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Why thank you, Sir Henry! I'm not one of the PC brigade, I'm afraid!
Oh, I think I get that all by myself, thank you very much.
But I'll help you cry for poor, poor, Severine who works for Silva now rather than in the sex trade :((. You want empathy? Call NOW or call your mama. Talk to me when you have something intelligent to say.
@chrisisall- I feel your statement "it's her 'selling herself' to gain his help" is exactly what Severine is doing. Anders does practically the same thing, The only difference is that this isn't a professional situation where money is being exchanged. In regards to your "rewrite", that would have been preferable for me but somehow I don't have a problem with the death scene after Silva rationalizes why she has become "redundant" and must be eliminated. There wasn't any way short of the helicopter distraction or a cute gadget from Q that Bond could have saved Severine. The boat captain is too close with his gun to make a move on, and if he does, Silva has his one shot pistol and others are armed. Same thing if he goes after Silva. The only thing he can control is not killing her himself.
The more I see Skyfall, past losing such a beauty such as Severine that Bond should have been in bed with for yet another shag, the only real problems I have with it are Bond surviving the bridge fall (although I'll give that some slack after watching Jaws free falling through a circus tent and Brozzer's GE PTS, both of which were far more nonsensical and less plausible), mostly the problems I have are how Silva's escape from MI6 custody and his seemingly crystal ball knowledge of what MI6 would do every step of the way that followed lacks explanation.
That might have rocked!
I'm with ya, timmer!!
So the reason we couldn't have one or the other is........?
Obviously your mind just isn't wide enough. But how could I expect it from someone whose only Problem with SF was the fall from the Bridge? My fault, I guess.
Everyone needs to chill.
The defining descriptor of Severine is SEX-SLAVE. This complicates matters.
I can't condemn Bond. But for the grace of God, there go........etc.
Bond wandered into a seduction scene, champagne setting, girl in shower...etc. He did what came naturally. I don't necessarily expect him to be Sir Galahad here.
But what does grate somewhat is the hamfisted way that Craig and Mendes handled this whole scenario with Severine. It's as if they were so obsessed with being deep and dark and stuff,that they were utterly oblivious to what they were putting on the screen and how it might be perceived.
What a schock!! OMG, viewers and reviewers actually retained that she was indeed a SEX-SLAVE and considered that jumping her bones might not be the most appropriate thing to do, even for a womanizer like Bond.
Again I am not comdemning the Bond character here. He's just human, under pressure and on mission. Rather its the hamfisted filmmaking that grates.
SF is a film that falls all over itself to tell you how clever it is, so thus it can be held to a higher standard than a normal Bond film. SF has serious dramatic pretentions.
Problem is though, this film isn't half as smart as it thinks it is.
Might be better to just do "normal" Bond films and ditch the Oscar drama pretensions, because IMO, two drama directors in a row, (Forster and Mendes) have a made a mess of things, although Mendes' film IMO is much better than the Haggis/Forster mess that preceded it.
To be fair, Mendes did do a lot of interesting thematic stuff in SF, far more deftly than anything Forster attempted, but still there is an uneveness about SF that bothers.
Problem is I think, that these directors are trapped by the Bond formula and established conventions. They can't really do the film that they want to do, so we get what we get- these hybrid efforts that don't quite connect. IMHO of course. :)
No I don't, but I am very much aquainted with one of the Heroes of my childhood Mr. James Bond, who always felt the urge to protect damaged women. He even wanted to marry Tiffany Chase until SHE left him! I just don't see how anyone can draw parallels with ANY other shag Bond had in the Films or the Books. And to be accused of PC when it comes to screwing former children Sex slaves is simply beyond me. Believe it or not,usually it is me who is accused of being Macho, Chauvinist and being too reluctant to Zeitgeist.
=D> ^:)^
Although I do like QOS for its sleekness.
Severine doesn't contribute to the narrative in any way. She is lifeless, boring, sexless, and lacks any chemistry with Bond - that is the difference.
Well, she was certainly hyped up much more than what we got on screen in SF would have in any way justified, that;'s for sure. It reminds one rather of a more padded-out version of the equally over-hyped other sacrificial lamb of the Craig era Agent Strawberry Fields in QoS. Hype is of course all well and good if it then follows through and actually delivers, otherwise it is of course over-hype, and that is instead of course the dictionary definition of hubris.
I think she is a cold, classic model of femme damnee and she does reveal things about Silva and helps Bond to get in the island, thus she does have a purpose. However this is NOT what I was asking: how is it sleazy or immoral to sleep with her but not Pussy Galore who became lesbian after being the victim of incestuous rape. Ok so in the movie it is not mentioned, but the Bond of the books very well knows.
Well, it would appear to me that there is no difference, other than it being of course rather fashionable to slag off the latest Bond film, in this place in time, that of Skyfall. I really do think that it's as simple as that, really. I really do.
I think Femme damnee is being too kind. The difference is in the overall context of a story, no matter how imperfect it was, Pussy was not a victim, in fact even though her sexuality shaped her, we do not learn about this until the final chapter.
Severine is the typical Hollywood victim who really did not provide any context to the story.
I agree with you 10,000% on this statement, and what @Ludovico is saying is the same sort of comparison I pointed out earlier with both Pussy and Pat Fearing. As a Forum in general, we've seen this problem more than once. These detractors, dare I say the anti-Craig/anti-SF brigade in general, look to find fault with every and anything they can, and when you make counterpoints, they don't want to hear it. People like this are unreasonable, and although I genuinely dislike having to stoop to their level from time to time, I have very little tolerance for people such as these who want to dictate how I should feel while ignoring reasonable counterpoints. The only thing they understand is being strong with them and standing up for yourself and your beliefs as to what we were seeing. There are many better and more productive places to be than a Bond Forum if one wants to be a part of the "morality police". This isn't reality. Register your complaints with EON, the studio, and go join an organization that deals with this properly. I don't need this kind of hassle and won't tolerate it when directed at me.
Now when it comes to Connery, there isn't anyone who's any bigger of a fan than I am. He was the only Bond in 1968 and I've sat through the angst of watching 5 different Bond actors follow in his footsteps. But if we're going to criticize our current Bond over sleeping with the very willing Severine (who did indeed have the purpose of being the only person other than Patrice who could lead him to Silva), and even more than Tonia Sotiropoulou's non-speaking character for being in the film, then the examples of Galore, Fearing, and yes Honey Ryder are equally fair examples of even more grievous moral misbehavior on Bond's part.
Barbara Broccoli is well known for being very sensitive when it comes to women's issues, that's something I think we would all agree on. She read the script and I am sure she would have stepped in if she found the role to be degrading to women in any way, shape, or form. I will defer to her judgement in this situation as the correct one.
And I SirHenry agree with you 10,001% ;-)
Brilliant post ^:)^
Thank you Willy!
@chrisisall- I have no idea whatsoever why we couldn't have one or the other. The answers lie with EON, Mendes, Logan, and P&W. All I can do is agree with you that I would have preferred to see Severine live.
I could care less the Severine was a former sex slave. The fact that I found her boring is my opinion and I am sorry if that offends the cheerleaders.
Why am I not surprised you'd say this? Gee, I dunno, perhaps it's because myself and others have got you down cold? Obviously constructive and productive arguments are having little to no effect on you, and are clearly not your forte.
May I suggest the "Daniel Craig Is Not Bond" Forum might be a better place for you to voice your displeasure with Craig Bond and SF? I think it would be a marriage made in heaven. Give Dominick my regards while you're there.
Almost as fascinating as you being unable to grasp that Bond is just fantasy. It is fictional, nothing more nothing less. You keep banging on and on about 'ethics' as though we're discussing this issue as though it's based in reality.
So we don't understand SF sucks and we are a bunch of amoral clueless manipulated fans. You are not shy of throwing ad hominem arguments. Why don't you demonstrate we are wrong instead of trolling?
You forgot calling me a Troll in all your usual originality
The disctinction here is that Severine is SEX-SLAVE in the very real and present context.
Fleming's Bond encountered Honey and Pussy long after they were past their sexual traumas. Bond, being the good sport that he is, provided both Honey and Pussy with their first consensual hetero sexual experiences. I am sure the earth moved for both of them. Bond extended the same favour to Tiffany Case. Fleming's Bond was just that kind of guy. Fleming was obviously playing to a male fantasy too.
What distinguishes Severine is that she is not past anything. She's right smack in the middle of it. Again, I can't condemn the character Bond. He's human. She set him up. She played to his weakness or vice or natural tendencies or whatever you want to call it. She set up a seduction scene. Everything suggests, that even if Bond had arrived on time, she had the table set for seduction.
What grates is the filmmaking. The hamfisted way in which Craig/Mendes blithely glossed over the fact that they had taken pains to reveal her sordid past and desperate current situation as victim and sex-slave, only a few scenes earlier.
So they shouldn't be schocked when viewers/reviewers might say, excuse me, isn't that a sex slave, that Bond is horn-dogging on here, even if we get that he might be vulnerable to her charms. Shouldn't her sex-slave status at least cause him to pause? Could this little tidbit not be addressed, even a little bit here Mendes, oh great dramatic filmmaker?
SF is pure fiction. There are any number of ways to draw, conceive and present these scenes. I won't get into the possiblities. They are endless. Moviemakers are always re-writing and re-working scenes.
I don't personally think the Severine scenario was very well realized. That's all. I'm not offended by it, but the backlash against it was entirely predictable, and its coming from varied quarters, not only feminists, but also mouth-breathing, red-meat eating, conservative-voting neanderthals like myself.
SF is a damn fine film, but its not half as clever as it thinks it it. There is an unevenness of presentation to it IMO, but again I think that drama directors such as Forster and Mendes are hamstrung by the formula and the Bond conventions. They become vulnerable to overreaching.
I refer you to Page 6 of this thread for not being in favour of repeating myself
Every Bond Film before was Fantasy too, but until SF he managed to be a Hero and not a sociopath!
Regarding the "logicalwise" I repeat my offer from a few month ago. Just show me ANYTHING in SF that really makes Sense after the Point Bond leaves the Hotel in Istanbul. And please spare me nonarguments like "Silva is Out for revenge" or "Bond comes back to help MI6" ( which were the Arguments thrown at me the last time someone tried it).