I love the moody atmosphere he brought to The Black Hole and the languid romanticism of both Out of Africa and Raise the Titanic (a near-universally panned film, but a lovely soundtrack).
Barry’s music was big and sentimental and it often took its time to develop a theme, making it perfectly suited for epic movies that wear their emotions on their sleeves — sadly, a type of film that nobody seems interested in making anymore. It’s therefore fitting that his last truly great work (in my admittedly biased opinion) was the soundtrack for one of the last great sentimental epics, Dances with Wolves. Oh, stop sneering. I know Dances has never been appreciated by the hipster movie-snob crowd, but for me it has always been and still remains deeply moving. It came along at just the right time in my life, I guess, to fully resonate with me on every imaginable level. And Barry’s music for the film — from the brutal staccato that accompanies the Pawnee attacks to the tender innocence of Two Socks’ theme to the blood-thumping grandeur of the buffalo hunt — is nothing short of sublime.
My favorite music from the movie, though — my favorite Barry piece, period — is listed on the Dances soundtrack album as “Journey to Ft. Sedgewick,” comprising Lt. Dunbar’s travels across the Great Plains with the grubby muleskinner Timmons early in the film. This piece evokes so much for me: an undefined yearning, a restless curiosity, wanderlust, the excitement of someplace new, the nobility of open spaces, the physical sensation of gazing upon beauty and feeling very small but in a satisfying way… I find this piece immensely uplifting, and of course it brings back a lot of memories of a long-past time in my life when Dances with Wolves was the big event and it was always the golden hour. If you want to know what I was like at the age of 21 — what I hope I’m still like in my better moments — it’s all right here:
