Marc Forster has talked about his collaboration with composer David Arnold on "Quantum of Solace" and the style of the film...

Marc Forster Looking Back
10th August 2009

"Quantum of Solace" director Marc Forster spoke recently to SoundTrackGeek to discuss the scores to his films. Described as an 'unabashed soundtrack geek", Forster opened up about he style of his James Bond film and working with 007 composer David Arnold.

RAW: Many people were surprised about your being selected to direct Bond. Though if you really think about Paul Haggis’ interpretation of the character (as the screenwriter for both films staring Daniel Craig), in that sense, you’re a perfect fit for it. Bond is dealing with that loneliness and the franchise is so much more introspective with these last two films. I’m wondering how surprised you yourself were when you got the call for the job?

MF: Yeah, I was surprised and I didn’t want to do it in the beginning and I had no interest. Ultimately, I was won over by Daniel Craig, I think he’s an incredible actor. First I met with the producers and I told them I wasn’t sure, that I had to think about it and then they said that I should meet with Daniel who was in town. I connected with him because he’s a real actor, he’s down to earth and someone I knew I could make a really good movie with him even though at that point, we didn’t even really have a script. One of the things I wanted to do was bring my crew, the people I’ve worked with in the past to the Bond films, though in regard to the composer, David Arnold had scored several of the previous Bonds, so the producers had me listen to his music and meet with him. I met with him which I thought was interesting because I had replaced everybody else but would have this continuum going into Bond through David Arnold and actually it was a collaboration I enjoyed very much.

RAW: You have this close-knit team you brought on board to Bond, one of those people being your long-time editor Matt Chesse. The thing that baffled me, to be perfectly honest was that opening car chase action sequence. It had some of that Michael Bay, I daresay, attention deficit editing style. Is this the studio responding to Jason Bourne breathing down their necks that they feel they have to adopt this very similar “shaky cam” editing style in order to compete?

MF: No it wasn’t. The studio didn’t really say much, it was more from me. I wanted to create that opening to be very disorientating, the feeling of not really knowing where I was. This was the character state for me, that Bond, he doesn’t really know who he is with this word of disorientation going on around him. That’s what I tried to do with that. I hear that there were a couple of people who saw that comparison to Bourne. On one hand, Dan Bradley, the second unit director worked on those movies which definitely adds too that comparison. The sequences he worked on, on this were the opening car chase scene and the exterior of the plane sequence. I shot the interior. In regard to the car chase though, when he shot things, I always watched it and gave him notes on how I wanted to have it different or this and that, so there was a constant dialogue of me pushing for the disorientation of that opening, not so much him actually.

RAW: And in a similar way, you pushing Matt, your editor? It just seems so different from his editing style on the previous films. It was something I didn’t expect.

MF: Yeah. I just felt like I wanted to be thrown into this movie and be totally disorientated. That I don’t know where I am or what’s happening.

Click on to SoundTrackGeek for the rest of the interview where Forster talks about his other films.