It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
Lastly:
http://img0.etsystatic.com/007/0/6822592/il_340x270.370240220_7rvl.jpg
Timothy Dalton: Best. Bond. Ever.
By Kevin Maher | 08 November 12
After Roger Moore's kitsch carry-on, 007 number four was a RADA-trained purist who played Ian Fleming's Cold War killer by the book
There's a beautiful moment at the end of Licence To Kill, the second and final of the short-lived Timothy Dalton Bond movies. After fleeing an exploding New Age meditation temple in a devastating four-rig truck chase, tumbling to the ground and setting fire to a petrol-soaked drug lord (Robert Davi), Dalton's 007 finally allows himself a breather. Smoke-blackened and scarred, he surveys the wreckage around him with a melancholic sigh. And then suddenly, and briefly, he shifts forwards and does a strangulated dry-retch. And that's when you get it. That's when, after umpteen glamorous, far-flung and babe- filled assignments, it finally hits home. James Bond's job makes him want to puke.
It was inevitable, of course, that the Dalton Bond would end right here, dry-retching in the desert in the summer of 1989. The movie was an outright flop at the American box office (taking only $32m), and didn't fare much better around the globe (the worldwide haul was a modest $156m). Fingers were pointed, naturally, at the film's strangely prurient depiction of torture (lots of mutilations), and at the subsequently dark avenger in Bond (he tosses pilots out of planes like so many high-altitude cigarette butts). The film was slapped with a moody 15 certificate in the UK, and though Dalton was contracted to make a third Bond movie, a timely ongoing "legal dispute" between film companies EON and UA/MGM resulted in a five-year delay between projects and the impatient actor eventually departed the franchise (of the split, the actor has simply said, "After that, I didn't want to do it any more").
And yet, surely this is only half the story. For Dalton was an Ian Fleming purist who was frequently surrounded by Bond novels on set, and who deliberately reconnected the franchise with its tough and often unflattering source material. Despite the spin that has emerged in recent years from Team Bond, especially Daniel Craig's Bond, about going back to Fleming for inspiration ("It's all about reading the books," said Craig, possibly tongue in cheek) no one can touch Dalton for genuine authenticity. Craig's Bond, for better or worse, is merely the incarnation of an interview that Fleming gave to the New Yorker in 1962, in which he nervously referred to Bond as "a blunt instrument" (Judi Dench's M uses the line in Casino Royale). The new, rebooted franchise has thus taken this trope at its most literal and transformed its Bond into a beefy no-neck killing machine with a capacity for moments of tenderness and reflection, but who's happier punching, kicking and thwacking, and running straight through plasterboard walls. Similarly, Pierce Brosnan's Bond was deeply indebted to the camp theatrics of Sir Roger Moore's Bond, which was a reaction, in turn, to Sir Sean Connery's grittier Bond which, when you think about it, wasn't that gritty at all (Little Nellie, the rocket-firing autogyro from You Only Live Twice; the Aston Martin with the ejector seat in Goldfinger; Connery quipping, "She had her kicks!" in Dr. No, as Rosa Klebb is shot after she attempts to kill him with a blade attached to her shoe, etc).
The Living Daylights allows Dalton a single moment of kitsch in the opening scene, but then it's straight into Fleming territory as the dyspeptic, lonely hit man caught in a tangled love triangle
Dalton's Bond, on the other hand, was an anomaly and a revelation when he first appeared in the summer of 1987 in The Living Daylights. The film allows him a single moment of kitsch in the opening scene (some business with a parachute and a bikini babe), but then it's straight into Fleming territory and to the depiction of a super-agent who owes nothing to movies, but has emerged directly from the author's canon and specifically from the short story of the same name. In the latter, Bond is a dyspeptic, tranquillizer-popping (he takes Tuinal) and hugely lonely hit man who's hoping, someday soon, to get fired. "With any luck it'll cost me my double-0 number," he says, when he hears that he's being reported to his seniors.
Dalton's Bond is dyspeptic too, and truculent ("Stuff my orders!"), and reluctantly caught in a tangled love triangle that involves him, his cellist lover Kara (Maryam d'Abo) and her Russian army boyfriend Georgi (Jeroen Krabbé), who is also a former Bond ally. The plot that unfolds, written by veteran Bond screenwriter Richard Maibaum and series producer Michael G Wilson, is ingenious, and moves from spy swaps in the Eastern bloc to arms dealing in Tangier to opium smuggling in Afghanistan with watertight assuredness. Plus, there is a modicum of gadget action, including a jet-propelled Aston Martin and an exploding key ring. Yet the film never once forgets character, and returns again and again to the melancholic Fleming Bond, whose sensitive relationship with d'Abo's Kara is the cornerstone of the film (and will later have echoes in Craig and Eva Green's relationship in Casino Royale). It helps, too, that Dalton is a powerhouse performer. The RADA-trained actor can do drugged with dignity ("I... Er. I... Chloral hydrate!"), while he's positively buoyant in some of his lighter scenes: "Are you calling me a horse's arse?" he chuckles at Kara. Equally, because of this sensitivity, the moments when he suddenly has to "become" the killer, are all the more shocking. "Get down on your knees. Put your hands behind your back," he says coldly to John Rhys-Davies' Russian general Pushkin, in an execution scene that might have been perfunctory for every other Bond, but here seems brutal and bleakly life defining.
And maybe that's the key to Dalton's Bond, and the reason why he drove it into the ground after just two instalments. Because the best moments of the modern movie Bonds show a professional agent trying to find his humanity in the midst of violence. Yet Dalton's portrait, just like Fleming's, was that of a man who is not finding his humanity, but losing it.
Article posted here:
http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/entertainment/articles/2012-11/08/timothy-dalton-the-best-james-bond-007
Well, I didn't need any convincing any more at this point but if it's even possible, the article strengthened my Daltonusiasm even more.
It effectively demonstrates how different this Bond is but also, and this I'm particularly fond of, how different a villain Sanchez is. "Don't you want to know why?", says Bond and Sanchez completely falls for it. He wants to know why this man brought such a deceptive loyalty for he himself values loyalty more than anything in the world. After all the destruction Bond imposed on his organisation, this simple yet brilliant trick finally did the job of killing Sanchez. I am downright startled that the world didn't pick up on this masterfully executed and conceptualised moment. Rejecting this Bond cost us the suffering of about 17 years of a return to camp (GE being, in a personal note, a most satisfying exception and my personal favourite Bond film of all time I might add.)
If you are so eager to proclaim your love to the best Bond, then take it here:
http://www.mi6community.com/index.php?p=/discussion/5539/daniel-craig-appreciation-and-news/p1
http://i2.listal.com/image/4530524/600full-my-profile.jpg
http://i2.listal.com/image/4530518/600full-my-profile.jpg
http://ilarge.listal.com/image/3556803/936full-my-profile.jpg
Timothy Dalton, the best Bond... the Fleming Bond. :-B
Not only do I now get to muse subconsciously on which private area of @DarthDimi's is fondly (fondle-ly?) a tribute to Timothy ... (mind wanders a bit; excuse me ...) but I also get to read different articles and tributes, etc.
Dalton not only looked like Bond, he not only acted like Bond, but he was Bond. The Bond I knew from the books.
And, I may add, Kara is one of the few Bond girls I would truly like to trade places with.
Brilliant pictures, I especially do love that last one. I've posted it many times on this site.
What do you mean "converted me?" Dan and Sean share my number one spot, you should know that by now. They are the end all, be all interpretations. I love Sean's because he set the standard and kept a pulse in the series that has lasted 50 years and was the perfect mix of brutally tough, calculating, suave and caring to his allies. Dan on the other hand has the greatest acting talent, is most dedicated to the role and is probably my favorite Bond interpretation because the character is one I can relate to and I love the three dimensionality of Dan's Bond that is more interesting to watch than any interpretation ever before. Between them both, none of the others even come close.
But I have lots of love to share when it comes to Bond - I love Dalton and Craig.
But much of what I love about Timothy is really unique to him. I so wish we had at one more film with him.
+ plus anything else in Dan's Bond era, especially CR which is my #1. :)
Thought you ranked Craig 2nd and Connery 1st.
He should've carried on into the 90s. I do like Brosnan and I wouldn't want to get rid of his era, but a few more from Dalton in 91, 93 and 95 would've been brilliant.
You may be thinking pre Skyfall, but since then Dan has give us yet another top tier Bond performance, the Tennyson scene with his Bond is now my favorite scene of the franchise, and all in all the film and Dan were excellence personified and added even more depth to Bond, making him more compelling than ever. Now it is just too hard to determine who I like more and just let he and Sean tie for first where they deservedly belong.
TLD is a good film so LTK but he was in DR Who.
Dalton made a film called "Framed", this is worth a watch if you like a serious thriller.
And as Bond -- yes, I agree, he's probably closer to Fleming's depiction of the character than anybody else. He was the best "chaser" to Moore's comedic interpretation of Bond that the franchise could have possibly had. I'd have loved to have seen him in a few more Bond films...but such was not to be. Still, the two we have are brilliant!
:)>-
Not the best but my 3rd best and I was going to buy Hotfuzz the other day but chose Shaun of the dead and the inbetweeners movie hard choice. Anyway he's my 3rd fave Bond and one of out all the Bonds I love all their Bond movies ( PB & GL the others). Love LTK & TLD just great films in my opinion both up there at the top.
Watching the last scene of Licence To Kill, it almost hurts to watch it knowing he's never going to be Bond again. About sums up my point of view on Tim.