The DANIEL CRAIG Appreciation thread - Discuss His Life, His Career, His Bond Films

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  • Red_SnowRed_Snow Australia
    Posts: 2,545
    First extended clip from 'Logan Lucky' featuring DC.



    Steven Soderbergh will also be doing a reddit AMA on Friday, 7/7 at 2PM.
  • edited July 2017 Posts: 6,601
    So far, it almost seems as if they are building it up on DC. Nice display of overacting IMO, where it is / might be for the better. He is known as somebody, whose acting is very subtle. now this is certainly different.
  • 0BradyM0Bondfanatic70BradyM0Bondfanatic7 Quantum Floral Arrangements: "We Have Petals Everywhere"
    Posts: 28,694
    Germanlady wrote: »
    So far, it almost seems as if they are building it up on DC. Nice display of overacting IMO, where it is / might be for the better. He is known as somebody, whose acting is very subtle. now this is certainly different.

    This will definitely be a fresh and new side of Dan from what people are accustomed to. He steals the show in every trailer and judging from the other meek performances I see from his fellow cast members, he'll do the same in the actual movie.
  • peterpeter Toronto
    Posts: 9,511
    The man is a terrific actor. Full stop.

    He's a character actor, with something most, most, not all, character actors aren't born with: charisma.

    It was this mixture of craft, and charisma, that made his Bond so unique, and, to me, touched on traits closer to the "idea" behind Fleming's Bond.
  • 0BradyM0Bondfanatic70BradyM0Bondfanatic7 Quantum Floral Arrangements: "We Have Petals Everywhere"
    Posts: 28,694
    Very much agreed, @peter. I think there's quite a lot in Dan's Bond that is very Fleming-esque, and that the era brought out. His balance between cold and compassionate, his maverick boldness, his quiet and detective-like style, his way of keeping the toxic feelings repressed to stir, and his very dry sense of humor.

    The movies over the course of the years also really capture Bond's indecisiveness and lack of place in the world. Reading the books again you can see him always trying to figure things out, and he never really feels in the moment. When I see Craig's Bond trying to figure out his life and his commitments I feel the echoes of the literary Bond, always questioning in the here and now what he's doing and if he really wants it. That is very much a part of Bond's journey in Casino Royale (book and film), and it's a theme that has become its own thing in Craig's era full-stop.
  • ShardlakeShardlake Leeds, West Yorkshire, England
    edited July 2017 Posts: 4,043
    I've always rated Craig since Our Friends In The North and seen in his other performances including Bond there are layers to his acting but they are subtle. Sometimes too subtle for some to notice, hence why some have claimed he's one note.

    I've said it before and I'll say it again, the series has never had a more versatile actor and talented performer playing the role it's just he's never really stretched himself since getting the role but he's really going out of his comfort zone here and from the evidence of the trailer and this clip in particular he's going to walk away with the film.

    I'm possibly thinking that maybe Craig is looking to see how he's received here and also Purity and if the notices are really good he might (I'm not saying he will) feel that it's time to move on.

    Could we see him enter a new phase of his career here, it's certainly nothing like we've seen from him before, also Purity will give him something really dramatically to get his teeth into.

    That being said I'm not advocating he leaves, I want him to return and go out in style with Bond 25 but I've always been interested in what comes after Bond with him because I find him such a watchable performer, I definitely will be paying for a ticket to see Lucky Logan as it looks Soderbergh's most fun and entertaining film since Oceans 11.
  • bondjamesbondjames You were expecting someone else?
    Posts: 23,883
    Red_Snow wrote: »
    First extended clip from 'Logan Lucky' featuring DC.



    Steven Soderbergh will also be doing a reddit AMA on Friday, 7/7 at 2PM.
    This is quite an impressive bit of acting from Craig here. Best I've seen him since Betrayal. Joe Bang seems like quite a character.
  • DaltonCraig007DaltonCraig007 They say, "Evil prevails when good men fail to act." What they ought to say is, "Evil prevails."
    edited July 2017 Posts: 15,722
    I think Daniel Craig getting an Oscar nomination for this looks quite possible, similar to Robert Downey Jr's performance in 'Tropic Thunder'.
  • Posts: 1,162
    peter wrote: »
    The man is a terrific actor. Full stop.

    He's a character actor, with something most, most, not all, character actors aren't born with: charisma.

    It was this mixture of craft, and charisma, that made his Bond so unique, and, to me, touched on traits closer to the "idea" behind Fleming's Bond.

    Let me ask you the same question I posed to RC7 insofar, if you please can point out to me a line, ore page in any of the books that is mirrored by Craig's behavior and actions in CR or any of the others for that matter (apart from the turmoil in his face when he drowns Fisher that is, which I see as an adaptation of Bond's emotional struggles when killing the double agent in Stockholm during the war.) This shouldn't prove too difficult, if he is so much closer to Flemings Bond than those before him, but still he couldn't answer it, so I'm quite anxious for your list now.
  • bondjamesbondjames You were expecting someone else?
    Posts: 23,883
    2:10 to 2:17 is my favourite part of that clip.

    "We caan't bring anethin thru them gates. No ssplosives. No guuns."
  • DaltonCraig007DaltonCraig007 They say, "Evil prevails when good men fail to act." What they ought to say is, "Evil prevails."
    Posts: 15,722
    @bondjames 30 years after 'The Untouchables', Craig joining Connery as an Oscar winner would be very cool to see.
  • bondjamesbondjames You were expecting someone else?
    Posts: 23,883
    @DaltonCraig007, he definitely has the skills to get one. He just needs the right role, and this could be it although I doubt it will happen with this one.

    Rather, I think this film will re-establish him in the acting community as a critical player, and then he perhaps will bag an award down the road with a future killer dramatic performance.
  • DaltonCraig007DaltonCraig007 They say, "Evil prevails when good men fail to act." What they ought to say is, "Evil prevails."
    Posts: 15,722
    @bondjames I think we will see quite a few action stars getting some big nominations this year - Craig for Logan Lucky (supporting role, I would think), Neeson in Silent Man, Denzel in Inner City and Cruise in American Made. Really amazing to see these guys after decades of consistently making solid films still on the top of their game.
  • peterpeter Toronto
    Posts: 9,511
    @noSolaceleft, I'll hafta start pulling books off the shelf to look for the list you wish, to pull direct quotes from the original source material... But I will start with this:

    The "idea" behind Fleming's Bond, is what I said. And this idea that I see so much of in Craig's performances as 007, begin and end with, the "blunt instrument" that Fleming wrote about.
  • bondjamesbondjames You were expecting someone else?
    edited July 2017 Posts: 23,883
    I'm not familiar with Inner City @DaltonCraig007. I must look into that one. Neeson's monologue in the Silent Man trailer is sublime and reminds me somewhat of his cool turn as Ra's in BB.

    I can't wait to see what Craig has in store for us in Kings as well. I expect we'll see the trailer around the time Logan Lucky is released.
  • peterpeter Toronto
    Posts: 9,511
    ... and as I sit eating breakfast, @noSolaceleft , another element of this "idea" behind the Fleming Bond and the DC Bond that I see: that of the orphan... Do I, or have I ever thought that, just by attitude, the Bond's before Craig were orphans? Lazenby came closest, funny enough.

    But the isolation and guarded-type character that Craig embodies, and I do believe that man was an orphan.

  • peterpeter Toronto
    Posts: 9,511
    The first Fleming book I pulled off the shelf, @noSolaceleft , is also one where we find one of the harshest depictions of James Bond-- YOLT. In someways, very early on, he's even quite unlikeable, and the same can be said for Craig, (almost, almost), in the very early scenes of QoS (he's so driven at the beginning, so hard, so rough like a callous; this exterior melts away into something far more charming as the film goes on, much like Bond's drunken debauchery and meanness fades in YOLT). The attitude in these early scenes of the film do come closest to Fleming's Bond in YOLT...

    However, flipping through pages, do I see more DC Bond in the words of Fleming in this novel?

    "'He's going slowly to pieces. Late at the office. Skimps his work. Makes mistakes. He's drinking too much and losing a lot of money at one of these new gambling clubs... one of my best men is on the edge of becoming a security risk...'"-- M describing Bond's mental state... We saw an updated version of this in SF. Craig Bond was a lost soul in the early parts of the film; this performance has its DNA in Fleming Bond, and we can read all about the state of Bond's mind in YOLT.

    Could I see Connery pulling off this mental/emotional state? Laz? Moore? Dalton (he'd play it way too angry and OTT, in my opinion), Brozzer? No. Craig, and those icy blue eyes of his, depict this dimension of Bond best (and, as the great poets of history have said time and again-- eyes are the windows to the soul...)...

    Speaking of appearance... Craig doesn't have thick, dark hair with the comma falling over the right eye (but neither did Conners, Laz, Moore, Brozzer; Dalton, although not having thick hair, did have the comma (at least in TLD), and appeared more like the Hoagy Carmichael Fleming described); but Craig does have those icy blue eyes, and a very cruel mouth, which when described by Fleming, I can and do see Craig Bond.

    "'Here's this agent of yours... He's a a bachelor and a confirmed womanizer. Then he suddenly falls in love, partly, I suspect, because this woman was a bird with a wing down and needed his help" James Molony to M about Bond.... Might as well be speaking of Craig Bond in CR. Once again, of the actors before, the only one that comes remotely close to this with a genuine performance, was our novice actor, GL... Beyond that, the above description nails Craig Bond perfectly.

    "It's surprising what soft centres these so-called tough men always have" Dr. Molony again discussing 007's state of, not only mind, but his state of being... also parallels how I see DC Bond...

    Skipping a bunch of pages and randomly reading the segment where Tiger lights into Bond about the state of England, 007 "roars with laughter. "you've got a bloody cheek... You come over and take a look at the place. It's not doing too badly"... Fleming, his character, and DC Bond ("don't forget my pathetic love of country") all love England. They all wear it on their sleeves with pride.

    Anyways, it's Saturday, and a breezy, clear day here in Toronto, @noSolaceleft, I must get on and enjoy my weekend with the family ...

    I will continue leafing through Fleming (and that is quite literally what I did (although sometimes reading more and more, getting caught up in Fleming's prose-- his words and storytelling are quite seductive)), but in the end, art is subjective. It's obvious you don't see Fleming in DC's portrayal, and I don't fault you.

    However, I can assure you, I was never looking for Fleming in DC Bond. I was excited to see CR, like any other Bond fan.

    However, my heart was in my throat for the first several viewings-- I knew in my gut that what I was watching on screen, was so much the flavor, the "idea" behind Fleming's Bond. It was an amazing experience for me, and one I shall never forget.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    Oscar? Aren t we being a bit carried away now?
  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 41,009
    Oscar? Aren t we being a bit carried away now?

    I was going to say, I'd be more than shocked if he even got a nom for this (a random comedy caper dropping in August doesn't usually reel in the Oscars).
  • DaltonCraig007DaltonCraig007 They say, "Evil prevails when good men fail to act." What they ought to say is, "Evil prevails."
    Posts: 15,722
    When did 'Tropic Thunder' come out in 2008? Wasn't it a summer release?
  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 41,009
    Same month in 2008, but I'd consider it one of the very, very few comedies that gets an Oscar nom. Still surprised that RDJ got one, just doesn't seem like something the Academy remotely goes for. Same thing with the Oscar nom for 'Bridesmaids,' such a rare occurrence.
  • TripAcesTripAces Universal Exports
    Posts: 4,588
    That sniff, at the 1:24 mark...you just can't teach that stuff. Craig is just so good at adding those elements, like the scene in TGWTDT, in which Blomquist finds a photo and then starts contemplating its meaning. Craig does a masterful job of conveying consternation without saying a word, the scratching of his cheek is a stroke of acting genius.

  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 41,009
    TripAces wrote: »
    That sniff, at the 1:24 mark...you just can't teach that stuff. Craig is just so good at adding those elements, like the scene in TGWTDT, in which Blomquist finds a photo and then starts contemplating its meaning. Craig does a masterful job of conveying consternation without saying a word, the scratching of his cheek is a stroke of acting genius.

    Funny, that tiny moment always stood out to me, too. He has a lot of tiny movements or actions such as that that really add to his character in a good bit of films, particularly TGWTDT.
  • 0BradyM0Bondfanatic70BradyM0Bondfanatic7 Quantum Floral Arrangements: "We Have Petals Everywhere"
    Posts: 28,694
    peter wrote: »
    The man is a terrific actor. Full stop.

    He's a character actor, with something most, most, not all, character actors aren't born with: charisma.

    It was this mixture of craft, and charisma, that made his Bond so unique, and, to me, touched on traits closer to the "idea" behind Fleming's Bond.

    Let me ask you the same question I posed to RC7 insofar, if you please can point out to me a line, ore page in any of the books that is mirrored by Craig's behavior and actions in CR or any of the others for that matter (apart from the turmoil in his face when he drowns Fisher that is, which I see as an adaptation of Bond's emotional struggles when killing the double agent in Stockholm during the war.) This shouldn't prove too difficult, if he is so much closer to Flemings Bond than those before him, but still he couldn't answer it, so I'm quite anxious for your list now.

    @noSolaceleft, I wasn't asked, but I'm more than happy to oblige since this era has been a significant part of my study.

    In no special order...

    1.) Lust For Women- One of the first senses you will get when reading the Bond novels is what I like to call Bond's "hunger" for the opposite sex. He's nearly insatiable and has an animal desire in himself to have the woman/en he wants. It becomes a subplot in just the first two books-Casino Royale and Live & Let Die-that he wants to make passionate love to Vesper and Solitaire respectfully, and in both cases he worries about his inability to do so because of the possibility of impotence (brought on by torture in the first case) and his broken hand in the last. This shows us just how much this particular thing means to him, and how much it drives him on when he'd otherwise cut and run on the job.

    This same sexual hunger and animalistic nature is something I attribute quite highly to Craig, the most emphatic we've seen since Sean, who was perfectly able to replicate the sex fiend that Bond is. There are moments where Craig Bond sees things he likes, and he goes after them because he wants to, and you can feel that sexual energy cascading off of him as he goes on the hunt. There are many examples of this, not even counting his leading Bond girls. In the case of Solange, Bond uses the woman both for information and as a bit of sexual pleasure to enjoy as he familiarizes himself with Dimitrios, and acts out in a fashion that risks his own life or exposure to the enemy through that sexual boldness. A similar thing happens with Fields, who Bond uses to distract himself and forget Vesper, and also because he found an attraction to her puritan like exterior that he wanted to challenge. She was there to babysit him for M, and he was going to turn the tables on her and show her the man or alpha in the situation by conquering her. Severine is yet another example, where Bond is compelled to seek her out, but beyond using her for his needs (finding Silva) he also takes the opportunity to lust after her as you can feel the hunger he has from the first mysterious glimpse of her he gets.

    The most recent example of this sort of thing is Lucia Sciarra in SP, who Bond seeks out after killing her husband. Bond's lust after her is partly motivated by his own attraction, but also for his implied distaste for her husband and his inability to take notice of her and pleasure her. Bond is acting out not only his own animal lust, but is also giving the woman the kind of passion he feels she deserves. I could see Fleming's Bond doing just the same thing for a woman, spurred on by his hatred for her husband for ignoring the piece of art and walking lust and passion before him. Because he was there and in the moment, and a little hungry, Bond has his feast.

    2.) Emotional Suppression- Fleming uses the word "cold" like it's a period or pronoun in his Bond novels, and so the character naturally has a lot of moments where he must take in the dangers around him and avoid showing his fear. I think of moments like in Casino Royale, where Bond must find a way to offset the gunman at the back of his chair during baccarat, all while putting on a smile for the audience so that nobody suspects anything. Or even the many happy faces he puts on for Solitaire in the next novel to make her think everything will be okay, despite knowing their chances of death are running quite high against Mr. Big.

    For me, Dan's Bond is an exceptional realization of this aspect of Bond, because you can actively see him turning himself cold to avoid the consequence of not repressing his feelings. Whenever he's speaking with M, like in Casino Royale after Solange is found, you can see Bond at first telling the woman that he doesn't get emotionally connected or "feel" things that way, and in the next we see a shot of him showing that regret that he hid just moments earlier. Later in the film, after Vesper's betrayal, we again see a man who was in love, but who now must put on a face of anger and hatred for the woman so that the service doesn't know how close the woman got to his heart. This would look embarrassing, Bond fooled by the enemy into love, and so he makes a point to treat Vesper with indifference to appear invulnerable and not penetrated.

    We see this through-line continued in Quantum of Solace, where in between his defense that Vesper was nothing to him, Bond steals her photo from a file, holds her necklace and thinks over her, makes it seem like he forgot the name of the martini he named after her when Mathis asks him about it on the plane, and ultimately uses Greene's last minutes (before deserting him) to find a way for himself to move on from Vesper by finding out who abused her. This same sort of suppression is seen again in Skyfall, not only in moments where Bond has to act perfectly capable, like in his training, before he falls to the ground in exhaustion when nobody is watching, or far more in his interactions with Silva. On the island Bond actively plays a game of wits with Silva, because both men are trying to make it seem like they are unaffected by each other's advances and opposition. Bond playfully mocks the man and acts invulnerable, and so Silva openly shoots Severine dead and surprises Bond by this in their following exchange. To avoid showing his emotion over Severine's death and his anger at being beaten in the game by Silva, Bond puts on a cold face and says the waste of scotch line, attempting to mask his feeling to appear indifferent to avoid losing his alpha status.

    There are many examples of this in the rest of the films, but I'd be here all day discussing this particular aspect of Craig's Bond.

    3.) Dry Humor- Sean Connery once made the case that there was no humor in the Fleming novels, but I disagree: it's there, just really, really dry and underplayed. If you don't have a particular sense for Bond's humor in the books, like in moments where he shouts "bitch" loudly in his apartment in Casino Royale because he knows that spies are listening in on him, or in Live & Let Die when Bond playfully mocks the retired old folks in his talks with Solitaire and Felix in Florida, you see a man who has the ability to be funny in spite of himself (by which I mean, in spite of his earnestness and coldness). He is not a joker type of guy, and most of the humor in him comes organically from the very dry reactions he has to the world around him. This is mostly why I hate one liners, not only because they have never worked outside the 60s, but also because the more organic, dry and downplayed humor is the best for this character.

    More than any other Bond, I think Dan's has realized this particular humor of the literary Bond best. He still gets saddled with a few one-liners from time to time, like in the casino scene of Skyfall (at the end, rather), but on the whole these are barely blips on the radar and no other Bond has had more organic humor than Dan's Bond, nor has any been able to deliver the lines so dryly since Sean. He is able to create the literary Bond's sarcasm perfectly, where you can sense his mocking nature in his responses to people.

    His, "Yes, considerably" in Casino is a perfect example of Bond mocking a traitor in a dry fashion instead of utilizing a poor pun or jokey line. On the ride to Montenegro he playfully calls Vesper "Ms. Stephanie Broadchest," again a bit of organic humor, much like their entire first meeting on the train. Bond and Vesper's dynamic in the film represents an endless series of these playful and dry moments, as they take fun bites out of each other. We see this dry and organic humor play out again and again with Bond in his interactions with M, Mathis and Le Chiffre over the course of the same film, including in the torture scene where Bond chooses to act unmoved by the villain's advances at him using humor. As he seduces Solange she suggests that she ask Dimitrios directly about Bond trying to get under his skin, to which he dryly says, "Perhaps later." Later in Miami, as a bomb is about to go off, Bond calls into MI6 and demands to be put through to M, which Villiers responses to by putting him on hold; Bond responds with a, "Thought you might."

    His dryness is again seen in Quantum, where the request by the service to keep Le Chiffre alive is responded to by him in a metaphor involving a priest and a soul, a dark sense of humor that carries into every interaction he has with the cast of characters later, especially Mathis. Later in the film, when Camille asks about why Bond is doing the job, curious if it was for his mother, Bond references M and says, "She likes to think so," perfectly and metaphorically describing their unique relationship. When he finally meets Greene at the party in Bolivia, the villain tells Bond that his friends call him Dominic, to which Bond responds, "I'm sure they do."

    I could again go on with these examples, but the point is to emphasize the dryness of Craig's Bond and the very organic nature of this humor, especially in his first two films but certainly not limited to that, as I love moments like in Spectre, where Bond dryly states that Sciarra wouldn't care about his murder of him because he was a killer himself, receiving a slap for it. The literary Bond was this very dry kind of man, and also had the same black sense of humor that Craig's Bond has had to magnificent effect.

    4.) Brutality- Anybody that reads the Bond novels will find the character has the ability to be incredibly brutal, and unleash rage on his enemies. He often chooses very personal kills, like the ways he got his Double-O licence, from his vengeful kills of Big and his enemies (for Felix) and later on with his strangulation of Blofeld. While Bond doesn’t enjoy the killing often, and is haunted by some if it, he often has a drive to kill those that stand in his way, and when he does so he really takes it to the limit. There’s a part of him that wishes for Le Chiffre to be alive in the first book, so that he could kill him in retaliation for what he’d done.

    One of the most obvious impressions one could have of Craig’s Bond is that he is a very physical force that can be quite capable in facing his enemies. He has the roughness of Fleming’s Bond in how he fights, backed up by a history in boxing and overall athletics that feeds his capacity to kill effectively. When he fights you see him feel it, and he’s not a superman, taking hits, bleeding and sweating at the end of most of his scuffs as Fleming’s Bond did, who rarely walked away without some bruises or scratches. There’s that same vengeance in him, who can kill to protect those he cares for as he does for Mathis and Vesper throughout Quantum, M in Skyfall, and himself in Spectre. It’s this drive and brutality that you can see in Fleming’s books, like his violent kill of Tee-Hee in Live & Let Die, or his more emotionally pursuit of Blofeld in the later novels.

    5.) Humanity- With brutality comes humanity, and Fleming’s Bond is often best described as such. He’s an imperfect, fallible man who also takes the damage that is dealt with him in the way you’d expect for a man in his place to. He gets beaten down and diminished physically and mentally in many major cases, but is able to pull through some of the most intense events a human could face throughout his adventures.

    Craig’s Bond for me is the most human for this reason, because he feels like a real man through the actor’s performance. Dalton had this too, but he lacked the athleticism and animalism that to me is needed to complete the Bond picture. Dan’s Bond is a beast, and very durable, but one who also takes serious damage on the job. In Casino Royale he’s barely ever unscarred, and his poisoning and torture are particularly visceral moments for the pain we can see it all causing him. In Quantum of Solace he again gets bloodied and dusted up for much of it, and in Skyfall he takes the most damage of all (or at least close to Casino), where a severe injury in the field affects his aim and spryness for much of the film after. Spectre’s fight between Bond and Hinx is a hallmark moment for me because it gives us the opportunity to finally show Dan’s Bond facing a man who he can’t even begin to face as a combatant, and the damage he takes really hurts to watch (for me). It’s a moment where you think he’s dead and gone.

    Bond has taken damage in the films before, but I think Dan’s ability to emphasize Bond’s humanity is helped by his performance, because he isn’t played as an overt ladies man in a cartoonish way. He’s underplayed and quiet, and his reactions feel more grounded because of it. This sense of reality in his character is very much at the heart of Fleming’s Bond, who was crafted as the ordinary man who extraordinary things happened to.

    6.) Orphan Mentality/Loneliness- As @peter expressed, there is an inherent orphan mentality in Fleming’s Bond that intentionally or unintentionally comes out. It makes sense that a man who really didn’t have a stable foundation growing up would later become a non-committal man in adult life who never pursues serious relationships (possibly for a subconscious fear of abandonment and/or issues of trust) and who represses his feelings because he has learned to independently work through his pain. In Live & Let Die Bond comments that, after surviving Big’s torture, he cried for the first time since he was a kid (likely in reaction to his parents’ deaths), and that sense of coldness and repressed emotion is very much at home in Craig’s Bond. You can tell that he is a man who has learned to keep his vulnerability patted down, because that’s how he has habitually grown up. After his parents’ deaths he got the orphan’s lot in life and essentially had to be an adult earlier than most kids, facing responsibilities that formed him into a machine that was effective and focused.

    Watching Craig’s films you get a sense that an orphan who faced what Bond had would grow up to be like that. Non-committed to relationships that demand more than quick exchanges of passion, a lack of trust in those around him because he didn’t have that family unit in his life to lean on, and his go-to response to repress all that hurts him and uncovers his weakness (like Vesper’s betrayal) so that he conveys an invulnerability to the world that he is trying to prove something to.

    No other Bond actors really feel like they played the orphan side of Bond, but with Craig there are echoes of that I pick up on. There’s an inherent loneliness to the man and a quietness to his soul that clues you into what he’s faced. Looking into his eyes there’s a history there, of things he’s seen but doesn’t want to talk about, and it’s performed beautifully by Dan because he himself is also as private a man, as Fleming’s Bond is. That personal part of himself as a man and actor was used to effectively realize one of the most interesting parts of Bond for me, a man who was forced to face the world early on after tragedy with cold dispassion.

    7.) Out of Place in the World- A final part of the Bond character originated in Fleming’s work that I think Dan’s era has really emphasized is the man’s lack of place or feeling of security throughout the novels. He never feels like he knows where he’s going, and is often questioning his place in the world and what the job is doing for him. Sometimes this is in big ways, like how Le Chiffre’s torture makes him completely rethink his entire career and what his future could be with Vesper as his morals are spun about, to absolute tragedy as in Tracy’s death, coming right after he was so close to pursuing an honest life for the second time. Other moments in between these two major stages of life point to a confusion of destiny on his part, including his distaste for the job and his Double-O mark, which he sees as a glorification of killing, and his gradual lack of care for the job and what M wants to do with him over time. He goes from a rough man to a shell of himself on a long journey, and ultimately comes to terms with himself in order to move on and be who he needs to be.

    His sense of enchantment with life and a lack of control over it is very much engrained in the life of Dan’s Bond. He’s led a conflicted life, not only for the orphan context above, but as a killer who is highly trained from the royal navy. By the time he comes to MI6 he’s got a bit of a death wish and doesn’t expect to be employed long, making you wonder what drove him to move from the military to an even more dire job.

    As the movies go on we watch him falling in love and trying to settle down, before the world is pulled out from under him and, to protect himself from the feelings he had for Vesper, he curls up inside himself and chooses to repress everything for many years. In between this time his career is always in jeopardy, as he sees how little governments can be trusted, best seen in how both the Brits and Americans had a hand in Quantum’s interests in his second film, and later on in Skyfall where we find him questioning the trust he has put in others and lost, a true trial for an orphan who already put so little belief in trust in the first place. Both Skyfall and Spectre play up an attack on Bond’s world, as he’s viewed as a man out of his time and pointless as a Double-O in a world that is turning techy. His conflicts in the story go beyond the physical for this reason, more than a human fight for survival; his entire purpose as a man is on the line as the old-fashioned is eradicated for the flashy and new. It’s an arc of Bond’s character I could imagine Fleming writing if he were around, and even while Bond’s career is in jeopardy we still have him faced with demons from his past.

    Spectre brings his hidden past back to the forefront, putting White into his line of sight again. A giant shift in Bond’s morality comes through this reveal as he finds a partner in the man he once wanted to kill for taking his beloved away, and through his pact with White Bond gets the chance-via Madeleine-to chase an honest life in what may be his last chance at it. It’s clear he doesn’t want to die alone and empty as White did, and the spinning sphere that is his world pulled him in a direction he wanted to take so many years ago with Vesper, but couldn’t.

    The Craig era and Fleming’s novels put the character through different trials, but the same feeling of indecision and a lack of comfort of place is built into the journeys of both the film and literary character. These struggles to find purpose and meaning revolve most prominently around Bond’s personal ties (like the women he loves and the people he fights for) and also his career, which both Craig’s and Fleming’s Bond have a love/hate relationship with. Bother spheres of Bond’s life, the personal and the professional, intersect with great drama in the movies as they do in the books, from his tug of war between choosing to either retire to live a nice life or face the dangers of the job until he dies or is pushed out, to his relationship with M as his boss as he balances between being an employee and surrogate son to her.

    Because neither interpretation of Bond is ever sure of himself or his place in the world, a human experience is created that grounds the man’s actions and his overall struggle to live his life in Dan’s films and Fleming’s books. It’s a very sensible and genuine feeling that a spy would have about their life, because every dark corner could be hiding another gunman in the shadows to take it all away.


    I could argue many more connections that exist between Dan’s Bond and Fleming’s original, but I’ve already written a novella and should take a step back.
  • talos7talos7 New Orleans
    Posts: 8,243
    peter wrote: »
    The man is a terrific actor. Full stop.

    He's a character actor, with something most, most, not all, character actors aren't born with: charisma.

    It was this mixture of craft, and charisma, that made his Bond so unique, and, to me, touched on traits closer to the "idea" behind Fleming's Bond.

    Let me ask you the same question I posed to RC7 insofar, if you please can point out to me a line, ore page in any of the books that is mirrored by Craig's behavior and actions in CR or any of the others for that matter (apart from the turmoil in his face when he drowns Fisher that is, which I see as an adaptation of Bond's emotional struggles when killing the double agent in Stockholm during the war.) This shouldn't prove too difficult, if he is so much closer to Flemings Bond than those before him, but still he couldn't answer it, so I'm quite anxious for your list now.

    @noSolaceleft, I wasn't asked, but I'm more than happy to oblige since this era has been a significant part of my study.

    In no special order...

    1.) Lust For Women- One of the first senses you will get when reading the Bond novels is what I like to call Bond's "hunger" for the opposite sex. He's nearly insatiable and has an animal desire in himself to have the woman/en he wants. It becomes a subplot in just the first two books-Casino Royale and Live & Let Die-that he wants to make passionate love to Vesper and Solitaire respectfully, and in both cases he worries about his inability to do so because of the possibility of impotence (brought on by torture in the first case) and his broken hand in the last. This shows us just how much this particular thing means to him, and how much it drives him on when he'd otherwise cut and run on the job.

    This same sexual hunger and animalistic nature is something I attribute quite highly to Craig, the most emphatic we've seen since Sean, who was perfectly able to replicate the sex fiend that Bond is. There are moments where Craig Bond sees things he likes, and he goes after them because he wants to, and you can feel that sexual energy cascading off of him as he goes on the hunt. There are many examples of this, not even counting his leading Bond girls. In the case of Solange, Bond uses the woman both for information and as a bit of sexual pleasure to enjoy as he familiarizes himself with Dimitrios, and acts out in a fashion that risks his own life or exposure to the enemy through that sexual boldness. A similar thing happens with Fields, who Bond uses to distract himself and forget Vesper, and also because he found an attraction to her puritan like exterior that he wanted to challenge. She was there to babysit him for M, and he was going to turn the tables on her and show her the man or alpha in the situation by conquering her. Severine is yet another example, where Bond is compelled to seek her out, but beyond using her for his needs (finding Silva) he also takes the opportunity to lust after her as you can feel the hunger he has from the first mysterious glimpse of her he gets.

    The most recent example of this sort of thing is Lucia Sciarra in SP, who Bond seeks out after killing her husband. Bond's lust after her is partly motivated by his own attraction, but also for his implied distaste for her husband and his inability to take notice of her and pleasure her. Bond is acting out not only his own animal lust, but is also giving the woman the kind of passion he feels she deserves. I could see Fleming's Bond doing just the same thing for a woman, spurred on by his hatred for her husband for ignoring the piece of art and walking lust and passion before him. Because he was there and in the moment, and a little hungry, Bond has his feast.

    2.) Emotional Suppression- Fleming uses the word "cold" like it's a period or pronoun in his Bond novels, and so the character naturally has a lot of moments where he must take in the dangers around him and avoid showing his fear. I think of moments like in Casino Royale, where Bond must find a way to offset the gunman at the back of his chair during baccarat, all while putting on a smile for the audience so that nobody suspects anything. Or even the many happy faces he puts on for Solitaire in the next novel to make her think everything will be okay, despite knowing their chances of death are running quite high against Mr. Big.

    For me, Dan's Bond is an exceptional realization of this aspect of Bond, because you can actively see him turning himself cold to avoid the consequence of not repressing his feelings. Whenever he's speaking with M, like in Casino Royale after Solange is found, you can see Bond at first telling the woman that he doesn't get emotionally connected or "feel" things that way, and in the next we see a shot of him showing that regret that he hid just moments earlier. Later in the film, after Vesper's betrayal, we again see a man who was in love, but who now must put on a face of anger and hatred for the woman so that the service doesn't know how close the woman got to his heart. This would look embarrassing, Bond fooled by the enemy into love, and so he makes a point to treat Vesper with indifference to appear invulnerable and not penetrated.

    We see this through-line continued in Quantum of Solace, where in between his defense that Vesper was nothing to him, Bond steals her photo from a file, holds her necklace and thinks over her, makes it seem like he forgot the name of the martini he named after her when Mathis asks him about it on the plane, and ultimately uses Greene's last minutes (before deserting him) to find a way for himself to move on from Vesper by finding out who abused her. This same sort of suppression is seen again in Skyfall, not only in moments where Bond has to act perfectly capable, like in his training, before he falls to the ground in exhaustion when nobody is watching, or far more in his interactions with Silva. On the island Bond actively plays a game of wits with Silva, because both men are trying to make it seem like they are unaffected by each other's advances and opposition. Bond playfully mocks the man and acts invulnerable, and so Silva openly shoots Severine dead and surprises Bond by this in their following exchange. To avoid showing his emotion over Severine's death and his anger at being beaten in the game by Silva, Bond puts on a cold face and says the waste of scotch line, attempting to mask his feeling to appear indifferent to avoid losing his alpha status.

    There are many examples of this in the rest of the films, but I'd be here all day discussing this particular aspect of Craig's Bond.

    3.) Dry Humor- Sean Connery once made the case that there was no humor in the Fleming novels, but I disagree: it's there, just really, really dry and underplayed. If you don't have a particular sense for Bond's humor in the books, like in moments where he shouts "bitch" loudly in his apartment in Casino Royale because he knows that spies are listening in on him, or in Live & Let Die when Bond playfully mocks the retired old folks in his talks with Solitaire and Felix in Florida, you see a man who has the ability to be funny in spite of himself (by which I mean, in spite of his earnestness and coldness). He is not a joker type of guy, and most of the humor in him comes organically from the very dry reactions he has to the world around him. This is mostly why I hate one liners, not only because they have never worked outside the 60s, but also because the more organic, dry and downplayed humor is the best for this character.

    More than any other Bond, I think Dan's has realized this particular humor of the literary Bond best. He still gets saddled with a few one-liners from time to time, like in the casino scene of Skyfall (at the end, rather), but on the whole these are barely blips on the radar and no other Bond has had more organic humor than Dan's Bond, nor has any been able to deliver the lines so dryly since Sean. He is able to create the literary Bond's sarcasm perfectly, where you can sense his mocking nature in his responses to people.

    His, "Yes, considerably" in Casino is a perfect example of Bond mocking a traitor in a dry fashion instead of utilizing a poor pun or jokey line. On the ride to Montenegro he playfully calls Vesper "Ms. Stephanie Broadchest," again a bit of organic humor, much like their entire first meeting on the train. Bond and Vesper's dynamic in the film represents an endless series of these playful and dry moments, as they take fun bites out of each other. We see this dry and organic humor play out again and again with Bond in his interactions with M, Mathis and Le Chiffre over the course of the same film, including in the torture scene where Bond chooses to act unmoved by the villain's advances at him using humor. As he seduces Solange she suggests that she ask Dimitrios directly about Bond trying to get under his skin, to which he dryly says, "Perhaps later." Later in Miami, as a bomb is about to go off, Bond calls into MI6 and demands to be put through to M, which Villiers responses to by putting him on hold; Bond responds with a, "Thought you might."

    His dryness is again seen in Quantum, where the request by the service to keep Le Chiffre alive is responded to by him in a metaphor involving a priest and a soul, a dark sense of humor that carries into every interaction he has with the cast of characters later, especially Mathis. Later in the film, when Camille asks about why Bond is doing the job, curious if it was for his mother, Bond references M and says, "She likes to think so," perfectly and metaphorically describing their unique relationship. When he finally meets Greene at the party in Bolivia, the villain tells Bond that his friends call him Dominic, to which Bond responds, "I'm sure they do."

    I could again go on with these examples, but the point is to emphasize the dryness of Craig's Bond and the very organic nature of this humor, especially in his first two films but certainly not limited to that, as I love moments like in Spectre, where Bond dryly states that Sciarra wouldn't care about his murder of him because he was a killer himself, receiving a slap for it. The literary Bond was this very dry kind of man, and also had the same black sense of humor that Craig's Bond has had to magnificent effect.

    4.) Brutality- Anybody that reads the Bond novels will find the character has the ability to be incredibly brutal, and unleash rage on his enemies. He often chooses very personal kills, like the ways he got his Double-O licence, from his vengeful kills of Big and his enemies (for Felix) and later on with his strangulation of Blofeld. While Bond doesn’t enjoy the killing often, and is haunted by some if it, he often has a drive to kill those that stand in his way, and when he does so he really takes it to the limit. There’s a part of him that wishes for Le Chiffre to be alive in the first book, so that he could kill him in retaliation for what he’d done.

    One of the most obvious impressions one could have of Craig’s Bond is that he is a very physical force that can be quite capable in facing his enemies. He has the roughness of Fleming’s Bond in how he fights, backed up by a history in boxing and overall athletics that feeds his capacity to kill effectively. When he fights you see him feel it, and he’s not a superman, taking hits, bleeding and sweating at the end of most of his scuffs as Fleming’s Bond did, who rarely walked away without some bruises or scratches. There’s that same vengeance in him, who can kill to protect those he cares for as he does for Mathis and Vesper throughout Quantum, M in Skyfall, and himself in Spectre. It’s this drive and brutality that you can see in Fleming’s books, like his violent kill of Tee-Hee in Live & Let Die, or his more emotionally pursuit of Blofeld in the later novels.

    5.) Humanity- With brutality comes humanity, and Fleming’s Bond is often best described as such. He’s an imperfect, fallible man who also takes the damage that is dealt with him in the way you’d expect for a man in his place to. He gets beaten down and diminished physically and mentally in many major cases, but is able to pull through some of the most intense events a human could face throughout his adventures.

    Craig’s Bond for me is the most human for this reason, because he feels like a real man through the actor’s performance. Dalton had this too, but he lacked the athleticism and animalism that to me is needed to complete the Bond picture. Dan’s Bond is a beast, and very durable, but one who also takes serious damage on the job. In Casino Royale he’s barely ever unscarred, and his poisoning and torture are particularly visceral moments for the pain we can see it all causing him. In Quantum of Solace he again gets bloodied and dusted up for much of it, and in Skyfall he takes the most damage of all (or at least close to Casino), where a severe injury in the field affects his aim and spryness for much of the film after. Spectre’s fight between Bond and Hinx is a hallmark moment for me because it gives us the opportunity to finally show Dan’s Bond facing a man who he can’t even begin to face as a combatant, and the damage he takes really hurts to watch (for me). It’s a moment where you think he’s dead and gone.

    Bond has taken damage in the films before, but I think Dan’s ability to emphasize Bond’s humanity is helped by his performance, because he isn’t played as an overt ladies man in a cartoonish way. He’s underplayed and quiet, and his reactions feel more grounded because of it. This sense of reality in his character is very much at the heart of Fleming’s Bond, who was crafted as the ordinary man who extraordinary things happened to.

    6.) Orphan Mentality/Loneliness- As @peter expressed, there is an inherent orphan mentality in Fleming’s Bond that intentionally or unintentionally comes out. It makes sense that a man who really didn’t have a stable foundation growing up would later become a non-committal man in adult life who never pursues serious relationships (possibly for a subconscious fear of abandonment and/or issues of trust) and who represses his feelings because he has learned to independently work through his pain. In Live & Let Die Bond comments that, after surviving Big’s torture, he cried for the first time since he was a kid (likely in reaction to his parents’ deaths), and that sense of coldness and repressed emotion is very much at home in Craig’s Bond. You can tell that he is a man who has learned to keep his vulnerability patted down, because that’s how he has habitually grown up. After his parents’ deaths he got the orphan’s lot in life and essentially had to be an adult earlier than most kids, facing responsibilities that formed him into a machine that was effective and focused.

    Watching Craig’s films you get a sense that an orphan who faced what Bond had would grow up to be like that. Non-committed to relationships that demand more than quick exchanges of passion, a lack of trust in those around him because he didn’t have that family unit in his life to lean on, and his go-to response to repress all that hurts him and uncovers his weakness (like Vesper’s betrayal) so that he conveys an invulnerability to the world that he is trying to prove something to.

    No other Bond actors really feel like they played the orphan side of Bond, but with Craig there are echoes of that I pick up on. There’s an inherent loneliness to the man and a quietness to his soul that clues you into what he’s faced. Looking into his eyes there’s a history there, of things he’s seen but doesn’t want to talk about, and it’s performed beautifully by Dan because he himself is also as private a man, as Fleming’s Bond is. That personal part of himself as a man and actor was used to effectively realize one of the most interesting parts of Bond for me, a man who was forced to face the world early on after tragedy with cold dispassion.

    7.) Out of Place in the World- A final part of the Bond character originated in Fleming’s work that I think Dan’s era has really emphasized is the man’s lack of place or feeling of security throughout the novels. He never feels like he knows where he’s going, and is often questioning his place in the world and what the job is doing for him. Sometimes this is in big ways, like how Le Chiffre’s torture makes him completely rethink his entire career and what his future could be with Vesper as his morals are spun about, to absolute tragedy as in Tracy’s death, coming right after he was so close to pursuing an honest life for the second time. Other moments in between these two major stages of life point to a confusion of destiny on his part, including his distaste for the job and his Double-O mark, which he sees as a glorification of killing, and his gradual lack of care for the job and what M wants to do with him over time. He goes from a rough man to a shell of himself on a long journey, and ultimately comes to terms with himself in order to move on and be who he needs to be.

    His sense of enchantment with life and a lack of control over it is very much engrained in the life of Dan’s Bond. He’s led a conflicted life, not only for the orphan context above, but as a killer who is highly trained from the royal navy. By the time he comes to MI6 he’s got a bit of a death wish and doesn’t expect to be employed long, making you wonder what drove him to move from the military to an even more dire job.

    As the movies go on we watch him falling in love and trying to settle down, before the world is pulled out from under him and, to protect himself from the feelings he had for Vesper, he curls up inside himself and chooses to repress everything for many years. In between this time his career is always in jeopardy, as he sees how little governments can be trusted, best seen in how both the Brits and Americans had a hand in Quantum’s interests in his second film, and later on in Skyfall where we find him questioning the trust he has put in others and lost, a true trial for an orphan who already put so little belief in trust in the first place. Both Skyfall and Spectre play up an attack on Bond’s world, as he’s viewed as a man out of his time and pointless as a Double-O in a world that is turning techy. His conflicts in the story go beyond the physical for this reason, more than a human fight for survival; his entire purpose as a man is on the line as the old-fashioned is eradicated for the flashy and new. It’s an arc of Bond’s character I could imagine Fleming writing if he were around, and even while Bond’s career is in jeopardy we still have him faced with demons from his past.

    Spectre brings his hidden past back to the forefront, putting White into his line of sight again. A giant shift in Bond’s morality comes through this reveal as he finds a partner in the man he once wanted to kill for taking his beloved away, and through his pact with White Bond gets the chance-via Madeleine-to chase an honest life in what may be his last chance at it. It’s clear he doesn’t want to die alone and empty as White did, and the spinning sphere that is his world pulled him in a direction he wanted to take so many years ago with Vesper, but couldn’t.

    The Craig era and Fleming’s novels put the character through different trials, but the same feeling of indecision and a lack of comfort of place is built into the journeys of both the film and literary character. These struggles to find purpose and meaning revolve most prominently around Bond’s personal ties (like the women he loves and the people he fights for) and also his career, which both Craig’s and Fleming’s Bond have a love/hate relationship with. Bother spheres of Bond’s life, the personal and the professional, intersect with great drama in the movies as they do in the books, from his tug of war between choosing to either retire to live a nice life or face the dangers of the job until he dies or is pushed out, to his relationship with M as his boss as he balances between being an employee and surrogate son to her.

    Because neither interpretation of Bond is ever sure of himself or his place in the world, a human experience is created that grounds the man’s actions and his overall struggle to live his life in Dan’s films and Fleming’s books. It’s a very sensible and genuine feeling that a spy would have about their life, because every dark corner could be hiding another gunman in the shadows to take it all away.


    I could argue many more connections that exist between Dan’s Bond and Fleming’s original, but I’ve already written a novella and should take a step back.

    In contrast, my response to the epic post above,......Yes!
  • peterpeter Toronto
    Posts: 9,511
    Oh Christ, @0BradyM0Bondfanatic7-- that was f*cking orgasmic... So well written... and, yes, you connect the dots to DC's performances. His projections are hard-wired to the original interpretation...

    Thanks for being so detailed and careful in your assessment. A wonderful mini-essay, and I heartily, intuitively and emotionally back the substantial evidence you bring forth.

    Beautiful, my friend. Just beautiful...
  • ShardlakeShardlake Leeds, West Yorkshire, England
    edited July 2017 Posts: 4,043
    but didn't Dalton read all the books?

    You pretty much hit the nail on the head there @0BradyM0Bondfanatic7 although I'm sure Dalton fans will try and say different.

    Connery nails the cinematic interpretation like no other actor but as far internalising and exploring Bond's psyche it's Craig all the way.

    Dalton may have intended to give this off and I'm sure his fans read more than is there but the subtleties in Daniel's acting show a conflicted man at odds with himself, Bond is not superhuman, he vulnerable but he has an armour but that armour has to show chinks and Craig does that beautifully, well for 3 films he does.
  • Mendes4LyfeMendes4Lyfe The long road ahead
    Posts: 8,438
    Each of the Bond actors have aspects to them that derive from Fleming, and aspects that don't.
  • 0BradyM0Bondfanatic70BradyM0Bondfanatic7 Quantum Floral Arrangements: "We Have Petals Everywhere"
    Posts: 28,694
    @Shardlake, cheers. I know we often disagree, but we have similar feelings on much of Dan's great work with the series.

    There are definite parts of Fleming in Dalton, a lot that is very much the big draw of the man's films, but I think what hurts the idea of him as Fleming's Bond is his own limitations as a performer and the state of the franchise as it was when he got the role. He does well to convey layers in Bond, and a lot of humanity and emotion in peak moments, but he lacked the other things that I feel Bond needs: his brutality, athleticism, fashion sense, lust, etc. These things Dan has more roundly, and I think that's why I'd faster give the title to him, though he is imperfect in other areas. Dalton also had to deal with certain holdovers from the Moore era, including the humor, that really stopped him short of being more than he could as Fleming's original. The Dalton films were still held back with how things were in the series, and so we had moments where Dalton would have to perform material that didn't work for him and felt awkward because it didn't mesh with everything else in his portrayal. It's this incongruity that hurts his movies for me, not just for his work but for the overall tone of the movies themselves.

    I think it's a real credit to most of the eras we've had that most of the actors have managed to translate some aspects of Fleming's character into their interpretations to varying degrees, which is something to acknowledge and celebrate. Sean is probably the king when it comes to bringing out Bond's lust and sex-starved mind, always looking for a fix, as well as a lot of his humanity and detective-like nature in the field. George did a sterling job of conveying Bond's humanity and ability to be beaten that Fleming expressed so much (to make the man infallible), Roger was able to bring out certain bastard sides of the man and in his early films pre-TSWLM he evokes a lot of hardness to the character despite a lighter tone at times, and Dalton again evoked a certain humanity and everyman mood that took Bond out of the cinematic leading man mold to more of a vulnerable one. I think it's a shame that in comparison to some of the above, Pierce's take resembled more of a cartoon or blank slate action hero in comparison to some of the above, and certainly when it comes to realizing Fleming's character (work he clearly wasn't interested or familiar in).

    I think Dan should be celebrated for just how much he's been able to update Bond for the modern era, while also having many shades of the original Bond in him that anchor so much of the action he's in. For my side I've fallen in love with his take because he feels like a real man to me, and when I watch him I don't see Daniel, I see Bond; the actor is lost and transcends the material. He just has a way of acting that is both natural yet also self-aware, and you can see in his expressions and mannerisms things dialogue about or from Bond can't tell you. Bond is a very quiet and reserved man, really, and when it comes to creating that inner life of the character you need an actor who can telegraph his feelings with their body language and not through dialogue, as Bond only betrays his feelings through that body language and not through speech, since he is a private man and doesn't like to delve into those things. Sean was able to do those acting gymnastics at the very start, as was Dalton to his credit, though certainly not as delicately and compellingly as Dan.

    This era really has changed the game for me, and some of my happiest memories are those when I first discovered his Bond in Casino Royale, a movie I watched to death and back, picking up every morsel I could. It's just one of those films that gets under my skin and always stays in the back of my mind for the perfect mix of elements it was able to create, and it's been a unique and splendid pleasure to see Dan craft his Bond and develop him like a real man throughout these movies. I never would've thought we'd ever get a Bond movie built around the spy experiencing grief and searching for meaning only to find forgiveness at the end of it, or another where he loses trust and must face his past to move into the future, and where his past demons give him the chance to have what he'd lost years before in yet another. The real surprise of Dan's Bond is seeing how much they've been able to experiment with the character and his journey as a man, because they have a performer who can lift the material to the level it would need to be at to resonate as a pure and earnest story.

    Saying goodbye to Dan's Bond will be a rough concept for me, and I've known that for many years now, not only for the worry of the lesser man who could replace him, but largely for how much I'd miss his work with the character. I really hope that, given the chance to truly end his era conclusively, we get an emotional and powerful send off that gives the character Dan helped form the depth and resonance in exit as he had on entrance.
  • dominicgreenedominicgreene The Eternal QOS Defender
    Posts: 1,756
    peter wrote: »
    The man is a terrific actor. Full stop.

    He's a character actor, with something most, most, not all, character actors aren't born with: charisma.

    It was this mixture of craft, and charisma, that made his Bond so unique, and, to me, touched on traits closer to the "idea" behind Fleming's Bond.

    Let me ask you the same question I posed to RC7 insofar, if you please can point out to me a line, ore page in any of the books that is mirrored by Craig's behavior and actions in CR or any of the others for that matter (apart from the turmoil in his face when he drowns Fisher that is, which I see as an adaptation of Bond's emotional struggles when killing the double agent in Stockholm during the war.) This shouldn't prove too difficult, if he is so much closer to Flemings Bond than those before him, but still he couldn't answer it, so I'm quite anxious for your list now.

    @noSolaceleft, I wasn't asked, but I'm more than happy to oblige since this era has been a significant part of my study.

    In no special order...

    1.) Lust For Women- One of the first senses you will get when reading the Bond novels is what I like to call Bond's "hunger" for the opposite sex. He's nearly insatiable and has an animal desire in himself to have the woman/en he wants. It becomes a subplot in just the first two books-Casino Royale and Live & Let Die-that he wants to make passionate love to Vesper and Solitaire respectfully, and in both cases he worries about his inability to do so because of the possibility of impotence (brought on by torture in the first case) and his broken hand in the last. This shows us just how much this particular thing means to him, and how much it drives him on when he'd otherwise cut and run on the job.

    This same sexual hunger and animalistic nature is something I attribute quite highly to Craig, the most emphatic we've seen since Sean, who was perfectly able to replicate the sex fiend that Bond is. There are moments where Craig Bond sees things he likes, and he goes after them because he wants to, and you can feel that sexual energy cascading off of him as he goes on the hunt. There are many examples of this, not even counting his leading Bond girls. In the case of Solange, Bond uses the woman both for information and as a bit of sexual pleasure to enjoy as he familiarizes himself with Dimitrios, and acts out in a fashion that risks his own life or exposure to the enemy through that sexual boldness. A similar thing happens with Fields, who Bond uses to distract himself and forget Vesper, and also because he found an attraction to her puritan like exterior that he wanted to challenge. She was there to babysit him for M, and he was going to turn the tables on her and show her the man or alpha in the situation by conquering her. Severine is yet another example, where Bond is compelled to seek her out, but beyond using her for his needs (finding Silva) he also takes the opportunity to lust after her as you can feel the hunger he has from the first mysterious glimpse of her he gets.

    The most recent example of this sort of thing is Lucia Sciarra in SP, who Bond seeks out after killing her husband. Bond's lust after her is partly motivated by his own attraction, but also for his implied distaste for her husband and his inability to take notice of her and pleasure her. Bond is acting out not only his own animal lust, but is also giving the woman the kind of passion he feels she deserves. I could see Fleming's Bond doing just the same thing for a woman, spurred on by his hatred for her husband for ignoring the piece of art and walking lust and passion before him. Because he was there and in the moment, and a little hungry, Bond has his feast.

    2.) Emotional Suppression- Fleming uses the word "cold" like it's a period or pronoun in his Bond novels, and so the character naturally has a lot of moments where he must take in the dangers around him and avoid showing his fear. I think of moments like in Casino Royale, where Bond must find a way to offset the gunman at the back of his chair during baccarat, all while putting on a smile for the audience so that nobody suspects anything. Or even the many happy faces he puts on for Solitaire in the next novel to make her think everything will be okay, despite knowing their chances of death are running quite high against Mr. Big.

    For me, Dan's Bond is an exceptional realization of this aspect of Bond, because you can actively see him turning himself cold to avoid the consequence of not repressing his feelings. Whenever he's speaking with M, like in Casino Royale after Solange is found, you can see Bond at first telling the woman that he doesn't get emotionally connected or "feel" things that way, and in the next we see a shot of him showing that regret that he hid just moments earlier. Later in the film, after Vesper's betrayal, we again see a man who was in love, but who now must put on a face of anger and hatred for the woman so that the service doesn't know how close the woman got to his heart. This would look embarrassing, Bond fooled by the enemy into love, and so he makes a point to treat Vesper with indifference to appear invulnerable and not penetrated.

    We see this through-line continued in Quantum of Solace, where in between his defense that Vesper was nothing to him, Bond steals her photo from a file, holds her necklace and thinks over her, makes it seem like he forgot the name of the martini he named after her when Mathis asks him about it on the plane, and ultimately uses Greene's last minutes (before deserting him) to find a way for himself to move on from Vesper by finding out who abused her. This same sort of suppression is seen again in Skyfall, not only in moments where Bond has to act perfectly capable, like in his training, before he falls to the ground in exhaustion when nobody is watching, or far more in his interactions with Silva. On the island Bond actively plays a game of wits with Silva, because both men are trying to make it seem like they are unaffected by each other's advances and opposition. Bond playfully mocks the man and acts invulnerable, and so Silva openly shoots Severine dead and surprises Bond by this in their following exchange. To avoid showing his emotion over Severine's death and his anger at being beaten in the game by Silva, Bond puts on a cold face and says the waste of scotch line, attempting to mask his feeling to appear indifferent to avoid losing his alpha status.

    There are many examples of this in the rest of the films, but I'd be here all day discussing this particular aspect of Craig's Bond.

    3.) Dry Humor- Sean Connery once made the case that there was no humor in the Fleming novels, but I disagree: it's there, just really, really dry and underplayed. If you don't have a particular sense for Bond's humor in the books, like in moments where he shouts "bitch" loudly in his apartment in Casino Royale because he knows that spies are listening in on him, or in Live & Let Die when Bond playfully mocks the retired old folks in his talks with Solitaire and Felix in Florida, you see a man who has the ability to be funny in spite of himself (by which I mean, in spite of his earnestness and coldness). He is not a joker type of guy, and most of the humor in him comes organically from the very dry reactions he has to the world around him. This is mostly why I hate one liners, not only because they have never worked outside the 60s, but also because the more organic, dry and downplayed humor is the best for this character.

    More than any other Bond, I think Dan's has realized this particular humor of the literary Bond best. He still gets saddled with a few one-liners from time to time, like in the casino scene of Skyfall (at the end, rather), but on the whole these are barely blips on the radar and no other Bond has had more organic humor than Dan's Bond, nor has any been able to deliver the lines so dryly since Sean. He is able to create the literary Bond's sarcasm perfectly, where you can sense his mocking nature in his responses to people.

    His, "Yes, considerably" in Casino is a perfect example of Bond mocking a traitor in a dry fashion instead of utilizing a poor pun or jokey line. On the ride to Montenegro he playfully calls Vesper "Ms. Stephanie Broadchest," again a bit of organic humor, much like their entire first meeting on the train. Bond and Vesper's dynamic in the film represents an endless series of these playful and dry moments, as they take fun bites out of each other. We see this dry and organic humor play out again and again with Bond in his interactions with M, Mathis and Le Chiffre over the course of the same film, including in the torture scene where Bond chooses to act unmoved by the villain's advances at him using humor. As he seduces Solange she suggests that she ask Dimitrios directly about Bond trying to get under his skin, to which he dryly says, "Perhaps later." Later in Miami, as a bomb is about to go off, Bond calls into MI6 and demands to be put through to M, which Villiers responses to by putting him on hold; Bond responds with a, "Thought you might."

    His dryness is again seen in Quantum, where the request by the service to keep Le Chiffre alive is responded to by him in a metaphor involving a priest and a soul, a dark sense of humor that carries into every interaction he has with the cast of characters later, especially Mathis. Later in the film, when Camille asks about why Bond is doing the job, curious if it was for his mother, Bond references M and says, "She likes to think so," perfectly and metaphorically describing their unique relationship. When he finally meets Greene at the party in Bolivia, the villain tells Bond that his friends call him Dominic, to which Bond responds, "I'm sure they do."

    I could again go on with these examples, but the point is to emphasize the dryness of Craig's Bond and the very organic nature of this humor, especially in his first two films but certainly not limited to that, as I love moments like in Spectre, where Bond dryly states that Sciarra wouldn't care about his murder of him because he was a killer himself, receiving a slap for it. The literary Bond was this very dry kind of man, and also had the same black sense of humor that Craig's Bond has had to magnificent effect.

    4.) Brutality- Anybody that reads the Bond novels will find the character has the ability to be incredibly brutal, and unleash rage on his enemies. He often chooses very personal kills, like the ways he got his Double-O licence, from his vengeful kills of Big and his enemies (for Felix) and later on with his strangulation of Blofeld. While Bond doesn’t enjoy the killing often, and is haunted by some if it, he often has a drive to kill those that stand in his way, and when he does so he really takes it to the limit. There’s a part of him that wishes for Le Chiffre to be alive in the first book, so that he could kill him in retaliation for what he’d done.

    One of the most obvious impressions one could have of Craig’s Bond is that he is a very physical force that can be quite capable in facing his enemies. He has the roughness of Fleming’s Bond in how he fights, backed up by a history in boxing and overall athletics that feeds his capacity to kill effectively. When he fights you see him feel it, and he’s not a superman, taking hits, bleeding and sweating at the end of most of his scuffs as Fleming’s Bond did, who rarely walked away without some bruises or scratches. There’s that same vengeance in him, who can kill to protect those he cares for as he does for Mathis and Vesper throughout Quantum, M in Skyfall, and himself in Spectre. It’s this drive and brutality that you can see in Fleming’s books, like his violent kill of Tee-Hee in Live & Let Die, or his more emotionally pursuit of Blofeld in the later novels.

    5.) Humanity- With brutality comes humanity, and Fleming’s Bond is often best described as such. He’s an imperfect, fallible man who also takes the damage that is dealt with him in the way you’d expect for a man in his place to. He gets beaten down and diminished physically and mentally in many major cases, but is able to pull through some of the most intense events a human could face throughout his adventures.

    Craig’s Bond for me is the most human for this reason, because he feels like a real man through the actor’s performance. Dalton had this too, but he lacked the athleticism and animalism that to me is needed to complete the Bond picture. Dan’s Bond is a beast, and very durable, but one who also takes serious damage on the job. In Casino Royale he’s barely ever unscarred, and his poisoning and torture are particularly visceral moments for the pain we can see it all causing him. In Quantum of Solace he again gets bloodied and dusted up for much of it, and in Skyfall he takes the most damage of all (or at least close to Casino), where a severe injury in the field affects his aim and spryness for much of the film after. Spectre’s fight between Bond and Hinx is a hallmark moment for me because it gives us the opportunity to finally show Dan’s Bond facing a man who he can’t even begin to face as a combatant, and the damage he takes really hurts to watch (for me). It’s a moment where you think he’s dead and gone.

    Bond has taken damage in the films before, but I think Dan’s ability to emphasize Bond’s humanity is helped by his performance, because he isn’t played as an overt ladies man in a cartoonish way. He’s underplayed and quiet, and his reactions feel more grounded because of it. This sense of reality in his character is very much at the heart of Fleming’s Bond, who was crafted as the ordinary man who extraordinary things happened to.

    6.) Orphan Mentality/Loneliness- As @peter expressed, there is an inherent orphan mentality in Fleming’s Bond that intentionally or unintentionally comes out. It makes sense that a man who really didn’t have a stable foundation growing up would later become a non-committal man in adult life who never pursues serious relationships (possibly for a subconscious fear of abandonment and/or issues of trust) and who represses his feelings because he has learned to independently work through his pain. In Live & Let Die Bond comments that, after surviving Big’s torture, he cried for the first time since he was a kid (likely in reaction to his parents’ deaths), and that sense of coldness and repressed emotion is very much at home in Craig’s Bond. You can tell that he is a man who has learned to keep his vulnerability patted down, because that’s how he has habitually grown up. After his parents’ deaths he got the orphan’s lot in life and essentially had to be an adult earlier than most kids, facing responsibilities that formed him into a machine that was effective and focused.

    Watching Craig’s films you get a sense that an orphan who faced what Bond had would grow up to be like that. Non-committed to relationships that demand more than quick exchanges of passion, a lack of trust in those around him because he didn’t have that family unit in his life to lean on, and his go-to response to repress all that hurts him and uncovers his weakness (like Vesper’s betrayal) so that he conveys an invulnerability to the world that he is trying to prove something to.

    No other Bond actors really feel like they played the orphan side of Bond, but with Craig there are echoes of that I pick up on. There’s an inherent loneliness to the man and a quietness to his soul that clues you into what he’s faced. Looking into his eyes there’s a history there, of things he’s seen but doesn’t want to talk about, and it’s performed beautifully by Dan because he himself is also as private a man, as Fleming’s Bond is. That personal part of himself as a man and actor was used to effectively realize one of the most interesting parts of Bond for me, a man who was forced to face the world early on after tragedy with cold dispassion.

    7.) Out of Place in the World- A final part of the Bond character originated in Fleming’s work that I think Dan’s era has really emphasized is the man’s lack of place or feeling of security throughout the novels. He never feels like he knows where he’s going, and is often questioning his place in the world and what the job is doing for him. Sometimes this is in big ways, like how Le Chiffre’s torture makes him completely rethink his entire career and what his future could be with Vesper as his morals are spun about, to absolute tragedy as in Tracy’s death, coming right after he was so close to pursuing an honest life for the second time. Other moments in between these two major stages of life point to a confusion of destiny on his part, including his distaste for the job and his Double-O mark, which he sees as a glorification of killing, and his gradual lack of care for the job and what M wants to do with him over time. He goes from a rough man to a shell of himself on a long journey, and ultimately comes to terms with himself in order to move on and be who he needs to be.

    His sense of enchantment with life and a lack of control over it is very much engrained in the life of Dan’s Bond. He’s led a conflicted life, not only for the orphan context above, but as a killer who is highly trained from the royal navy. By the time he comes to MI6 he’s got a bit of a death wish and doesn’t expect to be employed long, making you wonder what drove him to move from the military to an even more dire job.

    As the movies go on we watch him falling in love and trying to settle down, before the world is pulled out from under him and, to protect himself from the feelings he had for Vesper, he curls up inside himself and chooses to repress everything for many years. In between this time his career is always in jeopardy, as he sees how little governments can be trusted, best seen in how both the Brits and Americans had a hand in Quantum’s interests in his second film, and later on in Skyfall where we find him questioning the trust he has put in others and lost, a true trial for an orphan who already put so little belief in trust in the first place. Both Skyfall and Spectre play up an attack on Bond’s world, as he’s viewed as a man out of his time and pointless as a Double-O in a world that is turning techy. His conflicts in the story go beyond the physical for this reason, more than a human fight for survival; his entire purpose as a man is on the line as the old-fashioned is eradicated for the flashy and new. It’s an arc of Bond’s character I could imagine Fleming writing if he were around, and even while Bond’s career is in jeopardy we still have him faced with demons from his past.

    Spectre brings his hidden past back to the forefront, putting White into his line of sight again. A giant shift in Bond’s morality comes through this reveal as he finds a partner in the man he once wanted to kill for taking his beloved away, and through his pact with White Bond gets the chance-via Madeleine-to chase an honest life in what may be his last chance at it. It’s clear he doesn’t want to die alone and empty as White did, and the spinning sphere that is his world pulled him in a direction he wanted to take so many years ago with Vesper, but couldn’t.

    The Craig era and Fleming’s novels put the character through different trials, but the same feeling of indecision and a lack of comfort of place is built into the journeys of both the film and literary character. These struggles to find purpose and meaning revolve most prominently around Bond’s personal ties (like the women he loves and the people he fights for) and also his career, which both Craig’s and Fleming’s Bond have a love/hate relationship with. Bother spheres of Bond’s life, the personal and the professional, intersect with great drama in the movies as they do in the books, from his tug of war between choosing to either retire to live a nice life or face the dangers of the job until he dies or is pushed out, to his relationship with M as his boss as he balances between being an employee and surrogate son to her.

    Because neither interpretation of Bond is ever sure of himself or his place in the world, a human experience is created that grounds the man’s actions and his overall struggle to live his life in Dan’s films and Fleming’s books. It’s a very sensible and genuine feeling that a spy would have about their life, because every dark corner could be hiding another gunman in the shadows to take it all away.


    I could argue many more connections that exist between Dan’s Bond and Fleming’s original, but I’ve already written a novella and should take a step back.

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    And this is why I love James Bond.
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