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The Craig era - back to the source?
As I've previously pointed out, we've never been in a position to look at two Bond movie eras, with an equal number of films before.
Four Brosnan Bonds.
Four Craig Bonds.
And if it weren't for lockdown, we wouldn't be able to do that today, would we?
I started re-reading the novels in published order recently, and was again impressed how much of the original Casino Royale novel they used in the film. It's a much more faithful adaptation if a Bond novel than, say, Moonraker, or The Man With The Golden Gun. In fact, it may be the most faithfully adapted Bond Novel since OHMSS. Do you think?
That got me thinking about Fleming in the Craig era. You have to hand it to the script-writers, they've included quite a few nods towards Fleming in the four Craig Bonds. And for the life of me, I can't recall anything lifted directly from the books for exclusive use in the four Brosnan films. Am I just forgetting?
After Casino Royale, there was a nice inclusion of some dialogue from that book from Mathis, ("the heroes and the villians get mixed up"). And in Skyfall, the literary Bond was all over the film. Not so much in the plot, but the references to his parents, his childhood in Scotland, and even his parents graves were there, with the correct names which (I think) we found out first in the YOLT novel.
SPECTRE had links to a Fleming short story, (Octopussy), and Hildebrand had a name-check.
I net I've missed some, but I honestly can't think of a singular morsel that was a pure Fleming nod in the Brosnan Bonds. Plenty of nods to the movies, especially in DAD, ("this'll be your twentieth" etc).
Somewhere along the way, they decided to sprinkle a lot more Fleming in the mix. I wonder what Fleming morsels we'll get in No Time to Die?
Four Brosnan Bonds.
Four Craig Bonds.
And if it weren't for lockdown, we wouldn't be able to do that today, would we?
I started re-reading the novels in published order recently, and was again impressed how much of the original Casino Royale novel they used in the film. It's a much more faithful adaptation if a Bond novel than, say, Moonraker, or The Man With The Golden Gun. In fact, it may be the most faithfully adapted Bond Novel since OHMSS. Do you think?
That got me thinking about Fleming in the Craig era. You have to hand it to the script-writers, they've included quite a few nods towards Fleming in the four Craig Bonds. And for the life of me, I can't recall anything lifted directly from the books for exclusive use in the four Brosnan films. Am I just forgetting?
After Casino Royale, there was a nice inclusion of some dialogue from that book from Mathis, ("the heroes and the villians get mixed up"). And in Skyfall, the literary Bond was all over the film. Not so much in the plot, but the references to his parents, his childhood in Scotland, and even his parents graves were there, with the correct names which (I think) we found out first in the YOLT novel.
SPECTRE had links to a Fleming short story, (Octopussy), and Hildebrand had a name-check.
I net I've missed some, but I honestly can't think of a singular morsel that was a pure Fleming nod in the Brosnan Bonds. Plenty of nods to the movies, especially in DAD, ("this'll be your twentieth" etc).
Somewhere along the way, they decided to sprinkle a lot more Fleming in the mix. I wonder what Fleming morsels we'll get in No Time to Die?
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Comments
CR was somewhat faithfull, FYEO was a complete movie from several short stories by Fleming including a famous LALD scene so there was some stuff there.
DAD is another Moonraker version updated so there is your Fleming.
TWINE should have had both M & 007 dead and blaming them for a nuclear incident and feel a bit like Colonel Sun.
I did say SF and SP didn't include any plot, but there were plenty of direct references to Fleming's Bond that hadn't been in movies before.
I never thought we'd see the graves of his parents in a Bond movie, for example.
For me capturing M & 007 and starting a nuclear accident does feel a tad like Colonel Sun the story, the baddie even wanted to torture 007.
I don't disagree many of the pre-Brosnan movies used plot-lines from the books. I still think the most faithfull single-book adaptation, before CR, was OHMSS.
That might change as I re-read them though. I've just finished Live and Let Die, and that kind of carries a basic gist with the movie. But it's not as faithful as CR, I don't think.
Property Of A Lady symbol will be in NTTD and Bond wil visit Jamaica again.
ITA. I love CR and consider it one of the very best in the series(a FRWL/OHMSS/TLD-type entry for the 2000s) but I'm glad I came of Bond age back during a time when the 007 films were more standalone adventures.
MR the movie has besides a rocket / shuttle and the characters name Drax far less in common, Dr Goodhead is the undercover agent not by MI5 but CIA instead of Gala Brand.
That's why I say it's faint in GE too, because it's really just partly the scarred villain's scheme of wanting to exact vengeance on England and the woman tinkering the coordinates of the weapon aiming towards the Atlantic ocean rather than London.
Regarding Fleming traces in Craig's run, I do like the callback to Fleming Blofeld's origin in the TB novel where part of his backstory before founding SPECTRE was accumulating intelligence in order to make a profit, and the film basically expands on that concept with the even grander Nine Eyes scheme.
In terms of bringing Fleming's work directly to the screen, I don't think either era has too much on offer. DAD is definitely very reminiscent of the Moonraker novel (and the Moonraker film in other ways!), and CR obviously takes several plot points and beats from the novel. But in the case of the latter film, I think it's largely Flemingesque in ways as superficial as the Hildebrand reference referred to above.
Here is Bond's mindset at the end of the CR novel:
“He saw her now only as a spy. Their love and his grief were relegated to the boxroom of his mind. Later, perhaps they would be dragged out, dispassionately examined, and then bitterly thrust back with other sentimental baggage he would rather forget.”
This is simply not anything like the Bond character presented in CR, and to some extent, QOS. Add in the physical brutishness and breaking into M's home, and the Bond of CR (particularly before the "Bond Begins" stuff and after Vesper's death) just isn't much like Fleming's character. It's a different film Bond going through the beats of Fleming's plot, and there's nothing wrong with that.
I do think Bond's relationships with the broken women in his films is very, very Flemingesque, particularly Camille and Swann, as are some of the bizarre locations, like the hotel in QoS, Blofeld's crater base, or Silva's island. They're all very strange, but not impossible. I'm reminded of Spectreville, or Blofeld's death garden, or Dr No's island.
Then came Craig's Darker Bond and all of his films are Fleming-Laden, which is good, but one I still find surprising, considering he's already a great Bond. Maybe EON were trying to further cement his status as Bond. I wonder who needed Fleming's reference more though, Brosnan or Craig?
Bond/Fleming ain't exactly deep stuff though, so I'm not sure how relevant that observation is!
:D
I do think you're right to say that Craig's Bond isn't Fleming's Bond: as you say, there's nothing wrong with that, and, if I'm honest I'd say he's actually more interesting!
Yeah there's certainly more of an attempt to get the flavour of Fleming in these films than there is in the Brosnans. A bit more in the way of twisted, unlikely, but not fully fully outlandish pervertedness.
And don't forget the nighttime tower block assassination in Skyfall: that's inspired by a sequence from the Casino Royale novel, and the whole setup there with a guy being sold a painting you can imagine would have taken a page or two from Fleming to show that whole subplot, the guy arriving at the building etc.
Oh, I'm well aware of that! Though a lot of fans may not agree with us there. But I wasn't referring to superficiality in the source material or adapted material, but in the way Fleming is used. "Hildebrand Rarities" is obviously a more superficial "adaptation" of Fleming when compared to the OHMSS film.
In any case, when a lot of fans talk about Fleming, I think they're just referring to something being "dark", "gritty", "violent", etc, without really thinking about what Fleming's books are actually like.
That's well put!
I'm more interested in proper homages to the source material, like his parents graves, his Scottish roots, or the proper recipe for his martini. These are definite things that could only be gleaned by going to the books. I'd much rather the series throw in these occasional scraps, than get it stupidly wrong like in TSWLM, when they had Bond studying at the wrong college.
If he hunts pirate treasure, battles a giant squid, and communicates with a living statue, as in the dark gritty novels, casual fans will definitely be confused!
To be fair, nobody is claiming the Fleming novels are realistic. They have a dark, gritty, and violent streak to them, but they can also be outlandish with a touch of the benign bizarre. CR may be the most grounded of the novels, but in the end it's about Bond being sanctioned by the government to clean out Le Chiffre of his money on a game of chance, as well as risking putting THEIR money into the hands of the enemy. That's RIDICULOUS, but it's part of the fantasy.
You don't think it's a very good plan, do you?
I'm not sure you'd come away from a Fleming book thinking the important things are little facts like where his parents are buried rather than the tone and style of the whole piece that you get from something like the crater base or scorpion drinking game or spearfishing in Jamaica. Fleming's books are more about the feeling and world he builds than they are just dry facts. Dalton's Aston Martin V8 is exactly what Fleming's Bond would have driven in the 80s, despite the fact the badge doesn't say 'Bentley' as Fleming wrote.
Oh I don't know, they've done snob pretty well with him. I liked him walking straight out of the shabby hotel in QoS- probably the best moment in that movie.
Yeah I love how batshit crazy that plot is. And that's kind of why you can't really write a new Fleming-ish plot: his were mental and no-one would take you seriously if you wrote a new film like that! :D Gambling a baddie to death?!
It's a bit like that 'Murder on Wheels' part he wrote that made it into Trigger Mortis: Bond has to beat the Russians at car racing because... erm.. they want a propaganda victory..? Or something..
:D