A Travesty of Bond

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James
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A Travesty of Bond

Post by James »

"I can't do that superhero stuff" Daniel Craig
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LilleOSC
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Re: A Travesty of Bond

Post by LilleOSC »

That website has interesting essays. I am in the middle of reading "Two Views from the Hotel Splendide:Analysis of Casino Royale, the Novel and the Film."
Link: http://n007.thegoldeneye.com/two_views_ ... oyale.html
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Re: A Travesty of Bond

Post by katied »

Not sure why they think Leiter is nerdy-that's the second time I've heard Wright's Leiter referred to as such-the other was referring to Leiter and Beam.Beam definitely, but Leiter,not really.
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Re: A Travesty of Bond

Post by oscartheman »

Image
Above: Carl Weathers as Action Jackson, the
inspiration for Craig's Bond.
Bottom: Action Bondson in action.

:lol:
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Re: A Travesty of Bond

Post by 007 »

:cheers:
"I’m looking for Commander Bond and not an overgrown stunt-man." - Ian Fleming
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Re: A Travesty of Bond

Post by Mazer Rackham »

this guy always has an interesting take on whatever he is writing about.
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Re: A Travesty of Bond

Post by Dr. No »

picked out some interesting bits
For the new Bond film is, ultimately, a tale about a director named Marc Forster and an actor named Daniel Craig, and how they’re not very good. The supporting players are producer Barbara Broccoli, her servant Michael G. Wilson, and lead screenwriter Paul Haggis; and they too (I’m sorry to say) are not very good.
:lol:
But even more important, the character’s propensity for non-stop action signals the strategy of the filmmakers: with Craig’s lack of any semblance whatsoever to Fleming’s James Bond, the wisest course is to turn toward the light, to Carl Weathers’ action hero, Jericho “Action” Jackson, an individual who just happens to be so action-oriented that the world is forced to acknowledge this trait through his nick-name.
For behind the mask of a glossy $230 million production, Quantum Of Solace is about as intelligent as the Carl Weathers classic and certainly no different in caliber from a typical direct-to-DVD effort by your Van Dammes and your Dolph Lundgrens.
What Quantum Of Solace needs, the one thing needful to make it all bearable, is every drop of the magnetism of a leading man. Instead, we’re back to the problem we faced in Casino Royale: at the center of the nonsense, we find the one and only Daniel Craig.
Dour, detached, and uninvolved, Craig harks back to the nuances of Steven Seagal’s performance in Mercenary For Justice (2006).
:lol:
The producers are still adamant that Craig is the ideal Bond according to Fleming’s vision. This underscores their use of a Fleming title (regardless of how obscure a short story it derives from) as well as their eagerness to base the new film as an extension of Casino Royale to link the actor to the Fleming novel. Unfortunately, their approach is far from Fleming as they could be. Although it is accurate that Bond, in Fleming’s CASINO ROYALE, is tormented over the death of Vesper, he has no intention of seeking those who caused her death through a personal vendetta. At the end of the novel, Fleming’s Bond understands the circumstances of Vesper’s death and has a clear vision of himself as the destroyer of SMERSH:
He would take on SMERSH and hunt it down.... SMERSH was the spur. Be faithful, spy well, or you die. Inevitably and without question, you will be hunted down and killed.... But now he would attack the arm that held the whip and gun. The business of espionage could be left to the white-collar boys. They could spy and catch the spies. He would go after the threat behind the spies, the threat that made them spy. (179)

It is this threat behind the spying, a powerful force of dread, that destroyed Vesper. For Bond, it takes on a sinister shape, a monolithic system under the guise of SMERSH. It is clear to him what he needs to pursue and destroy. This state of mind is in contrast to his earlier state, and his transformation takes us to the dramatic centerpiece of the novel. Earlier, as Bond recovers in hospital from the torture of Le Chiffre, he tells Rene Mathis that he no longer has a clear vision of himself as a secret agent, that his role as hero is uncertain because good and evil are transitory, interchangeable:
‘You see,’ he said, still looking down at his bandages, ‘when one’s young, it seems very easy to distinguish between right and wrong; but as one gets older it becomes more difficult. At school it’s easy to pick out one’s own villains and heroes, and one grows up wanting to be a hero and kill the villains...but when the hero Le Chiffre starts to kill the villain Bond and the villain Bond knows he isn’t a villain at all, you see the other side of the medal. The villains and heroes get all mixed up.’ (132-134)

These are the words of a disillusioned man. In the books, Bond is closer to a Sartrean existentialist than to a pulp action hero: he is an individual in dread over uncertainty. Put another way, if the opposites of good and evil are interchangeable, if the role of the hero can be quickly transformed into the role of the villain, then life (human existence) loses its dimensions and becomes empty, like a cave. Fleming’s Bond discerns that nothing is concrete or absolute. He is troubled by the lack of meaning or substance in the world, or at least in his world. By no longer finding value in what he does, he tells Mathis that he wants to resign and, secretly, intends to marry Vesper. He is in love with her, or perhaps he thinks he is in love with her; and without anything to structure his world, he retreats inward, to his love for Vesper, as the foundation in his life. Sure, it’s a straightforward method, quite human and poignant, but fails to take into account complications such as betrayal and suicide. In the final scene of the novel, Vesper is revealed as a double agent and, torn between duty and her love for Bond, overdoses on sleeping-pills. Bond discovers her lying in bed, “straight and moulded like a stone effigy on a tomb” (174), and he is shattered emotionally. His world again crumbles but he hardens himself, vowing to hunt down SMERSH and this business about the threat behind all the vicious spying. So again, he finds something as a foundation to his life, he has something to act upon and seek a meaning to his life, to struggle for a cause.

None of this is adapted for the screen. If anything, by discarding a sincere adaptation of CASINO ROYALE and throwing Craig’s Action Bondson into a hunt for those who caused Vesper’s suicide, the filmmakers override Fleming’s concept of the agent. The crucial dialogue in the novel—the notion of the uncertainty of good and evil—also loses its impact on screen: it is Mathis who, in the film, says the haunting bits about the heroes and villains getting mixed up, rather than Craig’s Bond—a profound flaw because, by switching the dialogue over to Mathis, the filmmakers lose Bond’s dramatic transformation—his self-realization—which, as we have seen, is fundamental to Fleming’s depiction of the character.

There are other aspects of Craig’s Bond that make the character even more remote from Fleming’s intentions. For example, why does Action Bondson dump Mathis’ body in a dumpster in an alley? The scene is ludicrous. In the Fleming books, the theme of friendship abounds, and Bond has deep value for his allies. He would never throw a loyal friend such as Mathis into a dumpster. Gone also is the connoisseurship of the character. This Bond is rather dismissive about what he drinks. On a plane to Bolivia, we find him drinking at the bar but is unable to tell Mathis what precisely he is drinking. It is the bartender who explains the ingredients of the drink, essentially repeating a line of dialogue from CASINO ROYALE, as uttered by Bond but obviously denied from the screen character: “‘Three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel’” (45). Fleming's 007 is a man of very personal tastes in epicurean delights. “‘I take a ridiculous pleasure in what I eat and drink,’” he tells Vesper in that first novel. “‘It comes partly from being a bachelor, but mostly from a habit of taking a lot of trouble over details’” (54). Bond’s hard drinking, hard smoking, his penchant for the finer things in life suggest an act of celebration—the celebration of his being. Note how the agent, shocked from the explosion that occurs near the beginning of the novel, sits by the window in his hotel room “and enjoyed being alive” (39). He savors a glass of whisky and takes delight in his lunch (pate de foi gras and cold langouste) and reminds himself “to tip the waiter doubly for this particular meal” (40). In the face of death, Bond cherishes life in the here-and-now. It’s a variation of carpe diem mixed with a bit of dry existentialism: life is everything, Fleming seems to say; death is nothing. This is the basis for Bond’s devotion to the gratification of sensual desires.
the character relies on a dorky pick-up line: “I can’t find my stationery,” he tells her. “Will you come and help me look for it?” It is a seduction technique worthy of Screech Powers in Saved By The Bell.
:lol:
Yet somehow it’s all meant to be oh, so serious—thanks in large part to screenwriter Paul Haggis. Known for his Marxist leanings, Haggis inserts leftist propaganda while Forster, with his knack for pretentiousness, falls for the crap—and the result is a film that regresses deeper into kitsch with its bits of preachy polemics against geo-political corruption and the evil American Imperialism that exploits poor countries.
hummm
There are other struggles, one involving the James Bond theme, which hardly registers in the film. It seems composer David Arnold was unsure if he was scoring a Bond film or a Dolph Lundgren action fest and was forced to leave traces of the famous theme in the soundtrack.
:lol:
Even more disturbing: just as in Casino Royale, the Bond in Quantum Of Solace is calculated to draw the widest possible demographics, a Universal Bond if you will, one who abandons the iconic playboy lifestyle of James Bond in favor of an effeminate metrosexual persona—devoid of virility, Action Bondson is, in a sense, emasculated to appease feminists, to accord with political correctness, and, on another level, to appeal to gay audiences; yet as an uncouth thug, he also plays straight into the sentiment of a world that, perhaps more vulgar and crass than ever, can no longer remember the concept of “debonair.” In other words, Quantum Of Solace is a Bond film that shuns the spirit of Fleming’s credo. “I have no message for suffering humanity,” Fleming declared, emphasizing that his books were written for a specific audience, “warm-blooded heterosexuals in railway trains, airplanes or beds” (“How to Write a Thriller” 2). Farewell, then, to Fleming’s Bond. Farewell also to the enigmatic Bond that Terence Young and Richard Maibaum envisioned for Dr. No (1962)—dashing, darkly handsome, ruthless but romantic, that James Bond was the archetypal 007 who somehow reflected Fleming’s vision and spoke to audiences as pure cinema magic. Sadly, under the guise of Craig’s Action Bondson, the character now suffers from an emptiness within, the unbearable lightness of a hollow man, empty like the barren deserts in Quantum Of Solace.
Image
Chief of Staff, 007's gone round the bend. Says someone's been trying to feed him a poisoned banana. Fellow's lost his nerve. Been in the hospital too long. Better call him home.
katied

Re: A Travesty of Bond

Post by katied »

I got a chuckle out of the "I can't find the stationery" line. :P
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Re: A Travesty of Bond

Post by Saunders »

Why, this website should be of wider interest! Long live unpopular opinion! Vindication will come in the long run. Keep the light alive!
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Re: A Travesty of Bond

Post by katied »

Sadly, certain posters here(not myself!) don't feel that way :?
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Re: A Travesty of Bond

Post by Dr. No »

Saunders wrote:Why, this website should be of wider interest! Long live unpopular opinion! Vindication will come in the long run. Keep the light alive!
:D
I surprised by how many places, not necessarily cirag hate but people unhappy with Craigs' spy as Bond pop up.
publications already calling for his replacement and suggesting a few names. Wow :shock:
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Chief of Staff, 007's gone round the bend. Says someone's been trying to feed him a poisoned banana. Fellow's lost his nerve. Been in the hospital too long. Better call him home.
katied

Re: A Travesty of Bond

Post by katied »

Dr. No wrote:
Saunders wrote:Why, this website should be of wider interest! Long live unpopular opinion! Vindication will come in the long run. Keep the light alive!
:D
I surprised by how many places, not necessarily cirag hate but people unhappy with Craigs' spy as Bond pop up.
publications already calling for his replacement and suggesting a few names. Wow :shock:

See! we're not alone in this! :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
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Re: A Travesty of Bond

Post by Saunders »

I would like to see those links.
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Re: A Travesty of Bond

Post by carl stromberg »

Saunders wrote:I would like to see those links.
Here is a thread talking about an Askmen article on Craig's replacement for Bond 23:

http://www.danielcraigisnotbond.com/for ... f=4&t=1654

The GoldenEye site is wrong to compare Action Jackson to Quantum of Solace. Action Jackson is an entertaining cult classic, whearas Quantum of Solace is a bore and one of the worst films ever made. :wink: :lol:
Bring back Bond!
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