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You have to apply the correct psychology to each scene. In SF, she comes onto Bond as he has the money in the case.
In LTK, Bond is without saying it playing one upmanship with Sanchez. Bond is displaying the aggression to Lupe to let her subliminally know that he can be even nastier than Sanchez. He is playing her as a woman he knows only respects a man who can equal Sanchez.
Look how dismissive she is of Milton Crest on the boat. She does not fear him. But she knows Bond would have killed her if she alerted anyone when he was in her bedroom.
Craig plays the scene for the right context. He is cool in it. But Dalton is also cool when he is at the card table.
And we have reverse situations here. Craig is being set up by the villain who wants to meet him but Bond does not know it yet. In LTK, Bond is the one who is setting up the meeting to get an audience with the villain and Lupe is his best chance.
Now here I have to disagree with you since I never found Connery sexy. Yes, he's cool as bond. He's debonaire and charming and is one terrific fighter but sexy? Not to me. In terms of sexiness, I perfer Moore or Brosnan.
I suppose in LTK I can see Dalton acting at times during that scene (personally I found Dalts more convincing in the next scene with Sanchez). In SF I can see Craig being Bond
Both actors do a brilliant job. I think the casino scene in SF is the best I have seen since LTK. It was fantastic and gritty. Bond had to be smart and not just charming. And both men show their grasp of truly handling the opposite sex. Craig barely smiles and is like a snake.
Just look at the similar but different stare Dalton gives Lupe when he sees her first appear at the card table. He is like a cobra that is coiled up ready to strike. Brilliant and having read the books I love it. Both are almost coming across like they are putting the woman into a trance.
You need to look past the theatricality criticism and see it with fresh eyes. Believe me. I instantly thought back to LTK in the SF casino scene. Defintely not TWINE or DAD or even Goldeneye. Craig and Dalton are total bastards. Brosnan is a nicer Bond.
Finally that is the Bond style I want to see more of. They are perfect representations of their times. Craig used the approach I would expect to see in 2012.
@Bain123 this is why Bond survives many decades. But those two scenes are standouts for me. Xenia in Goldeneye dominates the scene in the casino.
I also personally find people who really enjoy Sean Connery do just that: I think they tend to be more into Sean Connery than they are into James Bond.
Craig is cool and collected in SF, in that casino scene, Dalton is cool and collected too... but in his case a rage seethes beneath, rage that has built up years upon years. It's this subtext that kept me glued to the screen. I was literally on the edge of my seat because I cared about what was happening to Bond. The odds were completely against a man who was now on his own... queen and country turning his back on him, a flesh and blood man capable of feeling.
Brilliant points @Regan You nailed the different situations and the context of where Bond was in terms of emotion. Dalton by seeing Lupe was reminded of Sanchez and part of him hates Lupe for being his woman. He treats her almost like dirt.
The coolness is not what either scene are really about. They are both scenes illustrating why Bond is a man who knows all the ways of the world and all the tricks a woman can play on a man if he let's his emotions get in the way.
That's not to say Dalton didn't have OTHER moments during his run where he showed his toughness. I thought the Pushkin scene in TLD was a better example of Dalts being calm and in control (his best scene as Bond IMO) as was the scene on the boat with Lupe.
Here's an interesting critique of LTK which I've put up on Mi6 before:
http://n007.thegoldeneye.com/ltk-review.html
I don't agree with all of it but part of me can, at times, understand where the author is coming from.
Dalton's anger in the scene is justified. He is taking it out on the woman closest to Sanchez and she is his punching bag. Had the same woman been a lover of Mr White or Le Chiffre, then Craig would have played it differently.
Remember that both actors are so good that they do not play a scene without remembering where the character is in the story as regards motivation of personailty.
In QOS Craig is very dry with Camille. He is still hurting from his betrayal and has someone to talk to. He is not trying to get under her skirt. Both are therapy to each other. You can tell in the scene after they escape from the plane and the dialogue of introspection.
Dalton is an actor that never looks like he is trying too hard. He is too well trained in his craft to do that. Brosnan on the other hand being a less disciplined actor in his scenes with Xenia is very conscious of the role and it shows.
Trust me, fresh eyes and you can learn from it as a man. Craig and Dalton do not depend on their looks when playing Bond. They could get a woman even if they were dead ugly as they have the personality locked in so well.
I agree with you there (although I do like the stern expression he gives to Xenia across the table at the casino).
Regarding Dalts one thing I suddenly realised when re-reading some of the Fleming books recently (namely LALD) was that he was - essentially - copying the expressions and mannerisms Bond has.
Thank you!:) Craig and Dalton are in truth in different acting leagues to Brosnan or Moore. They take no prisoners and show what can be done with a character even many years into the series. that takes supreme skills and balls.
Craig and Dalton are leaders. Brosnan is a follower who emulated the past. And that is being nice and velvet glove about it.
That's it @Bain123 An actor is supposed to bring a character accurately to life. The books are who he is. Connery hated the Bond of the books and gave him his own character traits which is fine but not Fleming exclusively.
And if you read Broccoli's book, they added humour to Connery as at the time it was so obvious that he had not gone to Eton or come from a posh background. They were slightly spoofing Fleming and the book admits that.
When you read the novels, Bond is a miserable and angry man at times. Dalton plays a Bond that has not forgotten the bottomless chair of Le Chiffre or the viciousness of Scaramanga. Everything that has happened to him in the novels is reflected in his portrayals.
This is why I feel Broccolli was smart to make Bond a more likeable character. I simply don't think that movie audiences in 1962 would have wanted to see a angy man. It was a smart move to make the character fun. That way when we get to 1987, Dalton's portrayal can be seen as a change of pace, a different cimematic interpretation. But I think if they had started off with a Fleming-like Bond in 1962, the series wouldn't have lasted past the decade.
I think Bond started off very serious for it's time. It then became jokier over the years. Connery is not that likeable in Dr No. He is nothing like the accepted Cary Grant likeable that was fashionable for the era.
But Fleming's characters as well as scenarios were what gave the series a strong foundation to begin with.
I actually think had they started with Roger Moore, the series would have run it's course by the seventies. Because his style is so comedic that it would be hard to change direction.
Just like the Adam West Batman though popular ran out of steam. Just an example not a literal comparison.
Connery was likeable. I think we're thinking of two differnt things. I'm not talking about one-liners. I"m talking about how personable the character is. You described Fleming's Bond is miserable and angry. I never got that vibe from Connery at all. One can be serious without being miserable. My point, is I think it would have been wrong for the character to start off as miserable and angry. Which is how Dalton seemed to me in the first half of TLD.
Roger was the most likeable to me. The character of Bond in the new films is far less likeable and definitely moodier. But it is in vogue these days and modern audiences can accept a more conflicted hero.
Dalton was not that miserable in the first half of TLD. He was serious but also defining himself after the diminishing returns of the Moore era. By AVTAK it was obvious they needed change to survive and build for the future.
By AVTAK, I see more of the stunt double than Rog in the action scenes.
But I can see why a Moore fan would find Dalton's portrayal a huge contrast. It was different and succeeds on a character level but it is a goodbye to the days of Roger for sure. Plus Dalton arrived within two years of Moore's last entry.
Both Brosnan and Craig arrived 6 years and 4 years respectively after the previous films. That gave enough time to pass and people always grab onto Bond with the longer absences.
I like Roger, but his Bond is almost oblivious to the Cold War and it hardly exists in his films.
Craig would have been murdered by the audience in 1987 because he is very much the brooding type. And were were in an era of optimism as well as financial boom. Happy Bond was still demanded by audiences.
If @marymoss, you're talking about the whole "stuff my orders, if they fire me I'll thank them for it" thing, that's extremely exciting and mold-breaking to me. A character that's tired of the status quo and the death and the killing and that doesn't give a damn about authority because he'll in the end do what feels right to him. What seems right, not just what he's told to do, and if that costs him his job then to hell with it. He's obviously someone who's been around, saw some stuff and swallowed some huge doses of wtfuckery. Personally, that's likeable to me... Especially after he decides to not kill Kara on a hunch, he spares her life and you just know he was right to do so. "I only kill professionals... She didn't know one end of the rifle from the other... " once again, this is a highly experienced guy... Way ahead of everybody else and rather merciful at that. He's not jaded and miserable. He's yearning for a respite and Kara gives it to him. She's the light to his dark. If he was simply jaded and miserable he'd walk around like an automaton, killed Kara without compassion or thought and go sink in some sh*thole somewhere to drink away his pains but not this Bond. This Bond "thinks" and "acts" and is an even bigger hero than everybody else around him, not some pale image of a rule-following man.
Regan, I love your analysis here. Bravo! ^:)^
Thanks @chrisisall, glad you agree with it ;)
Regan, I only used the phrase "angry and miserable" because it was used to describe Bond in the books and I felt it fit. In reality, I found Dalton to be burnted out--especially with the "stuff my orders" comment that, unlike you, I hated. He just doesn't come across as a happy person. Okay, neither did Connery but at least I got the sense that his Bond liked his job. He may have serious but I got the sense he enjoyed what he did and was content with his life.
As true and well stated as all this may be, I still feel that Dalton is paler than any of the other actors. Hell, even George demonstrated that he wasn't a rule follower when he attempted to resign, and with Sean I don't get the feeling he has rules, but that M will let him do whatever is necessary to get the job done. That may seem dull, but I'd prefer all the tension in a movie to come from Bond's interaction with the villains, not boarding pissants like Saunders.
On a side not, might I just add how fun it is to be a Bond geek on this forum! :)
And really, who is content with their life? There are moments where I want to blow up at folk, quit my job, drive my car into the git in front of me ignoring the green light, and I don't have to kill people for a living.... @-)
You should see someone about that mate...