MikeKardec
One Too Many
- Messages
- 1,157
- Location
- Los Angeles
It seems we are at the end of a run. What follows is my opinion only (as if it could be anything else!).
This film: Nice pieces but they don't fit together all that well. On the up side, many threads from the beginning of the Craig Bonds are looped through this story in order to tie it up like the end of a TV series. Seeing the other films again wouldn't hurt your appreciation of this one. More than any other Bond film this is a direct continuation of the previous ones and it refers to most of them. I doubt that it is, but it could easily function as the last Bond film.
The Series: I've watched the reboot of the Bond films with a great deal of enthusiasm. They've been a breath of fresh air and one of the smartest franchise updates in existence. They have also been predictable in the best of ways: I like to think that there are intelligent people out there in movieland and though I'm often proved wrong, the Daniel Craig Bond films are wonderful evidence that good film makers will eventually make the right decisions.
I'll set the oddball versions aside, like the G-Man version of Bond, and the Peter Sellers, David Niven, Woody Allen, Casino Royale ... though Niven seems like the one guy who ought to have had more of an opportunity to play Bond (or M) because he was probably personally closest to what you'd like Bond's background to have been, a man of many faces, a clandestine war hero, and certainly the suavest of the bunch (only my opinion, I'm a Niven fan).
Initially, the Bond films were moderate budget escapist fare that didn't take themselves too seriously and while that was fun throughout Connery's run it led to a growing number of problems in the Moore though Brosnan versions. The biggest of these issues were that the character became slicker and slicker, the tongue in cheek aspect went from amusing to something the films were gagging on, and the stakes inflated to the point where Bond had to save the entire world from total annihilation Every Single Time. To exaggerate: you had a cartoon, who was sort of winking at the audience, doing something utterly predictable and so huge that it lost all perspective ... each choice was entertaining once, together they were deadly when repeated. When repeated in the same film, devastating.
In particular, stakes inflation is always a huge mistake. I was told this by a top director: "if it's written well, a trip to the supermarket can change your hero's life." Truer words never said. You don't need and are probably better off without a burning building or terrorists.
in the Bond films I guess the idea was that we were supposed to care more because the world was at risk but that's a big vague idea. Mankind never really believed that we were all going to die during the real cold war so it was sort of foolish to try to rely on that fear to power more than one movie. When the characters you are following in that sort of film are more like caricatures it just means that a true connection was impossible. I've worked in film and publishing making big decisions about long term storytelling and it's my opinion that the Bond series is absolutely amazing in that it didn't implode immediately because of these problems ... it's a true testimony to the power of the franchise that it survived itself.
So something had to change. I know for a fact that the state of Bond haunted Pierce Brosnan. Back in the '90s I sat beside him at a premiere of Three Penny Opera on Broadway and was allowed into a conversation he was having with someone else (Me, young, lips zipped, amazed to be privy to this inner world. Them, trusting ... it was a mostly invitation only premiere, I had to be "someone" or I wouldn't have been there.). Anyway, it seemed he had been pushing to do a more realistic Bond because, of course, that's what a good actor would want. But he was not getting anywhere. I fear this is not surprising, to make a change they would have to switch actors and he fit too well in the "slick Bond" mold.
I suspect that Moore had thoughts along these lines too but I have a feeling that he was such an easy going guy that he may never have voiced them. An old school actor, the director tells me where to stand and I know my lines, no muss no fuss.
Enter Daniel Craig, new Bond and, more importantly, new goals for the writers of Bond. This iteration is the best (so far) Bond for the modern world. A rougher, tougher, less sure of himself (and therefore more engaging), less able to pull it off Bond. The stories got smaller, more personal to Bond and PRESTO, you (or maybe just I) cared more. He was more like a real person, not always the smartest, strongest, best prepared of secret agents. For the first time you felt he had a deep well of emotion, all very repressed, that he was working from ... when he succeeded against all odds it was because he had the power that gave him. The strength of Daniel Craig's bond was that he Just Kept Coming. This interpretation embodies what Bond, after all these years, has become as a concept.
And that's where things get really interesting for me: Bond is the franchise that Just Keeps Coming. It's a creaking, ancient, phantom (Spectre?) of the past that still has power over us. Because I work in publishing, and work with a "franchise" and author that is actually older than Fleming/Bond, I cheer every time I see him in print or on the screen. He's the scrappy little agent from the scrappy little island who's still holding it all together. Odd that one of the last vestiges of a world dominating empire can inspire such devotion in me.
Bond is the England that Americans want to see. Our friend, the father who can still show us how to do it both as a completely unrealistic secret agent and as a country. He is the England of WWII. The decrepit empire that could, the thing that made us proud to say "we are descended from that." The universal electronic security state that is the looming menace in Spectre has very the American overtones of the NSA and Edward Snowden's warnings but it is also the reality that is England today, a scary (to an American) big government nanny state. But, here's the thing, so far the British have been up to the challenge, they have the honesty and moral fiber to make it work ... even if they've given birth to a fictional secret agent who reminds us that extraordinary individual human beings have to hold something like that together.
Bond has often the brawny soldier from the near edge of the empire, an Irishman or Scot who the more effete managerial London types are sending out into the world as cannon fodder. Though these days we are often as much the creators of Bond as the British I think that appeals to Americans, often he's more like us.
I so appreciate that this version of Bond is referred to be and shown to be a thug. Even for a spy fantasy it can't be a pretty world out there in the trenches and the people who work in it can't be pretty people. The tuxedo is just a covering for the man inside it. We pay our governments to do the dirty jobs, to take out the garbage and the people who would threaten us. We can't forget that many people wouldn't want to have some of those garbage men over for dinner. It doesn't mean they aren't necessary or appreciated.
It's been wonderful to see two striking versions of M. I almost forgot that the Judi Dench version, the "mother of Bond" and the Iron Lady of British Intelligence, was a hold over from the Brosnan years. The Craig era reboot of her character evolved that role from "stunt casting" to "essential." The Ralph Fiennes version is also nice because he's such a man of action, he may be stuck behind the padded door of that office a good deal of the time but he's not adverse to kicking some arse when the chips are down. Being slowly reintroduced to Moneypenny and a special character with a special relationship to Bond in this film was nicely and subtly done.
Lastly, kudos to Martin Campbell who kicked off this reboot with Casino Royale. I would have guessed that he'd have been left behind with Brosnan but he performed heroically at the helm of both styles of Bond film. It's amazing he got that opportunity and and it's wonderful he did such a good job.
This film: Nice pieces but they don't fit together all that well. On the up side, many threads from the beginning of the Craig Bonds are looped through this story in order to tie it up like the end of a TV series. Seeing the other films again wouldn't hurt your appreciation of this one. More than any other Bond film this is a direct continuation of the previous ones and it refers to most of them. I doubt that it is, but it could easily function as the last Bond film.
The Series: I've watched the reboot of the Bond films with a great deal of enthusiasm. They've been a breath of fresh air and one of the smartest franchise updates in existence. They have also been predictable in the best of ways: I like to think that there are intelligent people out there in movieland and though I'm often proved wrong, the Daniel Craig Bond films are wonderful evidence that good film makers will eventually make the right decisions.
I'll set the oddball versions aside, like the G-Man version of Bond, and the Peter Sellers, David Niven, Woody Allen, Casino Royale ... though Niven seems like the one guy who ought to have had more of an opportunity to play Bond (or M) because he was probably personally closest to what you'd like Bond's background to have been, a man of many faces, a clandestine war hero, and certainly the suavest of the bunch (only my opinion, I'm a Niven fan).
Initially, the Bond films were moderate budget escapist fare that didn't take themselves too seriously and while that was fun throughout Connery's run it led to a growing number of problems in the Moore though Brosnan versions. The biggest of these issues were that the character became slicker and slicker, the tongue in cheek aspect went from amusing to something the films were gagging on, and the stakes inflated to the point where Bond had to save the entire world from total annihilation Every Single Time. To exaggerate: you had a cartoon, who was sort of winking at the audience, doing something utterly predictable and so huge that it lost all perspective ... each choice was entertaining once, together they were deadly when repeated. When repeated in the same film, devastating.
In particular, stakes inflation is always a huge mistake. I was told this by a top director: "if it's written well, a trip to the supermarket can change your hero's life." Truer words never said. You don't need and are probably better off without a burning building or terrorists.
in the Bond films I guess the idea was that we were supposed to care more because the world was at risk but that's a big vague idea. Mankind never really believed that we were all going to die during the real cold war so it was sort of foolish to try to rely on that fear to power more than one movie. When the characters you are following in that sort of film are more like caricatures it just means that a true connection was impossible. I've worked in film and publishing making big decisions about long term storytelling and it's my opinion that the Bond series is absolutely amazing in that it didn't implode immediately because of these problems ... it's a true testimony to the power of the franchise that it survived itself.
So something had to change. I know for a fact that the state of Bond haunted Pierce Brosnan. Back in the '90s I sat beside him at a premiere of Three Penny Opera on Broadway and was allowed into a conversation he was having with someone else (Me, young, lips zipped, amazed to be privy to this inner world. Them, trusting ... it was a mostly invitation only premiere, I had to be "someone" or I wouldn't have been there.). Anyway, it seemed he had been pushing to do a more realistic Bond because, of course, that's what a good actor would want. But he was not getting anywhere. I fear this is not surprising, to make a change they would have to switch actors and he fit too well in the "slick Bond" mold.
I suspect that Moore had thoughts along these lines too but I have a feeling that he was such an easy going guy that he may never have voiced them. An old school actor, the director tells me where to stand and I know my lines, no muss no fuss.
Enter Daniel Craig, new Bond and, more importantly, new goals for the writers of Bond. This iteration is the best (so far) Bond for the modern world. A rougher, tougher, less sure of himself (and therefore more engaging), less able to pull it off Bond. The stories got smaller, more personal to Bond and PRESTO, you (or maybe just I) cared more. He was more like a real person, not always the smartest, strongest, best prepared of secret agents. For the first time you felt he had a deep well of emotion, all very repressed, that he was working from ... when he succeeded against all odds it was because he had the power that gave him. The strength of Daniel Craig's bond was that he Just Kept Coming. This interpretation embodies what Bond, after all these years, has become as a concept.
And that's where things get really interesting for me: Bond is the franchise that Just Keeps Coming. It's a creaking, ancient, phantom (Spectre?) of the past that still has power over us. Because I work in publishing, and work with a "franchise" and author that is actually older than Fleming/Bond, I cheer every time I see him in print or on the screen. He's the scrappy little agent from the scrappy little island who's still holding it all together. Odd that one of the last vestiges of a world dominating empire can inspire such devotion in me.
Bond is the England that Americans want to see. Our friend, the father who can still show us how to do it both as a completely unrealistic secret agent and as a country. He is the England of WWII. The decrepit empire that could, the thing that made us proud to say "we are descended from that." The universal electronic security state that is the looming menace in Spectre has very the American overtones of the NSA and Edward Snowden's warnings but it is also the reality that is England today, a scary (to an American) big government nanny state. But, here's the thing, so far the British have been up to the challenge, they have the honesty and moral fiber to make it work ... even if they've given birth to a fictional secret agent who reminds us that extraordinary individual human beings have to hold something like that together.
Bond has often the brawny soldier from the near edge of the empire, an Irishman or Scot who the more effete managerial London types are sending out into the world as cannon fodder. Though these days we are often as much the creators of Bond as the British I think that appeals to Americans, often he's more like us.
I so appreciate that this version of Bond is referred to be and shown to be a thug. Even for a spy fantasy it can't be a pretty world out there in the trenches and the people who work in it can't be pretty people. The tuxedo is just a covering for the man inside it. We pay our governments to do the dirty jobs, to take out the garbage and the people who would threaten us. We can't forget that many people wouldn't want to have some of those garbage men over for dinner. It doesn't mean they aren't necessary or appreciated.
It's been wonderful to see two striking versions of M. I almost forgot that the Judi Dench version, the "mother of Bond" and the Iron Lady of British Intelligence, was a hold over from the Brosnan years. The Craig era reboot of her character evolved that role from "stunt casting" to "essential." The Ralph Fiennes version is also nice because he's such a man of action, he may be stuck behind the padded door of that office a good deal of the time but he's not adverse to kicking some arse when the chips are down. Being slowly reintroduced to Moneypenny and a special character with a special relationship to Bond in this film was nicely and subtly done.
Lastly, kudos to Martin Campbell who kicked off this reboot with Casino Royale. I would have guessed that he'd have been left behind with Brosnan but he performed heroically at the helm of both styles of Bond film. It's amazing he got that opportunity and and it's wonderful he did such a good job.
