It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
Totally agree. I'd go as far as saying it was to do with his insouciance.
You've offically made insouciance the word of the day @Getafix.
One of the things that I was cautioned about by an old drama teacher is just "acting" as opposed to "reacting". He said that when most people first try acting they concentrate on acting when they deliver their lines but stop when someone else is speaking - so they end up looking like they're just waiting for their turn. He said that this is common and that one should always think of things to say when someone else is speaking - whether it's your next line or something else that you just choose not to say. That way you're fully engaged in the scene and give a performance instead of just standing there listening while waiting for your cue.
I do really like Lazenby - his Bond has a genial, very human nature about him which is very engaging - but he is sometimes guilty of what I just described above. The best example is when he first meets Draco. Because it's a "beginner's mistake" I think a lot of people can forgive him for that - plus the fact that he delivers some truly wonderful moments later in the film.
Now, Brosnan does something very different in the scenes where he gets criticzed for his acting skills. He tries far too hard to "act" and delivers his lines in a cheesy, overwrought way and he doesn't have the gravity to back them up. His scene in TWINE where he confronts Elektra is probably the best example of this, although sometimes he seems like he's a boy pretending to be tough and looks like he's playing "at" being Bond instead of just being Bond. Because this is more a case of someone over-reaching it can appear as hubris so viewers are often less forgiving of this then Lazenby's "beginner mistake".
As for Connery/Craig I think that they both do humour where it reveals character as opposed to playing to the audience. When Craig crashed the Land Rover and threw the keys away in CR or says to Le Chiffre "That last hand nearly killed me" he's showing that he's a character not to be messed with - there still funny moments but there's more than just a cheap joke. Much different than throwing a joke out there just for the sake of a joke. I think that that's another way that Connery and Craig are similar (although the jokes were much more there just for joke's sake later in Connery's run).
Generally speaking, isn't the actor supposed to adapt to the script and not the other way around?
Not necessarily. They tried a tougher persona with Moore and that didn't work as well so they made the scripts a bit lighter in subsequent films
But however it was the matter with Moore - they were smart enough to stray away from book Bond and let the Sir shine in the way he could. Overly tough cookie wouldn't have worked.
Bain is right. The scripts need to be tailored to the actor. They never got the tone right with Brosnan. There was no distinctive sense of what kind of Bond he was. I don't want to defend him, obviously, but the scripts sucked. Even Sean and Roger would have struggled with the material they gave the poor guy.
I'm not sure what they needed to do to make Brozza's Bond 'work' and it's pretty obvious those dimwits Purvis and Wade never fathomed it out either. Don't start me on Finkelstein.
With Broz there was always a "boyish charm"
All these year i can't blame Purvis and wade for the "failure",i think they tried to make what best for Brosnan, sadly Brosnan acting skills were not help either. IF you a writer with Brosnan in mind what would you best can do except maximizing his charm and OTT persona?
I know they won't, and I'm glad. I like craigs bond so far, I love CR, but there's a middle ground between being deadly serious and totally ridiculous. CR was slightly on the serious side, but the franchise needed that and it suited the CR bond. But QOS went too far and in the end it didn't even feel like a bond film.
I don't want another DAD, but I do want something like thunderball. Which has fun AND seriousness, and pulls it of. And craig said that they were making it like a 60s bond film, so I have high hopes.
It's funny. I watched him in The Greatest recently and thought he was very good in that, though he was upstaged a little by Carey Mulligan and Susan Sarandon. Nonetheless I liked him in it.
Well said and I agree vehemently. This notion that Connery is the best because he is the first is utter nonsense. Connery's acting, charisma and screen presence is THE testament as to why and how Bond was so big in the 60s and why it's always Connery that is consistently cited today. The bloody screen tests are teens menus of scenes from FRWL for goodness sake.
Dalton is a good actor, but I don't like what he chose to do with the character, so his "failings" are a matter of preference, not a reflection on his acting ability. Craig is obviously quite a good actor and he does have his moments as Bond, and in some ways does remind of Sean, more than others, but as I've said about a hundred times, he doesn't have the right look, which throws me off. Plus I don't like the whole re-boot, Bond with trust issues being dragged out over 2 films. The scripts haven't allowed him to even attempt to play the role, in the way in which Sean created and defined it.
I blame Babs though for changing the character. Once she took over effectively with GE, Bond the character, has had regular emotional issues, on screen angst, etc. It's not detroying the films or anything, but I don't think it improves them. Dalts kinda started things on his own by trying to humanize the character. I don't think audiences liked it. They didn't hate it mind you, but it didn't add anything terribly helpful to the franchise, I don't think. No, I think the character was perfected with the Connery driven Bond-mania of the 1960's, and that it is folly to stray too far from that template, either with casting, or "character development" ideas.
Neither Moore nor Laz were the acting giant that Sean was, but they pretty much stuck to the Connery template, within the context of their own abilities, which is why I rank the first 14 films ahead of the others. Its basically the same character for all 14 films, even if Moore didn't bring the same gravitas as Sean.
The character tinkering began with Dalts. Broz was never right for the role under any circumstance IMO (although his films are still quite watchable, Bond adventures), and now we are seeing a guy, that doesn't quite look like Bond, but does play Bond fairly convincingly.
But having been mired in re-boot and angst-driven origins Bond for the last two films, its right up in the air, as to whether the old smooth reliable Bond is coming back. Craig might very well be insisting, that his Bond films need be character driven dramas, as opposed to the old established Bond, simply wowing us, by going about the business of being Bond, and completing the mission with panache, style and deadly efficiency.
MGW's claims that SF might echo GF could be wishful thinking. SF's tone might very well have a lot more in common with QoS, than GF. We shall see. In the meantime I am happy to stick with Craig, as long as the films work as Bondian entertainment. I don't want to change things just for the heck of it, as long as the movies are successful, but next time, I would really like to see a commitment to more orthodoxcasting of the iconic role, and a return to less character driven dramas - a return to the Bond we know and love, simply going about the mission.
Agree with you both. I always thought TND was Brosnan's 'best' Bond and yet the Brozza fans seem to dismiss it as rubbish.
I agree with pretty much everything here.
I don't understand how Babs seems to get it so wrong. You see her interviewed and she seems intelligent enought with a decent understanding of the films and yet on her watch the quality and essence of Bond has largely been lost. I don't get it. MGW was fairly intimately involved in the earlier Bonds as well and yet he doesn't seem able to preserve the essence of the character. Very strange. I still hold out hope that with Skyfall they might give us a decent Bond movie, but for me CR and QoS were slightly underwhelming. DC is convincing in the part but he's missing something - wit, lightness of touch and a bit of panache. He comes across as a playground bully at the moment. I actually felt sorry for Le Chiffre in CR - it's a bad sign when you're rooting for the villain in a Bond movie.
Yes i read them, but i never see the pages that describe James Bond very detail or any pirctures of Bond in that novel, Bond never wore toupee like Connery did, Fleming never describe Bond looks like an underwear model or boybands member like Brosnan, or have double chin like Lazenby, or have Blond hair like Craig or Moore, my point is none of the actors fit exactly the description in the novel so why complain about the silly psychical qualities about the height or hair color? . Bond also describe in the book he look like a movie star - Daniel Craig is also a movie a star so why some people tell Craig is not fit the description?, can you define what movie star is look like?
I don't think Fleming praised him because he is 'Tall-over six feet, dark , strongly built and moves slowly'. and in other interview Fleming is also describe Bond:
I don’t think that [James Bond] is necessarily a good guy or a bad guy. Who is? He’s got his vices and very few perceptible virtues except patriotism and courage, which are probably not virtues anyway. He’s certainly got little in the way of politics, but I should think what politics he has are just a little bit left of centre. And he’s got little culture. He’s a man of action, and he reads books on golf, and so on—when he reads anything. I quite agree that he’s not a person of much social attractiveness. But then, I didn’t intend for him to be a particularly likable person. He’s a cipher, a blunt instrument in the hands of government. "
quite contrary right? Fleming never intended that his character to be a particularly likeable person... Craig and Dalton fit the description IMO.
He could easily have said: We've had a scottisch bond, an australian bond, an english bond, a welsh bond, an irish bond and another english one..
I've been saying this for years. I said it when craig was cast and I say it whenever the argument about a black bond comes up. None of the actors really look like the character in the books, and that character has been pretty much lost over the years, so why bother arguing over what bond should look like.
Bond actors don't have to be the very epitome of how Fleming wanted it, but we shouldn't stray too far from such a thing, I can appreciate some people taking issue with whatever they deemed unsatisfactory from past actors, there has never been a 'perfect Bond', so to speak although Connery came close in his early appearances, and maybe until the end of time we may never find one. And as Blofeld said earlier - 'It's late, I'm tired, and there's so much more to do', but there you are
For me that's the template all future movie Bonds need adapt - what Connery established. Bondmania and all that - and Fleming seemed quite happy with the result as well. :)
Not a Connery imitator dmt, more a case of him sharing some of Connery's qualities. Qualities that were very evident from the off. Some of the actors have struggled to live in Connery's shadow whereas Craig has enough about him to carry the role with confidence.