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poliphiloHave they chosen a new Bond yet? Do I care? Only insofar as it would grieve me if an actor as good as Jude Law or Clive Owen got hitched to that infantile and career-killing franchise.
Only one actor ever came back alive from playing Bond. And that's Connery. And the return to the land of the living took him about three decades.
Moore lingers on in a strange twilight world.
Lazenby has returned to the obscurity from which he came.
Dalton has disappeared off the face of the earth.
I never liked Bond- not even as an inky schoolboy. I hated his smug brutality.
There'a scene in The Man With the Golden Gun that gives the game away. Bond is in conference with the professional hit-man Scaramanga (the ever wonderful Christopher Lee.) It goes something like this.
Scaramanga: We are much alike, Mr Bond.
Bond: What do you mean?
Scaramanga: We both kill for money.
Bond (losing his cool- a sure sign that a raw nerve has been touched): Bullshit. I only kill on the orders of my government.
OK. Freeze it there. We're supposed to be impressed by Bond's superior morality. But Bond is a government assassin. And The British Government is the fount of all goodness and wisdom? Yeah, right. Not even in the 70s did we believe that. A goon who kills on government orders is doubly a goon because he has surrendered his mind to the machine. Earlier versions of the lone wolf hero- Sherlock Holmes, Richard Hannay, Philip Marlowe- remained free agents. They picked their own adventures. They could look authority in the eye and- when conscience dictated- defy it. Bond has forfeited that right. He is an unreflecting automaton, bought and sold, and Scaramanga is far and away the better man.
It's weird how the Bond franchise keeps rolling and rolling. It's a triumph of branding over experience. We look at the logo not the product.
The Connery Bonds are the gold standard. Actually they're not all that good. The early 60s was a bad time for commercial film-making and, set beside a prime 40s noir, things like Dr No or Goldfinger look limp and flabby.
And then things went down hill.
Bond is to action adventure what the Carry-on series is to comedy.
Hey, Jude, Clive, you're doing fine, both of you. You've got burgeoning careers; you've got credibility. Don't throw it all away.
Only one actor ever came back alive from playing Bond. And that's Connery. And the return to the land of the living took him about three decades.
Moore lingers on in a strange twilight world.
Lazenby has returned to the obscurity from which he came.
Dalton has disappeared off the face of the earth.
I never liked Bond- not even as an inky schoolboy. I hated his smug brutality.
There'a scene in The Man With the Golden Gun that gives the game away. Bond is in conference with the professional hit-man Scaramanga (the ever wonderful Christopher Lee.) It goes something like this.
Scaramanga: We are much alike, Mr Bond.
Bond: What do you mean?
Scaramanga: We both kill for money.
Bond (losing his cool- a sure sign that a raw nerve has been touched): Bullshit. I only kill on the orders of my government.
OK. Freeze it there. We're supposed to be impressed by Bond's superior morality. But Bond is a government assassin. And The British Government is the fount of all goodness and wisdom? Yeah, right. Not even in the 70s did we believe that. A goon who kills on government orders is doubly a goon because he has surrendered his mind to the machine. Earlier versions of the lone wolf hero- Sherlock Holmes, Richard Hannay, Philip Marlowe- remained free agents. They picked their own adventures. They could look authority in the eye and- when conscience dictated- defy it. Bond has forfeited that right. He is an unreflecting automaton, bought and sold, and Scaramanga is far and away the better man.
It's weird how the Bond franchise keeps rolling and rolling. It's a triumph of branding over experience. We look at the logo not the product.
The Connery Bonds are the gold standard. Actually they're not all that good. The early 60s was a bad time for commercial film-making and, set beside a prime 40s noir, things like Dr No or Goldfinger look limp and flabby.
And then things went down hill.
Bond is to action adventure what the Carry-on series is to comedy.
Hey, Jude, Clive, you're doing fine, both of you. You've got burgeoning careers; you've got credibility. Don't throw it all away.
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no subject
Date: 2004-12-11 01:34 pm (UTC)It's like we are connected at the collective unconscious these days,
Especially after the new Thomas Crown Affair came out. A sexy man in a suit! Art! Seduction and intrigue! More art! All while playing Nina Simone's Sinnerman--oh, baby, I'm sold!
no subject
Date: 2004-12-11 03:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-11 04:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-11 04:52 pm (UTC)See it by all means, but don't expect too much...
no subject
Date: 2004-12-11 05:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-11 05:32 pm (UTC)I still go to the cinema expecting great things. I'm often disappointed, but I always pick myself up, dust myself down and repeat the mantra, "the next film I see is going to be a masterpiece."
I watched Bunuel's L'Age D'Or this afternoon. It says "masterpiece" on the box and, by God, the box is right.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-11 06:17 pm (UTC)OK, that's it. I hereby declare you Sir Movie Guru. Your word on films is the last. I shall seek your advice in all things film.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-11 06:55 pm (UTC)But, no, I do love the movies- anytime you want to chat about them I'm game.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-12 01:09 am (UTC)Last night I watched The Stepford Wives. I thought it was incredibly slow though the book might have been somewhat interesting. I have not yet seen the 1975 version of this film--have you?
no subject
Date: 2004-12-12 09:49 am (UTC)But I have a soft sport for its director, Bryan Forbes, an unsung Brit who, in his early days, made a number of low-key classics.
We bought a DVD that teamed Darling, starring Julie Christie, with Forbes' all but forgotten L Shaped Room. Darling (which is the one we wanted to see) is glossy, misogynistic rubbish, but the L Shaped Room is bloody marvellous- a humane and emotionally subtle story of people living in bed-sits in 1960s London just before it started to swing.
Equally good, perhaps even better, is his debut feature, Whistle Down the Wind- the story of how a group of kids in rural Yorkshire mistake a murderer on the run for Jesus.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-12 03:26 pm (UTC)I shall have to see whether the local video stores offer these jewels. If not, I will be putting them up for Santa to fetch me some presents! Last letter to the North Pole gets out this Wednesday, I am told! [Giggles] Haven't done this in over a decade!