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I think Brosnan's running is a lot worse!
Young laid the groundwork and Hamilton piggy backed on the back of the winning formula already set.
But, yes, agreed, GF did 'kick start' a phenomenon.
For the record, I never said Hamilton is a better director than Young (that was insinuated) but I do believe he brought a sensibility that elevated Bond to a new plateau. The formula was not set pre-GF, GF built on and defined it. There's no doubt that it would've been impossible without Young, no one could deny that, but I also think it's disingenuous to discredit Hamilton. The Beatles comparison I made was to hit home the fact he was in the right place at the right time, but he also did the right thing. It's unfortunate for Young, but Hamilton lucked out that he had artists such as Adam, Barry (and himself) working at full tilt. I think it's a film to be celebrated.
However, I have to say that the film does absolutely nothing for me. Everything it did has been bettered (imho) in the series since. The same cannot be said of DN, FRWL or even TB, which are all quite special and unique viewing experiences for me, even now.
I agree about GF, though, and it pains me. I don't want to find the film very lifeless, as it was what introduced me to Sean's movies almost a decade ago, a viewing that started my serious interest in studying the character from every perspective. Over time and after seeing and studying these films intensely, it just doesn't hold up, even to the films in its own era.
I hate to continue to come off as a GF hater, because it's not that and I don't want it to feel like that. It's just that when people keep saying GF changed things forever and made the formula a thing, I just can't support that view. The opening song, pre-title, villain banter, shaken not stirred martini, gadgets, style and overall visual life of Bond was already cemented in the two previous movies at some stage. I'll concede the shot of Jill in bed and the DB5, though the latter was used briefly and tossed away so its fame has only really been reignited from the 90s on when the films returned to featuring it. I don't think GF created the Bond formula as we know it, it just worked from nearly everything that was already done before, giving only slight additions.
I know many have nostalgia for it, and that is a powerful agent. Though I had fond memories of it, I am still able to see where the other films are superior in major ways, and am not afraid to point that out despite the target it can paint on you.
Even though it brings back the office, MP, Q & a male M, there is something quite unique about the way SF unfolds for me. Bond essentially takes a back seat to the conflict between M & Silva, and as I've mentioned before, I think that essential personal conflict is what made SF resonate with so many of the general public. That was the driver of the box office, and not James Bond himself.
I recall coming out of the theatre thinking: "well that was different", and yet deeply satisfying. I came out of CR ecstatic as well, but more because it was a welcome return to form after the 90's. So even though CR stripped away a lot of the tropes, it was in essence a pure Bond film at heart. SF was something more to me, despite ironically adding some of the tropes back.
But has everything it did been bettered by one film?
I feel like the retroactive draw of Goldfinger is not necessarily to give us elements that are unfamiliar, but to showcase those elements firing with a particular vivacity that hasn't been seen since.
No, probably not. Other Bond films have taken parts of the GF formula and improved upon it over the past 50 years but probably none has combined all the elements as well.
I personally prefer TSWLM (girl, car, villain, locations, henchman, title song, soundtrack, plot & performance by the lead Bond actor in the specific film) as a larger than life formula driven entry, but I can appreciate that I am in the minority in that regard.
The only films that for me come close to any measure of perfection are FRWL, OHMSS and CR in that they have a massive impact in all or nearly every area of production that could be classed as masterful, well-structured and paced, iconic, high-class and/or unforgettable. I would never class GF as anywhere near perfect, and that starts with the script and the characters, which the above exceed at to startling degrees.
Hmm, it's a bit like the age old debate of whether Return of the Jedi lives up to the first two Star Wars films. A lot of the most iconic stuff is in RotJ, after all, like the Sarlac pit, the Emperor, Ewoks, Speeder bikes, Darth Vaders face etc. Well, I don't quite know where I fall on that debate, and I don't quite know where I fall on this one either. I certainly prefer Young's style, but something in me can't shake off the feeling that something extra special was captured with Goldfinger. Like the ultimate tension of elements was achieved, and it took Hamilton coming along right at the moment once the groundwork had been laid for him. I find the tempered nature of such a brassy, over the top production something very compelling.
I see where you're coming from. I'd say the flash had a functional role in GF, but not quite to the extent that it was a crutch. That's almost the wonderful thing about it - you can always feel the genuine contempt shared between Bond and Goldfinger sizzling under the surface. At several points, like on the torture table and when diffusing the bomb at the end, It's that interplay between the breezy, lighthearted feel and the drama happening underneath that's most alluring.
Most people who are Star Wars fans that I know actually don't rate RotJ as iconic or special, naming the Ewoks as a prime example of that. It's almost exclusively an Empire Strikes Back party.
As for GF, I again don't see it as an over the top production. In fact, it's a rather weak one. It's almost entirely made up of just a bunch of sets, with no actual location shooting outside the Switzerland section, which of course has to be the shortest section of the main plot. All the other films in the 60s and after were massively successful at feeling real and transportive, because they actually went to locations and weren't bound to Pinewood at all. DN, FRWL, TB and YOLT give us unrivaled shots of Jamaica, Turkey, the Bahamas and Japan, with OHMSS doing the same at a globe-trotting level. What does GF have? Two second ariel shots of Miami and Kentucky and minor ground shooting, with all in England besides the aforementioned fleeting moments in Switzerland. That aspect just makes the film feel so weak and lifeless in comparison to the other movies that truly took you somewhere.
Adding in a horribly written Bond, a weak plot, bad pacing and subpar choreography, and we've got an issue. There's not enough strong stuff in GF to distract from all the things it doesn't do for me.
People always name that as an achievement of the film, but that's in every early Connery movie, and often done much better or at least equal. The meeting and dinner with Dr. No, the amazing Oriental Express chess battle Bond and Grant play up until they face each other in sudden death, and the subtle ways Bond constantly berates and destroys Largo's personal and professional life in TB are all more cleverly done interactions and far more interesting to me than Bond and Goldfinger's talks in GF. They're nice and well written to a point, but they lack the same dosage of drama and cleverness the others before and after it had.
GF was simply playing off of how Bond was able to speak with villains pleasantly while signaling his contempt of them, a thing that DN started.
Well, with regards to locations, I've always viewed GF as a luxuriant, sweeping film. It's a visual treat. Sipping on a martini at Miami beach, Teeing off for a round of 18, taking the Aston for a spin along the winding roads of Switzerland, and finally stopping off at the most concentrated accruement of wealth known to man. The film unravels beautifully - we never visit the same location twice (well, except the plane and that little prison cell). I don't think it is obvious to the casual viewer that most of what they are seeing is set bound. And if it is, I doubt it troubles them quite like it seems to for you. And why would it? Ken Adam is a genius, and given far more license here than he is in any of the Young films. It seems an odd thing to take note with, personally.
What you say about the Connery/Villain dynamic being a feature of all of the early films is of course true. To some extent, they all follow a similar pattern of verbal jousting and veiled threats. However, it's only in Goldfinger that that relationship forms the fundamental bedrock of the film itself. Dr No is more of a mystery figure, and when they do finally meet, he treats Bond very curtly from the beginning. He has overseen Bond's abilities, but he has never witnessed them for himself. There isn't that tug of war, except in the barbs they exchange at dinner. Dr No is curious of Bond, but remains unconvinced that he is anymore than "a stupid policeman". With Grant, it's a little different. I've always found him almost too capable. He is always one step ahead of Bond, and seems to formulate and execute plans almost in real time. Besides one brief monologue, the interactions between himself and Bond are performed through the medium of a guise. Again, there isn't really much of a power struggle going on until all pretense is dropped.
Awesome
Except that's not really going on. We're sipping drinks in England, not Miami. We're driving around Goldfinger's factory, in England. We're taking in Kentucky's stud ranch...in England. Everything else in the film is suffocated by interiors that try to distract one from realizing how fake it all is. Adam does what he can, but I think DN and TB represent a far greater use of his talents that rely on the use of space and shape to create drama through light and dark. He is by far one of the reasons to tune into the film, however, and I thank the stars for him doing the design because without him it would sink all the more.
Now, a Bond film like GF that axes location work might be more excepted today, where movie magic enables corners to be cut and locations have to be faked for budgetary reasons, but for all that the movie had in its coffers to dazzle us, we get no real location shooting outside of maybe five minutes. That's a big issue that makes the movie itself stick out when literally all the other films of its day were on location for the vast majority of their run time, and Bond was actually where we were told he was. Part of the reasons I watch the Bond films of old is to visit the locations as they were then. With DN and TB I can see tropical, exotic life on the screen, with FRWL I can witness a Cold War wracked Istanbul, in YOLT I see a Japan on the brink of being the modern day's example of fiery futurism, and in DAF I can visit a seedy and ostentatious Vegas that is now dead. In GF, there is none of that outside the five minutes of Switzerland, and that just kills so much of that film for me, because at that time that was not what was expected of a Bond film. For a series that was famous for doing it for real, GF fakes almost everything. Hence my constant metaphor that its gold is really pyrite.
As stated elsewhere, I find a far more creative use of this in TB, where we have a villain and hero that are actively trying their best to get at each other. In GF Bond is so laid back and almost frighteningly careless about things that you don't feel he's engaged at major moments. Things happen and he can only react, as he is stuck in such a snoozy, passive mode. This may be why the film is essentially just a collection of moments where he gets knocked out, leads people to death, gets captured or left for dead.
In TB, the script itself is wonderfully structured around the villain/hero face-off, and it's given more momentum because Largo is SPECTRE's No. 2. This film's Bond does his job, and when he comes face to face with the villain he doesn't hold back. At the card game he mocks Largo and tells him straight up that he knows who his affiliates are, and that moment starts a never-ending game of verbal chess that continues throughout the whole film. Bond mocks him, he has Bond watched. Bond romances his girl, Largo uses Bond's attraction to Domino to distract him away from his hotel so Paula can be tortured. To retaliate, Bond runs to his home after orchestrating a blackout and uses wartime trickery to make Largo's men kill each other, and on, and on, and on. Every encounter the pair has sets the stage for Bond to destroy him from the inside out, or Largo Bond, where every line exchanged has multiple meanings. When heading to Largo's to shoot clay pigeons Bond again flirts with Domino to offset Largo and then points out the woman's gone he has, dually emasculating him while also letting him know he'd been watching him talk to Fiona from the helicopter (which Largo saw). You always know Bond and Largo are watching each other and exploiting every opportunity to leverage a win. This is essentially the ending of FRWL spanned out over an entire film, as in that movie Bond and Grant were both acting pleasant while performing their own counter moves under the table. And because these moments often turned vile and truly consequential, with Bond and Largo killing each other's associates to gain edges, you feel it all the more.
GF has some nice lines and moments of verbal interplay, but there's nothing in it that compares to the bestial attacks Bond and Largo have that are double-sided, and not one. In GF I want to shout at Bond to do something, as Goldfinger is the only one that really succeeds in retaliating. Bond screws with Jill, Jill dies. Bond helps Tilly, Tilly dies. Bond tries to hear about the big plan, he is thrown in jail. There's not enough moments where Bond is empowered or where he even feels like an equal to Goldfinger, when he so clearly is. Out of all the early Bond villains, Goldfinger should be the easiest to confront, as he's got a smaller force, he's a waste-filled blob, and his fixations make him unfocused. Why Bond suddenly decides to act like an idiot every time he's around him constantly puzzles me to no end. Now, I like it when Bond is challenged of course, but when he's written to be so ineffective or when he doesn't act at all, that's a big issue inherent in the script. From the Swiss factory on there's no reason why Goldfinger would ever keep Bond alive for any reason, even more so in Kentucky after he knows that Bond has overheard all of his plan. And for how he acts, Bond doesn't feel like he deserves to live for the mistakes he's made.
This is exactly how I feel about GF. It is unquestionably THE Bond film, everyone, fan or not, knows about GF. But like you, it just does nothing for me.
Don't forget that Felix and his assistant were spotted by Goldfinger's men at the Kentucky ranch. He had to show them that Bond was alive and well so they didn't immediately raid the place.
Agreed.
Goldfinger could've just kept him in his cell and Felix would've been none the wiser, nor would he have ever had the authority or ability to "raid" the place based on any hunch he could have. Or Bond could've literally hopped a fence and said, "Hey Felix, I'm escaping and I know everything that guy is doing." The ranch doesn't feel like the prison it should, but as I said, Bond shouldn't have lived that long anyway.
Thankfully for Bond Goldfinger was stupid enough to let him walk around anywhere he wanted and talk in the ear of his associate. If Bond was kept behind bars, all Auric's troubles would've been non-existent. There's ego, and then there's poor planning.
Full stop my arse,it has nothing compared to the locations in TB...
GF reminds me of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. It's considered iconic and groundbreaking and all that and we're kind of expected to revere it because of its reputation. But as much as I've tried to like each of those over the years I can't abide. Maybe that's from everybody from the critics to my parents and everybody from that generation telling me GF is the best.
TB is like the Beatles' Revolver, a much more satisfying all-around experience. Strangely, I consider Goldfinger the best villain, Connery is dressed his best and really like the laser table sequence and Odd Job. But GF just doesn't do it for me. I respect it, just don't like it that much despite how good it is supposed to be for me.
It's important, with every acclaimed movie, to set your expectations accordingly to avoid being manipulated by the praise the rest of the world is giving it. Very little movies are as good or worthy of the acclaim they receive, but that's also not on them. That's on us.
While the cinematography (both above and under water) is top-notch and cinematically TB may still be the better movie than its copy, I find NSNA actually more entertaining than the original. But either way, GF is far more iconic, with the best PTS ever, the most classical "Bond theme", the best villain ever, the best Bond girl name ever...you name it. On my list, TB is somewhere down there in the mid-field "7/10" range, along with the likes of YOLT, LALD, TND, and LTK. Nothing special at all, just trying too hard to give more of the same, and probably the first movie after the franchise jumped the shark for the first time. The first movie that was better than GF after this was CR (2006) for me, and the second was SF. (Still, my all-time No. 1 remains FRWL, for the record.)