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Comments
Not only do his films have great atmosphere but they also have a great look (except AVTAK maybe).
TLD, FYEO and OP especially are beautifully directed with very good editing and locations.
LTK is brilliantly directed action wise and on HD you can see how beautiful the cinematography is even.
Compared to the colour-filter loaden boring crap Mendes dished us up with SF Glen has provided 4 1/2 masterpieces. And don't start me on the worst editing job in film history (QOS). DAD and TWINE are no better, one is boring visually, the other has stupid gimmicks like slo-mo. Since Glen only GE, TND (to some extend) and CR really had good directing.
As for budget, yes the 80's films may have had smaller budget but you don't notice it.
Tell me where!
TLD even is one of the more epic Bond films if you ask me. So is OP actually.
You're right about Glen having the knack for good atmosphere, and I think a lot of that comes from being creative on a budget. The TLD sniper sequence is tense and brilliantly constructed, and LTK is extremely atmospheric and suspenseful. I wish they would scale back and relearn some of these old practices today. Unfortunately I feel the action and the melodrama has slowly taken over through the years.
However, I still think he could have used the locations better. In the old days they used to allow a scene to 'breathe' in one beautiful spot, and it left an impression on me. There was an immersive atmosphere. The first time we see Tatiana in Turkey for instance, or Connery at the Hagia Sophia. Moore in shadow in Egypt in TSWLM during morning prayer, at the pyramids, or even when looking for the MI6 Egypt HQ. There was a wonderful scale to it all and they slowed it down in those scenes to allow us to take it all in. That to me is part of what differentiates Bond from the pretenders.
They've brought some of that back in the recent Craig films, and I'm glad.
I'm a bit mixed on the 80s films. I'd agree that FYEO and TLD are probably Glen's best efforts as a director. In those films, like the films for the 60s, you get more of a "flavour" for the locations.
In Connery's day you could often virtually smell the locations and breathe in the air.
The problem I have with Glen is that, while I think he's perfectly decent with action sequence, I can't escape the feeling that he's a small screen director with a bigger budget. His films often seem to be missing a certain joie de vivre (to be fair I suppose you could say the same for Martin Campbell in GoldenEye, but even that film had a bit more of a slickness and enthusiasm to it compared to Glen's films).
I think definitely in the case of OP and AVTAK (OP is a film I like by the way), you get a sense that these were just seen as "the next Bond film". They don't really leave an impression in terms of finished products.
That is very well said. I was watching AVTAK a few nights ago and like you said, it was just the next film. Nothing really excited me, it's just there, like bland chicken. You'll eat it when hungry, but it doesn't do much while eating.
I agree that later parts of the film do look a bit TV movie-ish like some of the shots in Cuba or wherever it actually was. But in terms of the way it's edited together I think the film has a bit more flaire to it than a lot of what came before.
But just take GF (my fourth favourite Bond film) as an example. Does this great film has any particular great camera shots or amazing and interesting locations? I personally find the chateau in AVTAK much more suitable for a Bond film than a random stud farm in the middle of nowhere, somewhere in Kentucky. OK GF has some great sets (Fort Knox), but that's about it. The greatness of the film is there because of the iconic characters, the dialouges and the great plot.
There's a shot towards the end when you see Bond and Natalya running towards the dish after they see it rise from the water, which definitely looks like it's filmed on a set.
OP (which I love) did India a tremendous disservice. There's so much more to the place than a few postcard shots of the Taj Mahal, cheap sets recreating a street fair & some jungles.
If you want to see San Francisco at its best there are several films that do a better job than AVTAK, including The Rock, Jade, Jagged Edge, Basic Instinct, Bullitt and the heavy hitter of them all, Vertigo.
I don't think too many folks think of AVTAK when they visualize a film set in Paris. Charade, Frantic, Bourne Identity, Ronin etc. all did a better job.
However, when one thinks of Turkey, Switzerland, Egypt, Nassau or Tokyo, FRWL, OHMSS, TSWLM, TB & YOLT certainly come to mind respectively.
-Alec's control room
-Mi6
-Seveneya
-the archives
-the statue park
-the facility
One thing that always bugged me about LTK was some of the cheap looking interior sets like Felix's house.
The film certainly seems to have more of a contemporary look to it. A "techy" look, which suits the whole "90s" era.
However, I stand by my comments that the interior sets (generally speaking) look richer and more elaborate than they had done in a while.
I think a lot of the enthusiasm comes from the faster style of editing and the use of shorter shots in the action scenes.
The shot when the Tiger helicopter lands is the most obvious model in my view as is the moment when the planes are flying over prior to the explosion ("negative so far, everything seems normal").
Birdleson's channeling Jinx!
It certainly doesn't have the level of spectacle that TSWLM or had. BUT I think the acting in GE is genuinely better than those two films.
Highly enjoyed it. It definitely had been a long time since I watched it from start to finish. Outside of the Tarzan yell, I feel that it is one of the more series entries. Especially Bond interrogating Orlov on the train. However the whole switching train cars sequence dragged on slightly. The end on the boat should have been Moore's swan song with him and Octopussy riding off into the sunset. Instead we got him committing incest in the shower.
It wasn't incest in the shower...unless they were related?!