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There's your semantics. Saying he can have an honest reaction, is like it not being enough that he is unflappable in some situations, but cool in a crisis in others. Which is not unflappable. I will concede to some qualities that Connery's Bond had, but I draw the line at others (this is one).
Having said that, Connery always looked cool under pressure, except for the TB rack.
Craig did too, until the strange behaviour in SP at Blofeld HQ when he wanted Madeline to turn away from the screens. A bit out of character, that. I wasn't too keen on the reactions to the needle either, but then again nobody's pierced me with one of those thankfully. I'd probably be squealing like a pig too.
As already covered, I disagree that the only way to be unflappable is to have no reaction whatsoever, including any fear. Because I don't believe that is actually possible, for anyone to do. A person who works as an EMT can have a reaction to a call about a dying person at a crash, but still save the person by taking their emotions and repressing them to think and act clearly when they are needed in that race against time. Inside Bond could be facing hell, but the world wouldn't know it looking at him.
He feels unflappable to me because he is able to understand he may die (like with Grant, on the laser table, at the Kiss Kiss Club) without allowing his natural reaction to actually "flap" him into inaction or death. He always keeps talking, dodging or shooting his way out no matter what faces him. The difference is in the fact that he doesn't curl up into a ball and accept things how they are. He faces his enemies head on and uses his discipline to come on top. Every Bond feels these moments, even Moore, but it's all in how their reaction is presented to the public and how they use it to overcome.
"Unflappable" is a very loaded and complex word, so I shouldn't have bothered bringing it up. It's one people take at face value or too literally without examining certain factors. "Durable" or "determined" would suffice in its place.
In the first case Bond was pissed (understandably) that Blofeld was showing his friend a video of her father killing himself, which made him look bad because he gave the guy the gun. So in one move Blofeld was terrorizing Madeleine and trying to manipulate her. Bond knew his game, and reacted while trying to stop her from seeing the horrors.
As for the torture, his bone was being penetrated by a massive needle. I think that one is self explanatory. ;)
Similarly with Connery, after almost being torn in half on the rack, he has time and the stamina to do the business with Pat a few moments later.
With Connery I always bought it though. Same with Moore. It's because that was the tone of their films and it's also because they sold it as actors. Their easy going flippancy was an inherent part of their characterizations.
I would say the intensity change in Craig has more to do with the direction Mendez took his films (since the reviews he got for OTHELLO stated his masculinity and intensity).
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Still, it's more difficult to capture when one ages, and none of the long running actors have gotten more so with time. Rather, the opposite.
I was not able to catch Othello, but I look forward to his new output to see what kind of Craig we will see going forward. It's amazing that there's been nothing since SP & before that, SF.
But they wouldn't react the same way that Bond would, in the examples I gave, because the situation is different.
There I am in complete agreement. All Bonds have those moments, though I personally wouldn't refer to them an unflappable which isn't necessarily a bad thing). Take the early Bratislavia scene in TLD, Bond is on the balcony, ready to play his part in the defection, and he is completely in the zone.
Definately.....Waltz at least has the look ,if not the script.
What are your thoughts on Connery's barking in DN?
To me that's wishing failure on Bond.
It's just, like with a lot of things in SP, I found that the execution left a lot to be desired and seemed 'off'. If Craig had been a little less emotional and agitated about it, I would have preferred it. The same point could have been made in a less extreme manner.
Personal viewpoint, that's all.
I'll be the first to say that I am not a fan of the Moore era on the whole, but when i think of unflappable and Bond, Moore is the first Bond to come to mind.
I love Craig, and he and Connery are the runaways for me-- but the shouting on the plane and in Blofeld's HQ's felt very forced, and out of DC Bond's character.
@doubleoego: barking?
When something is naturally executed, one tends not to notice it (Sean was a great barker, and I now re-call the scene in TB: "Now move!" when he's telling Largo's assassin to go back and report to his boss);
However, DC's delivery stood out since it didn't feel natural-- not natural as an actor executing his line; not natural regarding his desperation to save her from seeing this image of her father's suicide (which has everything to do with the failed characterization between the two actors and what their characters are meant to mean to each other);
I know, intellectually, that the filmmakers wanted us to believe that these two had fallen in love, or lust, or whatever. In actuality, what I was feeling, was that the two actors did not have spark. No chemistry. I was very disappointed with this angle of the film.
Their best scenes together were in the L'American... if they built on this tension organically...
It also rings true that the Bond character will fall for the latest Bond Girl, if it's more than usual here I'd compare it to the Vesper relationship developing--both go through danger and trying times together, plus she has a special insight into him that could potentially draw him out of the spy business.
In much simpler terms, based on our own tastes and experiences overall one of us likes the film and the other doesn't (unless you said differently elsewhere). If I didn't like the overall film I'd likely be nonplussed by much more of its content including the performances. And since I do like it, chemistry and plot play fine for me.
Madeleine was staring at that video monitor like Robert Downey Jr. in LESS THAN ZERO stared at that spoon of crack cocaine being heated by the lighter flame. Deserved a shout to break the spell.
It's a beautiful looking film. Almost every scene is framed wonderfully, the clothing, the actors, everything looks so rich. Most of these scenes unravel at a luxurious pace, like tasting a bold wine; they take their time to unravel and each tells a story unto itself.
However, as a whole, I do think the film failed in execution. As a film, it's very long, the pacing is off, and, I think the major element missing, is it feels as if it's a film with no stakes or urgency, and it's very obvious. The entirety feels one dimensional, and forced anxiety to race to the finish of a very bloated film.
I'm sorry if that makes no sense Richard.
I guess you could call me a contradictory advocate for SP-- I can pop it into just watch scenes at any moment; but I find it very difficult to sit through the film in one go (if I do do this, you will find me forwarding through the Nine Eyes)!
I can assure you that I'm not happy that I get no joy out of SP. I, like many had been fully invested in the Craig era up to that point, although I did see some cracks in the veneer both in QoS and in SF. I brushed them off because the overall efforts were quite impressive.
I have seen criticism here stating that some can't enjoy Craig being casual, or that some don't like formula. That is a very short sighted and simplistic response to some of the detailed arguments that have been put forth here against the film over the past year plus. As @peter said, for some of us it's just a horrendous failure of execution. As an example, I love 'GE' & 'TSWLM' and they are as formula as you can get.
I hope that EON never put out an effort like this again. It's better to wait another year, get it right, and then start filming rather than rushing out a product with holes in it to meet some deadline.
I find your posts regarding SP to match how I feel verbatim. May as well just quote you with a "+1" for now. The execution was a major factor in my dislike for a lot of scenes and relationships found in SP. It can be explained and analyzed until the end of time, but it'll simply never work for me. And just like you said, I get no joy out of getting no joy out of SP.
I love that scene. No words. Very Fleming.
@bondjames, you are upset Bond reacted to the needle, but you still wanted him to experience the effect of the needle anyway? You've lost me.
You say that it was the tone of the Connery and Moore films for Bond to snap back to action, but I'd say it's even more how Craig's Bond works. He's a tank. He takes pain and sucks it in. This is the guy who gets ravaged on the stairs by a man with a sword and, despite being cut up and covered in blood, wholly spent, he's back at the table to continue playing the poker game soon after (without perspiring, mind). He's the guy who has his balls beaten to mash, but still has it in him to sit straight and mock his villain. The guy who takes a bullet to the shoulders and profusely bleeds, but engineers his way to drive a construction vehicle over a train to get to another carriage, and is able to jump into said carriage from a large height, all while fixing his cuffs. Craig Bond feels immense pain often, as he does in the torture or any moments you feel don't work in SP (which I'll assume is any and all), but every time he pushes through. His character is known for that, and it's part of why he's loved. So I don't think that's a fair excuse as to why his Bond is suddenly out of character in SP. He's been that kind of man all along.
I fail to see why Bond has to be in love with Madeleine to care about her well-being? That's not the point of the moment. Bond could view Madeleine as a stranger, a friend or a ten year's lover and he would still feel motivated to stop an asshole from traumatizing her. Because it's wrong.
That moment comes right after Blofeld brags to Bond about how he was involved in all his pain, and mocked him for his failures. Bond then knows the state of play and what Blofeld is trying to do: he's attempting to shake him and break him through his past trauma. Bond is able to see that Blofeld is doing the same exercise with Madeleine via the video. Not only is it traumatic for a woman to see her own father, who she already feels guilty about never forgiving, kill himself, it must be all the more shocking to see that Bond is the one giving the man the gun. In Madeleine's mind, Bond could've been painted as the man who afforded her father to do that to himself, and she could've turned on him or gotten upset. Blofeld's sadistic point is to prove that through tragedy (death), there is beauty (Bond and her meeting). He is too psychotic to understand the emotional trauma he is forcing on her. Bond wants her to look at him and away from the video simply because he doesn't want her to have to see such a disconcerting image. He knows that she and her father ended on bad terms, and the video would only be further proof that a reconciliation is impossible. She's not yet done mourning the man, and, as someone who has grieved badly himself, he knows the pain of watching someone you love die (as Vesper drowned in front of him). He's play the role of protector. He doesn't have to be her lover to act like a human being with compassion for a shared experience. He acts because he sees what's going on and is pissed off, as I'd hope any of us would be if we were in a similar situation.
This aspect of Dan's Bond isn't something that just pops up in SP either. As with everything else about his performance people call unrecognizable, his passionate fury in that scene connects to how he's acted before. He has moments where, in a big stakes moment, he lets his rage and infuriation out. In CR, he's just lost the game to Le Chiffre and knows that he's led to the funding of terrorism if he can't get back into it. Vesper refuses to give him the buy-in, and he absolutely cracks right open and shouts her down at a high decibel in a shocking moment. The man who is able to repress his tension breaks and his cool is shattered. In a more subtle moment from the same film, as Bond watches Vesper die he becomes an animal and shakes the cage like he's trying to rip the doors straight off, as all his anger at her betrayal and the feeling of loss her death could bring him spills out and mixes. As in the moment before, his emotion and passionate, human reaction has taken over and he has no ability to repress it.
So it doesn't feel out of character to me that, in a moment where Bond is once again faced with a nasty scenario that implicates a woman he promised a dead man to protect at all costs, he gets the same passionate fury growing in his blood. The moment is all the more powerful because he's not angry for himself, he's angry for another as Blofeld tries to needle into their heads and use their pain against them like the power-hungry monster he is. It's a selfless moment for Bond, where his own pain and anger, and even his own role in White's death, are overwhelmed by his desire to make sure Madeleine is saved any unnecessary mental trauma. It doesn't make him any less of a man (let's not get on that bullshit), he's acting as a protector to a wounded bird with her wing down in the grand Fleming tradition. And you know what? I'm proud of him for it.
I didn't expect Bond to react the way he did to the screens of the White encounter. I fully understand the consequence of the scene to Madeleine (I think that would be fairly obvious to a child), but regardless, his reaction didn't work for me. It was over the top and exaggerated in my eyes. Something I would have expected from Brosnan, and even then only in his lowest moment in TWINE. Out of place and contrived. Emotional, to the extent that he ran foolishly towards Blofeld and got taken down. Hardly what I would call unflappable. Quite the contrary actually. What benefit did this achieve? Others are welcome to a different reaction, but that is firmly mine.
Regarding the needle encounter. Again, that sequence was disturbing and I wouldn't call Bond's reaction there 'unflappable'. Now having said that, I didn't expect it to be given what he was experiencing,
Nevertheless, the broader point is that the whole sequence just didn't work for me. Torture porn is what I call it. Gratuitous, even if it came from a continuation novel. I think I indicated above that I would have perhaps reacted with more squealing, so belabouring the point is not necessary. Bottom line: The uncomfortable nature of the sequence took me out of the film as much as Craig Bond's screaming.
I had a completely opposite reaction to his ball whacking encounter from CR. Despite the discomfiting squelching noises and the fact that Bond's most prized possessions were in serious jeopardy, I thought it was a damn near Oscar worthy performance, and was one of many in CR that solidified him instantly as James Bond in my eyes. Authentic to a fault and quite restrained (unflappable even?) given the unfortunate circumstances.
And no, I wouldn't say that all of those examples you posted really show Craig to be unflappable. Rather, they more show him as tough, determined and strong. His burning intensity still shines through and he can't suppress it. That is something which Craig personifies more strongly than any other actor other than Dalton.
Moore and Connery were the most unflappable Bonds to me. Cool & relaxed to a fault no matter the circumstances. That, as I said before, personified both of their interpretations & helped to create the cinematic Bond persona which viewers know. It's not compatible with the moody, deep, Knight-like (your characterization, not mine) Bond with backstory which we have now. At least not for me.
For the record, your assumption that any and all moments in SP of Craig's don't work is entirely incorrect. I've mentioned which do work on several threads here over the past year.
I was making my arguments for those that didn't think Bond acted how he would've in CR, QoS and SF, which I saw on the previous page. Hence my inclusion of examples where he'd acted similarly in the past movies he's been in, showing me that SP isn't this wacky new Bond that just stepped out of nowhere. I wouldn't give Craig Bond the definitive unflappable term, though he has moments where he is that. But he's also very emotional and at times snaps through anger or annoyance at his circumstances. He screams at Vesper when she won't buy him in, he loses his temper with M when she doesn't trust him, etc. That was the Bond I saw in the room with Madeleine. The tape played, his ability to repress the response died and he had an instant, untamed reaction. It's not a matter of what it accomplished for him in the moment, it was his human response to what he saw. I do things all the time that I snap to without proper thought and that have no utility, because your base emotion gets out of your hands. That's very much his Bond to me. He can repress himself often, but sometimes his ability to keep a strong facade drops.
That's part of what I love about him, that depth. The light that dies in his eyes when the games are over and Severine dies. The unsettled laugh he gives while M dies in his arms and cracks a joke to him to calm him. He's not a blank slate that everything falls off of without consequence. At times he gets hit with things he can't control, and he snaps. That's all I was arguing for, as I'm always trying to support the idea that the SP Bond is the one we've always had.
However, I personally feel that way about Bonds like Connery and Moore as well. I believe they showed us a lot about their interpretations through the way they behaved over a number of films in difficult scenarios.
There was a comment on the other thread about Connery not being as subtle an actor as Craig. ??? Connery could be as subtle as anyone, as he was when he discovered Jill dead in GF or Kerim dead in FRWL. The sparkle in his eyes when he saw Aki sit down next to him at the sumo venue in YOLT always brings a smile to my face. Similarly Moore's reaction to Anya's mention of Tracy in TSWLM or when she confronts him of killing Sergei Barsov in the same film are clear examples of subtle acting. Everyone knows Moore's eyebrows alone could do a lot.
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Regarding that scene in the control room in SP, we're just going to have to disagree. That was a moment that took me out of the film, because I just didn't think he would react that way. Something more subtle would have been what I would have expected from him, and from Bond. I found it tonally jarring. The same goes for the entire torture room scene which I just thought was gratuitously unnerving, especially when there is no consequence and everyone is back to their superhuman best a few minutes later. I felt like the director was deliberately playing with my emotions and fears, and that's never a winning proposition.
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With respect to Craig in SP, I found that his reactions and behaviour in a number of situations took me out of the film. I see that others (whose opinions I respect like yourself) have made the same observation, and therefore it must be something about the film and his acting within it which has caused this opinion to form. I'm not going to repeat all of these instances here again, but they are basically those which appear like 'insertions' which call back to previous Bonds. To me, they are very reminiscent of the Brosnan tenure at its worst, which gave me that same feeling. Others have said that it's Craig pulling a Moore and I resent that. Nobody can pull a Moore. Sir Rog is one of a kind.
These instances are more a case of 'bad writing' rather than anything else, and so Craig can't necessarily be blamed for it. However, he should perhaps, as a co-producer, have insisted that these scenarios be removed.
Up to SP, he had credibly created a new Bond characterization. One which was believable, real, relateable, & distinctly his. One which the viewers responded to more as a 'distinguishable being' rather than as a well known character. One which we bought into and were moved by. In the last film, due to poor writing, boring characters and bad dialogue a lot of that credibility was lost. The tediously obvious attempts to make him 'fully formed' stripped away a lot of what made Craig's Bond unique and different, and most tragically exposed his limitations in comparison to some of the other actors as a result (at least imho). That is what I found most annoying, because it was just unnecessary and smacked of overconfidence and hubris. Like a shot in the foot or an own goal.
I feel as though I should put a disclaimer at the bottom of this post to indicate that these above thoughts are mine and mine alone. I wouldn't want anyone to draw a conclusion that I am speaking for others. You clearly feel that he is still the same Bond and I'm happy that the film works for you on that level. I'm sure that was the producer's, director's and entire team's intention.
I'm sorry if my posts seemed to come off in some way as to make the assumption that Dan did what Sean couldn't. As you can see from my avatar, Sean's films have given my life the meaning few films could ever hope to match. He is to me what Moore is to you, really. At some point you go beyond being a fan of someone's, and become something else. I guess I took it for granted that everyone would know how I felt about Sean, canceling out any worries that I was criticizing him.