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Comments
An excess of pure class.
OHMSS had a downer ending as well, but they achieved genuine poignancy with that film. CR doesn't even attempt it. I don't know how many tonal shifts they try and pack into that last 20 minutes, but it doesn't work.
I do like CR very much, but like you find it a bit overwhelming and tough going over the last 20 - 30 minutes. I much prefer SF in that regard.
Handily my favourite of all PTS.
I absolutely love the CR gunbarrel.
That's a good point. I also wish they had just wrapped up the story of CR in CR, rather than requiring me to acknowledge the existence of QOS.
But "his man" is ultimately Vesper's boyfriend, something that would have been better worked into CR.
True, but without anything further happening in QOS with regards to the story of CR, the ending of CR would feel abrupt, incomplete, and unsatisfying. I'd have rather CR been an entirely stand alone film with a more solid ending.
The dialogue is wonderful
The locations are wonderful
Bond feels like a gentleman, albeit rough around the edges. Little details like standing up when vesper leaves the table help. It's also the first time in ages before or since that we've had a connoisseur bond. His ordering of the martini is great and for he last 20 years has been an ignored part of the character
I think things become a little muddled towards the end
Venice is uneccessary.
I find the guy with the eye patch confusing. Why have 2 villains with eye issues.
Still not 100% sure of the intricacies of vesper and quantum.
Why does bond suspect Mathis at dinner.
Why does bond say to Le Chiffre the line about "everyone will know you died scratching my balls. " They're in a windowless room with no one else present. People love this line I just don't get the logic of it.
But overall it's in my top 3. Probably the best ever
Tonal shifts?! Please enlighten me, @Mendes4Lyfe .
Yusef was small picture. It was White and those of his level that were the real threats. As Bond says in the book, he wants to get the enemy behind the spies. Yusef was just a spy, White was the man controlling him. Bond was of course still going to find Yusef, because his heart was wrapped in it and he needed to do it to have peace and let Vesper go. It was just an accidental bonus that he stopped Yusef from manipulating another woman in the process.
If one knows the novel, all these questions about structure are answered. And for my money the film trumps the text mightily.
Bond suspecting Mathis has annoyed me for a long time, but ultimately it's because he's too naive in CR to suspect Vesper, and that really only leaves Mathis. Bond believes Mathis tipped Le Chiffre off with regards to his tell, which is information Le Chiffre used to take Bond out of the game when he had four Jacks. To me what happened during that hand likely plagued the back of his mind the entire duration of the film since it happened.
I agree with your other points; the eye issues thing is probably just a coincidence that has a thread back to Fleming giving all his villains physical deformities. Agree too about the "scratching my balls" line, but for a different reason; it flies straight in the face of how Fleming discusses appropriate reactions to torture in the novel.
Bond makes the scratching balls line because he knows that he'll sign Le Chiffre's death warrant if he says nothing about the money. In short, the man dies desperately trying to whack Bond where the sun doesn't shine. When his body-or their bodies-would be found, word could get out about what transpired between them. Everyone would know how loosely Le Chiffre played with the money and why Bond was being tortured (he was the high profile winner). The lines would be elementary to connect for either Quantum or other agencies/organizations. Le Chiffre's embarrassing death could even be used by the former as a warning to its members who act recklessly.
As for Bond's actions during torture: I find Bond being more of a smart arse there than enjoying the torture in a pleasurable way as Fleming warns. Le Chiffre knows that he is mocking him, and that's Bond's point. He knows his time is numbered, so he intends to go out being a bastard, the same resolve Bond commits to in the novel with a quieter endurance.
QoS reveals almost nothing about Quantum (known simply as "the organization" in CR) other than the large scale of the organization. I guess QoS does offer a look into Bond getting over Vesper through his chats with M, Mathis and Yusef, but I never felt it was important to see Bond pluck up re: Vesper. Clearly Fleming didn't either, considering where he ended his book. In fact, I imagine Bond's rage and sorrow over the whole situation to be rather integral to his character! So I didn't think it was necessary to see him working through his feelings.
However, I do accept QoS for what it is - an experiment - and I even enjoy some of it, including the scenes that concern Bond's feelings re: Vesper. I just don't buy that CR leaves us with any questions that needed answering (again, with the exception of clearing Mathis' name... the writers making him a traitor pissed me off in 2006).
Agreed. I get why some don't like it, but I will take an interesting development of Bond and Vesper's connection and how the betrayal was explosively revealed than an adaptation of the last section of the book, which drags to no end and boils down to Bond being really confused and cross and Vesper crying about twenty times a chapter. Sorry, but not for me. Fleming was very much of his day, and I get the feeling that the only way he thought women got through any of their problems was by crying and having break downs over it.
Vesper's character is very badly written in the book on the whole, and one of CR's many improvements is in getting the character right. I fell in love with Vesper before Bond did, so when he felt the same way I never got confused as to what he saw in her. In the book, I constantly yell at Bond to get the hell away from her, but he never listens. Their relationship is damaging and boils down to Bond wanting to dominate her because he can't stand it that she seems to act indifferent to him, and Vesper wants to make a game of teasing Bond to prove a point to her office colleagues. There's really no moment where I sense genuine love between them, whereas the film is constantly showing the characters becoming attracted to each other for substantial reasons that go beyond the physical. I think one thing the film fixed is putting in a moment where Bond and Vesper have to depend on each other to survive. It really pushed the boundaries of that connection and brought them closer, and Bond's murder of Obanno set up the perfect opportunity for Vesper to question him about his coldness, which works better than in the novel as well. The book never gives them much to do or any reason to connect, and that's one of its biggest issues.
Vesper's death and Bond's desperate attempts to save her crack me open every time. We even get "the bitch is dead," setting up Bond's mood for the next film. Not much to complain about for me.
We go from relief that the day is saved, luvy montage, exciting action sequence, tragedy, and then back too fist pumping at the end. I make that 5 turns on a dime in the space of about 20 minutes.
I don't see how that's a major tonal shift. Bond survived torture and, realizing how much Vesper means to him, he makes his love for her known, feelings she has long wanted to reciprocate. They go on holiday and act on their passions. One tone. Bond then finds out that she betrayed him, and he furiously goes after her until he tragically loses her. No major shifts there, because Bond's starry-eyed love organically mutates into confusion, hate and desperation, as in the book. With Vesper dead Bond hides his feelings to M and calls the woman a bitch, playing down her effect on him in an effort to salvage some pride. Again, an organic response to what has happened. When he goes to White and gets his man, he's not fist bumping, he's doing his job. Throwing himself into his work, he makes it seem like he's back to normal, and that Vesper meant nothing to him.
None of this is the least bit strange to me, and this basic frame is in the novel too, minus Bond getting his man, as we leave him just after he reads his note and commits to seeking out SMERSH.
Yes @peter, I love how Bond is caught between love and hate. Like his urge to get to her at the end in the lift, he is acting with his heart rather than his head and does still love her. His attempts to bring her back from the dead underscore this, until he gives up and holds her in hysteria. Thanks to Dan's talent, it all works.