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I have a fondness for Brosnan. I've seen a lot of criticism for him on this site and while I'm ambivalent about most of it, I can see why some people didn't take to him. However, this comment just seems absurd to me. Outside Connery he's the most visually stunning Bond. Criticise his interpretation all you want but when it comes to image he's perfect, particularly in TND. I have to ask, does Craig look the part to you? However good his Bond is, he doesn't look anything like the Bond Fleming wrote, and that's not subjective, that's fact.
I agree with this too. Brosnan is better as Bond and for some reason he looks more like Bond too.
My biggest problem with Brosnan (and I do like him) is that he's the one actor who looked like he was "playing at" James Bond instead of "being" James Bond. Even Lazenby, who was quite wooden in some of his scenes (yet incredibly good in others) seemed comfortable inhabiting the role. My guess is that Laz had lived a "Bondian" life, with lots of affairs or one-night stands with models, lots of fighting, and a load of self-confidence. Brosnan had not lived that life (at least to the same extent - can you imagine him being in an army bootcamp or getting in bar fights?) as the other actors so he was projecting what he *thought* a person like that would be like. That's why he comes off almost like a little boy trying to act tough on the playground, trying to live up to the image of his heroes that he's seen on TV.
A good analogy would be Mark Hammil in Return of the Jedi. An accomplished and respected actor on Broadway, in RotJ he was trying to project Luke as having a wisdom and serene confidence that he himself didn't have. So at times in the film when he's trying to appear in control of a situation it comes off as fake and stagey. Yet Harrison Ford can give a single line and come off as far more commanding.
Although Moore is my least favourite characterization of Bond, he can come off as convincingly tough when he wants to be (at least in the early films) and has a great presence and confidence. Yet that doesn't take away from his light-hearted take on the character (and vice-versa). To me that's an example of a good actor imbuing a role with characteristics that are complimentary instead of at odds with each other.
I agree with this as well. I would say Dalton also had a striking manner about him in TLD that was close to what Fleming envisioned.
Hear, hear! And yes, my friends and I still concur. One of my fav Bond movies and dear to my enjoyment of Bond.
I think QOS falls short of getting the job done and is the more disappointing of the two.
Broz could really bring Bond to life in the action scenes, and sometime he looked real good as Bond. The way he played Bond in TND, could almost be a Mac Bolan film. He was certainly an active Bond.
Broz though, just seemed a little "off" sometimes with his facial expressions and reaction shots. He also seemed to do a lot of wheezing and laboured breathing, which was a little offputting. The others seemed to hold their gasping and grimacing together better
Basically he didn't seem quite natural to Bond at times, which is kinda of what lordflashheart was saying I guess.
I do like Brozzer's work for the most part. I just think it could have been better. He didn't quite convincingly find the whole character, so that it came naturally to him in every scene.
I have to agree, Brosnan absolutely does look the part compared to Craig, after Connery of course the second best. This is undeniable. Otherwise, Craig pretty much mops the floor with him in every other area, just my opinion of course.
Sent you a PM.
I think Craig is a better actor who can handle the more dramatic and darker scenes better, and he's more physical and believeable in the action scenes.
But I think Brosnan looked better, handled the humour better and had more charm and style about him. He always seemed really cool.
Personally I prefer Brosnan but I admit that Craig's movies are probably (overall) objectively better. I reckon both are great Bonds though.
I don't think that Brosnan handled the humour better, I think that he handled the type of humour in the Brosnan films more naturally than the other Bond actors would have, with the exception of Moore.
And the flip side of that is that Craig handles the humour in the Craig films far better than Brosnan would have - because it's a different type of humour. I find some similarities to the humour in the Connery films. While Craig usually doesn't have the mischievous twinkle in his eye that Connery does the same dry, droll, understated delivery is there.
Likewise Craig and Brosnan have their own strengths in different areas. Both are charming, but in very different ways. Both have style, but very different kinds. Both are attractive to women but again in very different ways.
So I guess that makes Brosnan the caviar and Craig the Peking duck..?
I agree with your statements on humor. It really isn't a fair comparison because the humor is indeed different. Probably more fair to compare Craig to Connery as you did because it is in a similar vein, Brosnan to Moore is also an obvious comparison.
I'm not a Brosnan-basher, but your point about Brosnan "playing at" James Bond instead of "being" James Bond is spot-on. That's exactly how I feel about his portrayal. He often seemed to be trying just a bit too hard. As I mentioned earlier, I think he had really grown into the role by TWINE, though there was still that slight element of playacting.
I also think that Moore, despite his flaws, did really inhabit the role. Perhaps it was his natural charisma, but I saw him as Bond more than I saw Brosnan as Bond, which is paradoxical because in many ways I prefer Brosnan's approach to the character.
In acting it's called "conviction" - the ability for an actor to sell to an audience that he truly believes in what he's doing and feeling what he's feeling. Great actors can do this with any role, no matter ridiculous the premise is. Poor actors can't even do it properly with natural, every-day emotions.
One of the things that I admire about Lazenby was how he was this rough, womanizing tough guy who had never acted before yet his most sincere moments in OHMSS were the romantic ones. I do appreciate that he was quite literally learning how to act as filming went on; it's great to see how despite being so wooden and monotone in some scenes (such as first meeting Draco) he gave a good performance in others. For this reason I really do believe he could have grown into a great Bond given a second film.
With Brosnan, well, he had loads of acting experience over years prior to Bond so it was just a case of either over-reaching his abilities or being intimidated by the part as it was a life-long dream for him. I've seen him give good performances outside of Bond so I think that it's a combination of the two factors.
One thing that I appreciate about Craig is how he's very much playing a role. With Connery you almost get the sense that as Bond he's just being "Sean Connery", yet Craig is apparently much less macho and tough in real life than his characterization of Bond. So the fact that he's such a manly, two-fisted agent who has such great presence and is so convincing as "a bit of a bastard" in the films is even more impressive when you think that he's a "sensitive new-age guy" who has a "girl-ish giggle" in interviews and talks about how he has the soundtrack to the movie Grease on his iPod..!
If you watch Hitchcock's Marnie, which Sean made just befor GF, it's uncanny how close Connery's portrayal of Mark Rutland, mirrors his GF Bond. He carried over many of the Rutland mannerisms, postures, expressions, you name it, to GF.
Watch the two films back-to-back. You'd swear Mark Rutland had changed his name to James Bond and was now a secret agent, as opposed to an American businessman.
Connery does credit Hitchcock for developing his talents and Hitcock as everyone knows really did fuss over his actor's performances.
QoS is a good movie but it should have been infinitely better. I thought Forster included a sense of pretentiousness in his overall directing style and even his "idea" of what the Bond mythology is today is pretty absurd.
Both films offer and introduce some great ideas and threads that if stuck to and expanded in could have resulted in better efforts but both manage to mess it up and spoil themselves. That being said, Craig is by far the superior actor and a superior Bond but TND as a whole delivers more on what one generally expects and hopes to get from a Bond film.
That said, I think QOS, for all its flaws, is way superior to TND, or indeed any Brosnan era Bond. The criticism it received is relative to the period it was released and to the movie that came before.
TND is a valiant attempt at a follow-up to GE, but a middling film at best. Still, it's watchable.
The sophomore Bond film that crashed and burned imho was LTK. TLD held so much promise for Dalton's future... Oh well...
You guys need another occularist.
and now I'm bored
goodnight
Fast forward to 2008, and QOS was an immeadiate let down for me after the wonderful CR. The story is weak, the villains un-memorable and un-threatening. Dizzying editing, that though appeals to some, does not appeal to me. The film felt like a step backwards. As Bond fans it seems you either love it or hate it. For me, it has grown on me, but there are alot of Bond films I'd pop on before this.
So afterall is said and done, I'd say that TND was the more popular amongst fans (at least the ones I knew back in '97) compared to QOS. But then without Bond forums (you only need turn to Mi6 ;) )it's impossible to answer fully.