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@Mendes4Lyfe, presentation as you put it is a simplification, but the look of a film isn't just the look, as it ties into the mood, atmosphere and everything else in a film. A picture is worth a thousand words, so moving pictures are exponentially more valuable. That's what I mean. I could've thrown in editing as well, or even sound design especially in the Mendes films for how the Craig movie stand out from just Brosnan's, but I already covered a lot of ground. I also would've added how even the narratives of the latest films differ from the others (I did that in another post on another thread, actually), but you and I have had that same discussion before so I didn't see the point in rehashing an argument when we both know how we feel on it.
I'm just never going to agree with the supposed parity with which you view these films, like nothing ever sets them apart. Speaking of equivalents in any art form is quite illogical, but even more so with film. We're all familiar with the tradition or formula of Bond (we're on a Bond forum), but to attempt to argue that because tradition is kept at any level that then implies that no movie is ever different in other ways is again an oversimplification or at worst an impossibility. It would actually be far easier to argue that more Bond films stand apart from each other than arguing that they are the same.
On just the topic of "artfulness," even going beyond the packaging comment, we can see attempts in just SF to add more to a Bond film that what you would expect in thematic and visual linking to tell the story (certainly more than anything the 90s films you mentioned tried). It's not an accident that Severine's boat is named "Chimera," in SF for example, as the way the woman is dressed and how Berenice plays her ties her to that mythological beast and the other meaning of the word, something you hope for but can't achieve, ties into how Severine craves escape but ends up dead anyway; a play on words and images. It's also not an accident that right after Silva gives Bond a speech about the fall of empires we see Severine tied to a statue that is recreated from the Shelley poem "Ozymandias" that, like Silva, pokes fun at the falling power of ostentatious and imperial civilizations like the current British one. Even more obvious, it's certainly no accident that the poem M reads at her inquiry is one whose lines feed into the entire message of the film, endurance and the power of time.
You can hate the latest films for injecting theme into the mix, arguing that Bond isn't about that, but the thematic content especially in SF is pretty clear and to see it isn't to look too deeply, it's to see what elements are being tied together to form meaning or symbology. Mendes has commented on the presence of these references to art, literature, poetry and more in the film numerous times, ruling out that the production team just accidentally created a statue that accidentally looks like that of Ozymandias, just as it's hard to argue that the many connections that can be made to the use of images or theme in the film just happened without anyone there realizing it. I mean, come on now. The work can be seen to meld those ideas into the film in commentaries and behind the scenes features where all of it is discussed.
On a larger note, comments like these honestly depress me: To look at any of these films, even excluding the Craig ones, and see nothing but these very broad, empty and poor representations of what these films are, like they're coming from an ignorant or casual outsider to the series, is quite sad to me. Even going back to Fleming, there's so much to those books that go beyond the women, the sex, the escapism and everything else, where the stories amount to more than what their various parts combine to be. There's meaning to be found in how Fleming paints Bond as jaded by his work, how he fed in very existential concerns of life and love to the stories to make them more than just paperback thrillers, and how Bond's story is a deep and engrossing one that is full of torture, endurance, fatigue, ennui, love won and lost and all the rest. There's a lot of Bond films that have this stuff too, that try to be more than the very hollow qualities or tropes that outsider culture tries to bill them as.
I for one am gratified that I can see more to them and do get more from their sources, stories that are more than just stories. If I were to see them as nothing more an assemblage of tropes that never allowed for any of them to stand out I don't think I'd be able to call myself a fan, and I certainly wouldn't bother devoting an indecent amount of time to conversing about these stories on a forum devoted to them.
Anyway, I really wonder what you could dream up if you would start to read some "real" spy novels (or some "real"novels at all). You at the very least should give it a try.
Obviously "real" means compared to the Master's of the genre.
As for condescension, I don't pull it out all the time to avoid staling it, but in this particular case I was reminded of my writing and communication courses in university. "Know your audience," I think was how the books put it.
Merry Christmas. Happy Holidays. All the best in the New Year.
One of the deepest character studies I've ever read.
It makes my brain ache just thinking about what the meaning behind all of it is...
Spot on.
Hmm. Spotty at best.
Spot is obviously symbolic for childhood spirit and wonder, and by letting him run around the children are not only sharing in the child-like wonder of their current state, but are also finding a part of themselves in their dog who almost appears as more than an animal to them because of their shared curiosity and energy. With their kinship discovered, Spot understands that running and exploring the world is not only fun for those who get to chase him and share in the adventure, like the kids, but that said adventure can also be just as fun for himself. Spot is finding the humanity in himself despite his animal state, just as the children are learning how to connect with things outside of their species that share human emotional intelligence.
A wonderful tale of human/animal cross discovery and the shared existence open to us all!
“A wonderful tale of human/animal cross discovery...”
Are you saying this is a Freudian sexual re-awakening? Or is this simply Jung’s Id?
You've possibly blown the lid off this whole thing and I'm flabbergasted.