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Daniel Craig explains "his" Bond in new Mi6 article
If anyone was wondering, why the Craig-era is what it is, ie minus gun barrel, lots of jabs at the original run of films - new films that are very different from anything that came before, read on. Very revealing piece.
The Craig lovers will no doubt approve of his sentiments That's fine. Free world.
Craig detractors though will nod knowingly. His superior attitude towards the franchise has always been apparent.
http://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/articles/interview-daniel-craig-interview-foreshadows-bond-24?t=&s=&id=03796
I am very, very keen that you can't make films in a reactionary way. You can't do it! There has been a lot of talk, from the beginning from 'Casino' into 'Quantum' because everyone has gone, "Where's the 'Bondness'? Where's all the old stuff?" I was given this chance by Barbara and Michael, which is the first of the books, and the conceit is we began again, but I couldn't come in and pretend to be James Bond, because everyone knows Bond as Pierce or Roger or Timothy or Sean. I couldn't come in and go, "Hmm, Martini," or whatever. It's not who I am, and how I kind of approach things.
The truth of it is that I always had this plan in my head is that we got to make them and begin them again and bring all that back in, but it had to happen the way it did. I can't see it happening any other way. We had to destroy the myth because Mike Myers f***d us - I am a huge Mike Myers fan, so don't get me wrong - but he kind of fucked us; made it impossible to do the gags. What I am proudest of in Skyfall is the lightness of touch we've been able to bring to back into it but not lose the drama and the action.
Just so my bias is clear, I think he's the worst thing that's ever happened to the franchise. I won't even rank his films with the original 20.
This piece IMHO just re-inforces everything that is distasteful about his approach to this great franchise.
I rank his movies with NSNA as alternative Bond movies.
I only watch his films, because I am a life-long Bond fan, and heavily invested in the Bond phenomenon, in all its varied expressions.
The pretensions of the Craig era are just something I endure.
I edited out his potty mouth, as the discussion part of the board at least, has a no biker-bar language policy.
"Mike Myers f***d us." according to the great Craig.
Please. Mike Myers did Bond parody. So have many others. Get over it.
Enjoy. btw, he does show restraint by his standards. Only 4 F-bombs and one "Christ almighty"
Actually, that's more like par.
The Craig lovers will no doubt approve of his sentiments That's fine. Free world.
Craig detractors though will nod knowingly. His superior attitude towards the franchise has always been apparent.
http://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/articles/interview-daniel-craig-interview-foreshadows-bond-24?t=&s=&id=03796
I am very, very keen that you can't make films in a reactionary way. You can't do it! There has been a lot of talk, from the beginning from 'Casino' into 'Quantum' because everyone has gone, "Where's the 'Bondness'? Where's all the old stuff?" I was given this chance by Barbara and Michael, which is the first of the books, and the conceit is we began again, but I couldn't come in and pretend to be James Bond, because everyone knows Bond as Pierce or Roger or Timothy or Sean. I couldn't come in and go, "Hmm, Martini," or whatever. It's not who I am, and how I kind of approach things.
The truth of it is that I always had this plan in my head is that we got to make them and begin them again and bring all that back in, but it had to happen the way it did. I can't see it happening any other way. We had to destroy the myth because Mike Myers f***d us - I am a huge Mike Myers fan, so don't get me wrong - but he kind of fucked us; made it impossible to do the gags. What I am proudest of in Skyfall is the lightness of touch we've been able to bring to back into it but not lose the drama and the action.
Just so my bias is clear, I think he's the worst thing that's ever happened to the franchise. I won't even rank his films with the original 20.
This piece IMHO just re-inforces everything that is distasteful about his approach to this great franchise.
I rank his movies with NSNA as alternative Bond movies.
I only watch his films, because I am a life-long Bond fan, and heavily invested in the Bond phenomenon, in all its varied expressions.
The pretensions of the Craig era are just something I endure.
I edited out his potty mouth, as the discussion part of the board at least, has a no biker-bar language policy.
"Mike Myers f***d us." according to the great Craig.
Please. Mike Myers did Bond parody. So have many others. Get over it.
Enjoy. btw, he does show restraint by his standards. Only 4 F-bombs and one "Christ almighty"
Actually, that's more like par.
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Comments
"His wife thought they were smut, but smut that got them a lovely place in Jamaica. "
Fleming built Goldeneye in 1946 and he wrote Casino Royale there in 1952. He already had that "lovely place" before he ever started writing Bond.
Also, good chance she didn't care for the novels, but so what. Dismissing them as smut, I think, is simply her way of dismissing a collection of books, that really didn't interest her, even if they were written by her somewhat eccentric husband.
And it was the '50s, so the books I'm sure were rather risque, by novel-standards of the time.
"We always go back to Fleming. We just do it, you have to. I mean, the darkness, the conflict... His wife thought they were smut, but smut that got them a lovely place in Jamaica. He was conflicted. I like that. "
I could roll with his so-called Fleming love and critiques, if I had the impression he'd actually read the Fleming collection.
He may have read a couple of books, but even then I'm not sure. He's no Fleming authority.
Fleming conflicted? OK, sounds deep, but I am not sure I see it.
What I do see, is attempts at using Fleming to rationalize his own approach to the character and stories.
This approach will work everytime, with the many who haven't read Fleming. How would they know?
My main point was he was saying that Fleming got his house in Jamaica by writing Bond, when, in fact, he already had it when he began.
http://www.ianfleming.com/ian-fleming/ian-fleming-inside/jamaica-1946-1964/
I don't mind Craig's 'interpretation' of the role, and can tolerate the direction the series has taken for the same reason you do, but I am not a fan of it anymore... CR is great - fresh, bold and really put a nice spin on the original Fleming story, reviving the series for the 21st century after Brosnan's by-the-numbers entries. But then EoN smugly kept milking their idea of 'continually introducing our new direction for Bond' and Craig STAYED the rough-and-tumble, inexperienced 007 from CR. There was no evolution.
Then suddenly SF was this petty attempt at making him more of a classic, crowd-pleasing Bond, but it just didn't work for me. I prefer CR and even QoS to Skyfall's mess of a populist Bondfilm.
I highly doubt Craig has read more than one of the books, and his take on the role is indeed a little too self serving - not at all classic Fleming, unlike what many of his supporters claim. This idea came simply from the fact that he plays it straighter and more vulnerable than his predecessor.
Don’t get me wrong, I think Daniel Craig is a very good (though not excellent) actor and despite his weak knowledge of Fleming's work, he does have a decent grasp of the essence of the 007 character. He is potentially a superb Bond on a par with Dalton & Connery, albeit a very different one, but that potential of his is just not coming to the fore for some reason.
Part of the reason I think is that Barbara Broccoli & her team have a rather bland imagination and should leave the creative decisions to other, more capable producers.
Understood.
In the 21st century, we have yet to have Bond at his best for an entire movie (think Goldfinger, Thunderball, From Russia With Love, etc.).
Die Another Day: Bond has his mojo, loses it after 14 months in a North Korean prison. Either Purvis or Wade (I forget which) in one of the DVD extras described the rest of story as "how he becomes James Bond again."
Casino Royale: Raw, rookie Bond. At the end of the movie he's supposed to be the James Bond we all know.
Quantum of Solace. Except he isn't. More development. At the end of the movie, he's the James Bond we all know.
Skyfall: Starts out with his mojo, loses it after getting shot, mad about M ordering Moneypenny to "take the bloody shot," quits the service. Then he comes back, but has substance abuse and other problems. Gets his act together. At the end of the movie, he's the James Bond we all know.
So are you agreeing with what you quoted me on, or not really...?
Agreeing.
EDIT: I should have added "to a point." I just think we're at a point where we can have "the old irony," as Craig himself put it.
The whole point of the last shot of Skyfall was to compare Bond to that ship in the portrait in M's office. He had been like the broken down ship in the painting at the museum.
I've no problem with what was done with CR and QOS to some degree but I think and I thought I'd never say this when you consider the state of the series during the Brosnan era that I want these films to lighten up a bit.
Skyfall attempted but due to the big moment at the end and the death of M it couldn't really stay that way, Bond 23 was still quite dark despite being lighter than the previous 2.
I don't want them to dump the grittier feel that has been established in the Craig era but I do want these films to lighten up and I'm about done with angsty Bond, I want him to be confident and have a spring in his step, something akin to Connery in TB. I'm sure we'll still get something personal in there, Craig doing the millionaire playboy act that Moore did so well just wouldn't work.
Whatever EON put out next year some of us will never be happy, to be honest some people whinge so much about this era I wonder why they can't find another franchise to latch onto. If these films still had Brosnan playing Bond and not moved on I wouldn't of even joined MI6 back at the beginning 2006. It was Craig's casting that got me interested in Bond again, yes I watched all the PB films at the cinema but my enthusiasm had gone, Craig's appointment and the reboot approach got me excited again.
I really don't understand why you'd stick around and devote your time to moaning about a film series you clearly despise now because the producers aren't putting your wet dreams on the screen but some people have obviously got time to burn.
I consider Craig to be the best Bond. That's sacrilege among Bond aficionados, I know. But Craig brings so much more to the table. Two scenes from CR are all you need to see in order to realize he's the best actor to ever play the part: 1. The washing of the wounds after the staircase duel; 2. The torture scene. Both are the best acted scenes by any Bond in any era. Period.
Neither Brosnan nor Craig are Fleming BOOK fans it seems, yet Brozz takes heat whilst Craiggers takes praise for scripts not written by them.
Correction: QOS was partially written by Craig, and for that I do indeed hold him in some higher regard...
Oh, I think Craig was very much a fan of CR the book. But that is another matter. You have a point about Pierce: his comments aren't a reason the films were lacking; they were a reflection on why. It wasn't Brosnan's fault that three of his films were so bad. For whatever reason, EON lost its way, and that is on them, not Pierce.
I find that I really agree with this. Sums it up for me, too.
I wouldn't count too much on Craig's knowledge of the books. In the excerpt of the MI6 interview, he talks about how the Bond novels enabled Fleming to get his "lovely place" in Jamaica. Fleming built Goldeneye in 1946 and didn't begin writing Bond novels in 1952.
Completely relate to the bolded bits above. The continuity from film to film is bizarre.
What bugs me most about the Craig era, is that they seem to think they are making the greatest Bond films ever. That by wiping the slate clean and re-booting they are somehow blazing a brilliant and superior path for Bond.
The superior attitude is tiresome, not to mention unwarranted.
I might buy it, if they actually came close, but they are not even close IMO. They make watchable films and nothing more. The weakest of the Moore entries and the most OTT of the Broz entries, I find to be far more entertaining.
Craig I think is the most incoherent of the Bond actors. He often doesn't seem to have a handle on what he's going on about.
The quip about Fleming's house as @waverly pointed out is way off base. Laughable even,yet Craig bizarrely uses it to reinforce his supposed understanding of Fleming.
What Craig actually does, is try to use Fleming as cover for his own vision of Bond.
Contrast with Babs. When she talks about Fleming, I know what she means. She has read the books. She is Cubbys daughter. She's generally talking about incorporating Fleming story bits, into the film, not suddenly finding Fleming's Bond. Terrence Young already paved that path, thank you, and Dalts tweaked it some.
Craig has a different take altogether.
Craig actually could be a better screen Bond than any of Rog, Broz and Dalts IMO and even challenge the relaxed, natural stylings of both Sean and Laz.
Craig can play the character when he wants to.
I never would have hired him, simply because he does not have the right look ( I do like screen Bond to fit the classic look) but that aside, he can play the part when he wants to.
I think B24 might turn out to be the best of his efforts. Surely by now, they have got all the Bond becoming Bond, character-drama tedium out of the way, although I won't believe it until I see it.
Last two films IMO, have been major disappointments in terms of building on what was teased at the end of CR.
And while we are on the subject of Fleming, as someone pointed out on another thread - it might have been @villiers - Fleming didn't take his creation half as seriously as many of us do.
My read on Fleming is that he was an eccentric. His books are wild flights of fancy. He was trying to grab a movie deal from the start. He wanted his stories up on the big screen and making money, which is why he warmed to the early film efforts fairly quickly, once the box office started pouring in.
In that sense, Fleming I guess would probably appreciate the Craig films too, if only because they continue the series big box office, not because Craig has finally got the essence of what he, Fleming, was all about.
And then some of these comments imply very clearly that he is stupid because he never even bothered reading the books that are the source material that has literally dominated the last 9 years of his life. Some of these comments simply defy common sense. I think he is a talented actor, but there are things about Craig that I too don't like. But to post comments that are calling him stupid and dishonest, and that is exactly what some of these posts are saying, is sad coming just hours before the big press event. This event, and the huge success of the last 3 films, has obviously raised some serious resentment issues in some of you folks. The scripts, his views on, and interpretation of Bond, his influence on EON etc. are some of the things that can and should be criticized and discussed, but the personal attack stuff seems silly. Maybe you should save your fire for the press event which will no doubt make some of you really miserable.
From 2012:
But Craig has a natural instinct for Bond; it's charm factor number two. He's credited for bringing a depth to the character that, he says, has been in the material all along.
"You read the books," he says, no doubt imaging the two of us reading Ian Fleming's novels in matching armchairs beside a fireplace, "and they were written a long time ago so I suppose they're dated. But they still stand up as good reads. Fleming really does explore the character. There's a lot of self-doubt there, and he kills people for a living, so it bothers him."
http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/cultist/2012/11/omgdaniel_craigs_eyes_actually.php
And yes, some valid points you have made, smitty.
Difference is Craig uses the books, to justify his take. Fine, he's entitled to his take, as pretentious as it might come across, but to add the further conceit that it is somehow all derived from Fleming, is very odd to many that have actually read the books.
I guess to blind-love Craig-lovers, anything remotely resembling criticism is "personal attack" Boo friggin Craig-F-Bomb hoo! Thin skin much?
Deal with it, Craig's take on Bond and the films in general are not universally loved. He's a polarizing influence in the Bond community, moreso than any other actor that has played the part. That's just reality
But its all personal of course. Many that have been invested in the Bond phenomenon for years, decades, whatever, couldn't possibly have an informed honest opion.
Its just personal of course. Name one. You're smarter than that.
This guy thinks all critique is personal. He only says so, about 100 times.
Maybe mister 6-post know-it-all could publish a hand book explaining what constitutes "minor" comments verus presumably "major" comments.