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Lazenby sort of covers everything in one film, doesn't he? That's what makes OHMSS so special IMO. Maybe if he had more films he would have ultimately fallen on one side of the divide.
I suppose he sort of covers everything and nothing. He's not intense enough to be like Dalton, but he's not naturally gifted at comic timing enough to be like Connery, Craig, or Moore either. He's not good enough an actor to hit the emotional beats as well as Craig does, and he's nowhere near as cool as Brosnan, or any of the other Bonds.
But that's likely just my personal criticisms of Lazenby, haha. I will say that he never got the chance to develop his Bond into something as distinct as the others did, I agree.
This begs the question:
What type of chocolate is Lazenby? :-/
He's a selection box, he has everything. :D
A mixture of the best ingredients then?
Too true. 🙂
He's chocolate cream (very appropriate considering his early adverts for Fry's).
Semi-sweet? Still dark chocolate but a lower percentage and less sugar?
As it consists of Tim (Dalton) and Tam (Connery) it's sure to be a great Bondian confection. ;)
Obviously it's difficult to tell, and it's probably just a tongue in cheek remark, but it really doesn't give me the impression Wright understands Bond. Compared to the way directors like Young, Campbell, Mendes etc. talked about Bond it seems very superficial and more akin to something someone would write off the cuff here (me included) which would get picked apart later rather than a director potentially eying up a character he finds interesting.
I dunno, Wright knows his genres and he's done some films that I like. But I feel some of his films can be a bit too 'stylised' for Bond. He might well have a similar problem to Fukunaga (at least in my mind). That's to say the visuals and kinetics of, say, an action sequence will be heightened, but it'll loose a lot of that edge/sense of danger you need from a great Bond action scene. I think to make great sequences like that in a Bond film there needs to be an element of heightened realism, and in the mechanics of the filmmaking itself even a touch of naturalism in order to depict fundamentally absurd scenarios. I always point to the PTS of SF or the tank chase in GE as examples of what I personally see as doing that. On a very basic level you can see it in the parachute jump of TSWLM's PTS (ie. no fancy cuts, no need for 'kinetic' editing or being over stylised - just a long take/cut that holds the tension, and then the Union Jack/Bond theme. Perfect mixture of naturalism and absurdity). Honestly, even the car chases in Baby Driver weren't quite as tense on all my rewatches (I've actually know a few people who also don't look back on that film as fondly as when they first watched it), and I think beyond comedy Wright looses a bit of what makes him interesting.
Also, the whole chocolate thing from him is genuinely quite disappointing. I legitimately would have thought he'd have had something more insightful to say as a director of his calibre and was a bit smarter than that. Such a shame. Again, might just be a tongue in cheek moment from him.
Yeah, that's the point. A director for the dramatic scenes. EON can do the action easily.
The next era has to get more expressive, more bold, more stylised. Craigs films, in retrospect, feel stiff and a bit, well, staid if I'm honest. Skyfall, is mostly dreary London and misty Scotland, Spectre was hampered by that weird filter and the recycling of music cues which weren't exactly electric the first time. The bond franchise was very stylised in the past, and it was those little touches which gave the films character, like the bond theme playing at the end of TSWLM until bond unplugs the camera, and then cuts out suddenly, or the end of YOLT where bond and Kissy are in the dingee and those notes play as the camera cuts in closer and closer. There's probably hundreds of examples we could bring up, but point being I don't think there's anything so stylised in one of Edgar's films, that something similar hasn't been done in bond before. I mean, what are we talking about here, match cuts? Sight gags? There's plenty of those in bond. We've even had a couple instances of sound effects playing out the bond theme, such as the machine gun fire on the tankers at the end of LTK.
The Craig Bond films are pretty expressive in a sense. The Gothic Scottish landscape of SF (obviously mixed with how vibrant and even colourful Japan seems), and the SP filter are expressive creative decisions, regardless of whether we like said choices or not. Honestly though, broadly what you're describing in that first bit of your paragraph sounds more like NTTD for me.
Wright's comedies often involve hyper quick cuts, zooms, whip pans etc, sometimes over mundane things like a character cooking or whatever to create comedic moments. While its purpose is to bring an extra layer that only the viewer can experience and not always the characters themselves (similar to the musical cue examples you cited, although this sort of non-diegetic element is a component of most films) Bond films don't tend to bring viewers into its world through these sorts of heightened visual means. As I said before there's usually more of a naturalism to the cinematography and even aesthetic decisions. Wright brings his viewers into his worlds through heightened aesthetics, often to depict the mundane to make it look extraordinary. Honestly, this is sometimes even blurred to the point the two come across as indistinguishable, such as in Scott Pilgram. Bond films tend to depict the absurd through a style that gives it a sense of realism - in other words it depicts the extraordinary - the villain lairs, the absurd sequences etc - as ordinary (or at least plausible to the viewers). Those 'wink' moments in the musical cues you mentioned come much more strictly from the non-diegetic part of the film. They're doing fundamentally different things.
Again, Wright reminds me much more of Fukunaga in terms of his direction than, say, a Mendes, Campbell, Young, or Gilbert. There's not quite that same sense of functionality. I wouldn't say he's a natural fit for Bond, and as I said I think some of his quick cuts, whip pans etc even negatively impact his more 'serious'/'grounded' films such as Baby Driver (I really do want to like that film more than I do, but it really doesn't make me feel much on rewatches. Again, such a shame).
Basically if he’s gonna do a Bond film (which I think he can potentially) he needs to mature a bit as a filmmaker. And in fairness to him, he’s still young for a director and where he is in his career.
Yeah, agreed. He’s a little zany, a little too hyper. He needs to grow more as a filmmaker, mature in his tastes, to tackle Bond, IMO…
He needs to be Guy Ritchie.
He needs to be Young, Glen, Campbell & Mendes.
We already have that.
Not saying I know much, but I really can't see Guy Ritchie's ilk handed the opportunity to direct a Bond film. Lee Tamahori is the closest we would ever see Guy Ritchie's type directing a Bond film and even at that, Tamahori did Bondianly ok, just too over-the-top at times.
And les/no language barrier. ;). Then i wil choose for Camera operator (Filming) for film/documentary and Editor. If writing then co writer (script Doctor) Time is import factor besides trust, working as team under a producer is easier then be directer.
Another suggestion:
Albert Serra. Spanish / French directer
Based on Dutch review i read about Pacifiction. A movie who a lot more on main chacter and in above video he talks a bit about modern movie making (turn out starter working with digital camera's but open to experiment with what works for him and on screen) with some of them wil be music to ears of Barbara Broccoli/Michael G Wilson.
With English subs
With Dutch subs
Screams CR, LALD and LTK.
Earlier i expect Hans Zimmer then, also with fact he did NTTD. But if there go for Ludwig Goransson then it wil disappointed if he not suggest Haim for title song because he was a producer of Haim first album. Earlier i suggest Paul Thomas Anderson as directer who direct one of the three sister of Haim in
Licorice Pizza. Asking Ludwig Goransson, Haim and Paul Thomas Anderson for Bond 26 will mabey not bad idea.
I love Serra as a director... But boy, a Bond film directed by Serra would be an experience mostly hated by the mainstream audience. I would love to see it though, but I think I will be one of the few.
https://deadline.com/2024/04/nuclear-war-movie-denis-villeneuve-legendary-dune-part-two-bestselling-book-1235876114/
The chances of him taking over as director for Bond 26 are now probably getting smaller.
This was just optioned. They’re about two years away from this going into production if they started now— which they aren’t.
They don’t have a script.
This project is a long way off.
He has a “secret project” that “needs to see the light of day soon”.
This book that was just optioned, won’t be seeing the late of day any time soon.
EDIT: and as a PS: this is how news is broken, fyi— not through the rags, but the Mike Fleming-types who get the news first (or one of the first), and have the details that match film protocols (which the ATJ rumours don’t).
When Villeneuve first talked about the secret project, he said that it "needs to see the light of day quite quickly. " And Deadline is now reporting that he will tackle this Nuclear War project only after Dune 3. So doesn't this seem like a 5th upcoming Denis Villeneuve project rather than it being the secret project?
Also, to complicate things, fresh rumours about Villeneuve being in talks to direct Bond, this time from Monreal, Villeneuve's home town: https://www.985fm.ca/audio/616961/et-si-le-prochain-james-bond-etait-realise-par-denis-villeneuve
Buckle up, we're in for the long haul.