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Uneven tone for me is more like the somber discussion of Tracy in TSWLM following the metal teeth man dropping a rock on his foot, and the comedy music cue that plays in the totaled van.
Octopussy too. You could edit out probably less than two minutes and make a world of difference to the perceived tone.
Along with TSWLM, I find TND to be by far the most jarring. Bond and Dr Kaufman are in two different movies. Aggressively mourning Paris and them giggling in a gadget car five minutes later induces whiplash. Though to be fair to that movie, it's really only an issue during the Teri Hatcher section.
I think the difference is that AVTAK is consistently more cartoonish, even in its darker moments. That's how I always felt about it anyway: more cartoonish, more ridiculous, more and too much of everything. I far prefer FYEO by the way.
I don't really see that: it handles jokes and dangerous bits, but it's hardly the only film to do so. I know it's nowhere near as deftly handled, but Raiders and Temple of Doom were doing much the same around the time.
All it's missing is punctuating WAH WAH music.
And here's my controversial opinion about John Glen: he lacked something, don't know what exactly, to make his Bond films truly distinctive from other action movies of the time. He seemed to be a sort of "sponge" director, picking up what was trendy at the time.
I don't think this is a controversial opinion; rather, I think it's a fairly popular opinion. I, for one, love Glen's directing style, and I've always taken that as the controversial opinion. ;-)
I agree that other action flicks were quickly catching up with the Bonds. At the same time, Glen received less and less money to work with, making it impossible for him to create standout action sequences. That said, the ski chase in FYEO and the truck fight in LTK are, at least in my opinion, among the very best action sequences of the entire series.
Yep, I do think that he was certainly the wrong guy for LTK. If they wanted a new direction they needed a new director.
Well, the Bonds have a fairly stable track record of having others than the director take care of the action bits. So yes, I fully agree that Wooster deserves most credit for the action in Glen's films.
Also, I doubt that looking at a director's other work will help. Campbell had made more sex comedies than action flicks before GE. Apted had done little to no action prior to TWINE. Forster hadn't touched action before doing QOS. Same with Fukunaga, Mendes, ...
Drama and thriller directors is clearly what they want, while the action will, indeed, be handled by a team specialized in that.
And here's my controversial opinion about John Glen: he lacked
It's not the action I don't like with Glen, it's more the general atmosphere. Acting direction is also not his forte. I think he was the wrong guy for Dalton, period. I understand they clashed a fair deal, or at least Dalton was frustrated a lot by Glen.
My understanding is that Dalton thought Glen didn’t give as much attention to the actors as he felt he should have, that Glen was a more technical director that was focused on getting the shoot done on time and basically left it to the actors to work it out themselves. So Dalton would take it upon himself work with the actors to get their best performances, which is probably why scenes like the Pushkin interrogation plays out so much better than you typically saw in previous Glen films, as far as acting goes. Of course, that didn’t always work for Dalton (hi Talisa Soto!). I think that’s partly why Desmond Llewelyn was so highly complimenting of Dalton because he not only did his Fleming homework but really collaborated with the cast in a way other actors don’t typically take the time to do.
That’s all just supposition from everything I’ve read, so take that for what it’s worth. It is notable that Dalton opted out of COLUMBUS once Glen was brought in as a replacement director. Sure, the Salkinds breached the contract where Dalton had a director of his choice. I’m sure the Salkind partly picked Glen because they thought his past experience with Dalton would smooth things out. NOPE!
AFAK it's up to the director to instruct the editor. The editor is responsible for the exact cuts and how transitions work, sound corresponds to what you see on screen and all that jazz. A very particular job for sure, but hardly the person who calls the shots on what the film eventually looks like (except for very bad editors of course, they can still ruin the best of the directors' intentions).
So in the end his rather good work on OHMSS and TSWLM would hardly say anything aabout his skills as a director (sadly).
I don't think that's controversial at all. I think Glen is weaker/almost disinterested in the dramatic scenes than most of the other Bond directors, but his action scenes are some of the strongest in the series. Even in AVTAK.
Compare all the non-Campbell directors who came after Glen. *None* of their action scenes have the shape and momentum of Glen's scenes at his peak in the '80s.
Glen knew how to edit together an action sequence, because he learned from the best, Peter Hunt.
He did 2nd directing for, erm, Moonraker; but also TSWLM and OHMSS I think.
I suspect you're right. As I've said before, I always think Dalton is better onscreen in his non-Bond films, so something is up there.
Not really seeing that, to be honest. TND has a couple of the series best action scenes for my money, Skyfall is up there too with its big ones.
Thanks. Agreed.
One area that I can slightly defend Glen is the extremely 80s screenplays. Richard Maibaum had been on the series too long and Michael G Wilson is a horrible ideas man. Once again, Timothy Dalton got screwed over, in more ways than one.