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Initially film exists in the moment. You experience it perhaps in the same way you experience a roller coaster ride. Gradually that film is replaced by another and another and eventually that film is no longer current.
We return to good films because they stand the test of time. They still provide pleasures years and decades later. What appears dated is of no consequence.
My biggest complaint about the early films is exactly the same complaint I had when I first saw them. Too much sloppiness in the editing and continuity, and poor use of sped up film.
For me, the 70's films appear more dated because of the fashions and the big hair.
'Fetch my shoes'
'They're talking about sending a rocket to the moon'
Everyone smoking
'Man talk'
'Like listening to the Beatles without earmuffs'
Back projection. So much back projection.
There are plenty of amazing modern films, and Hollywood still puts out more than enough quality to justify its existence.
Looking at 70s cinema is nothing to do with nostalgia though. It was a singular time, a confluence of events, and whilst we will see films the equal of the cream of that time: we will almost certainly never get factors align again to give us that VOLUME of quality.
Saying that to someone born in the 90s...
The French Connection, Dirty Harry, Carnal Knowledge, M*A*S*H, Alien, Little Big Man, Cabaret, Taxi Driver, Young Frankenstein, Mean Streets, All The President's Men, American Graffiti,
And on and on. The best decade in film history. When Nicholson, Pacino, deNiro, Hackman, Hoffman, Jane Fonda were all at their peak and so many great young directors were on the scene.
What I really want to know, if there are any 60+ ers here who can answer, is this:
Did the early Bonds seem hyper-modern & slick when they came out in the mid-60's ? Certainly TB and YOLT seem to be trying to 'outdo' other films of their time with fancy tech & modern visuals...
Where they seem very modern to me is in Sean Connery's characterization and portrayal. Connery's Bond appears very tough and modern for that time.....a lot of the heroes I see in other films of that period were more polished perhaps, but also more fey (if that's the right word..... like Grant/Moore/Niven/Macnee and even Peck etc.). There was a certain gruff masculinity combined with class in Connery that I have not seen in any hero of that era (a curious combo of American John Wayne like toughness with Niven like British refinement). That's what was very different about the early Bonds in comparison to its contemporaries, rather than any technical differentiators, imho.
I'm curious to hear other's opinions.
Aesthetically drab? Apocalypse Now has some of the best cinematography of any movie ever. Also Taxi Driver looks like a million dollars also.
There are always exceptions of course (and those are some of them), but I still find them, in general, aesthetically drab, since the fashion of that time has not dated well.
mid-60s?
The answer is No. Lawrence of Arabia came out that year, as did a lot of other good films. What defined Bond was an attitude. Here was a suave, detached, cool, and ruthless protagonist in one package. And for me, a transplanted Brit, he was British. This was a genre we hadn't seen much of since the 40s.
DN featured a complex, smart, and interesting villain. Nothing in the film looked new or special. But the locations were exotic, the danger real, the sex smoldering, and the cold blooded killing of Professor Dent was as remarkable then as now. Add to that a catchy James Bond theme that seemed to capture the danger and intrigue.
What the series became was an attempt to be bigger and better, which in my opinion took it far away from where it had been. Broadening the scope of the stories--outer space, for example--did not make for better story telling or a better film. It moved the emphasis from story to set pieces. For me the Bond stories that work best are those on a smaller canvas. Gimmicky crap like swallowing rockets and submarines, space stations, submersible lairs, etc. have never been as effective as the early smaller films or those such as OHMSS and CR that concentrated on relationships.
Would the series have been successful had another actor played Bond? Who knows.
It's pointless to speculate because it didn't happen. Whether one thinks SC is the best Bond or not doesn't really matter, because whatever he had, the public liked it and
a series was born. And after 55 years, James Bond continues to return.
They still got Sean Connery so inferiour is a rather subjective thing to say.
I agree. There is something 'forever' about them.
I also include TB in that club because of Barry's absolutely marvelous, dreamy and timeless score, the Bahamas (that never dates) and the dialogue, which is for the ages. The sped up camera and pacing is acceptable to me, given the previous items.
His acting style still feels fresh and the way he talks is how could you picture any bond talking right now.
When i see other films from the classic era of Hollywood like Casablanca and Gone with the Wind their acting lookd very of that time and think yeah they were great actors for their times but right now non of them would have made it in Hollywood wheras Sean Connery feels like an actor who fits in any decade and so some of his girls especially Eunice Gayson( Sylvia Trench), Luziana Paluzzi ( Fions Volpe), Helga Brandt and Claudine Auger.
Now on another note im surprised by many of your movie taste in general guys
I would have never suspected to be so artistic and with so much depth.
I thought most of you would be fans of other franchises, maybe some Rom Coms, action flicks and very light heart stuff.
Never expected fans of Coppola, Scorsese and similar.
This.
And why no YOLT and DAF in the title,are these not being referred to ?
Can‘t say that about YOLT and especially not DAF. It may be the clothes, the haircuts ... I dunno, really.
And the beautiful pink tie.
Connery should have taken tips from Sir Roger in LALD when he refused the white tie offered him because it was 'a little frantic'.
The first 4 are classics. YOLT and DAF were the start of spectacle over script and gimmicks over plot. With a lack of Terence Young the style went out the window too. Yes Guy Hamilton directed GF, but he stuck to the remit of Terence Young. With DAF he was given more leeway and Lewis Gilbert’s style is far too comic.
Something I really, really love is rewatching a Bond film to relive (or to "reconstruct") the old times: the space race in YOLT, the blaxplotation in LALD, and the mass media uprising in TND. In 10 years from now, SPECTRE will be the "everyone can get into your computer" Bond film. All in all, James Bond films are a great an entertaining document of a particular era.
That's basically why I'd be against a period-piece Bond film, because the series is a testimony that Bond's time is NOW. I mean, Bond is not from the 1950s or 1960s, he's a man for all seasons.
The sets are amazing and I think hold up to the films of today. Give me a real underwater fight instead of the CGI of today. The stunts were done for real. They hold up. The action was not done in excess, but to enhance the plot.
One thing that occurred to me is that DN, FRWL, GF and TB all have Bond dressed impeccably. Then YOLT has Bond looking like he slept in the suits. The polish is gone don't know if there was a new costume designer. Then OHMSS we had classic Bond style again. Then from DAF through most of the Moore era the fashions are very much of their time. They tend to date the film and ground it in the time. However the first four the style is so classic and the colours classic they look like fashion that could be worn today...okay except for the terry robe Bond wears in GF.
Strangely, I like the clichéd raincoat so associated with spies at the time he took from Henderson's assassin the best. But those shoes were very anti-Bond. Whenever I see that sequence now I think of John McClane in the first Die Hard where he can't get shoes that fit. Funny that the assassin's shoes would fit a large man like Bond. But that's YOLT for you.
Physically, Connery didn't look quite as different as he would four years later in DAF, but there was a noticeable difference since TB in which he was in top form.