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Craig’s always struck me as more a screen actor (although I’ve heard he’s great on stage). You can tell what his Bond is thinking with a little change in expression or look, particularly in CR and SF.
I think Craig has more natural charisma. Honestly, I’d say he’s the better actor of the two, but both are clearly respected figures. I think Craig also understood the element of irony that goes along with Bond. Dalton was never quite as comfortable cracking a joke or playing along with things.
LTK I can also see Craig's Bond in, but with some differences. He'd be less likely to resign when confronted and just go on the revenge spree straight away/just claim he's on holiday to MI6. Story direction obviously dictates this all to some extent, and LTK has a very particular set up of Bond having to think on his feet which is great.
Simply put: it'd be a slightly different film with a different Bond, and I think that's true of any Bond actor. Good idea for a thread though - how would a Bond film go if a different Bond were in it? Or perhaps @thedove a good what if for one of yours if it's not been done ;)
I must admit, trying to imagine Craig in LTK does kind of highlight how I think LTK feels a bit off with regards to Bond's character for me: I just don't know if I fully buy him going fully rogue and running off from M for the sake of revenge. In a similar situation in QoS, Craig's Bond stays loyal and does his job, even though he's clearly feeling anger over Vesper's death. And maybe the former is closer to thoughts Fleming's Bond expressed, I can't really remember now, but the latter is much more interesting to me.
In terms of nuanced performances though, it's Craig who I always find the most impressive. Not least he's playing a character who remains impassive most of the time because of his job, and yet somehow through microexpressions or something manages to communicate to the audience what Bond is thinking. I find that very impressive. And yes, more charismatic: he's more of a movie star.
I mean, Bond goes on revenge tangents in Fleming. But they're in keeping with his job. The most he goes off piste from what I remember is in YOLT where he withholds knowing Blofeld is Dr. Shatterhand. It's still within the parameters of his job, but it's an opportunity for him.
Craig's films I suppose reinterpreted the 'blunt instrument' of the books for their time. He's a headstrong man who does what's necessary to get the job done, often in the face of superiors who aren't on his level. It's not quite like a Bourne or Jack Bauer in the sense that it wasn't purely personal or needed purely out of necessity (even in in QOS, despite Bond's determination after Vesper's death, he has nothing to personally gain from continuing except to figure out what's going on out of duty. Bond in the novels goes through a similar 'wind' in tackling SMERSH after Vesper's death). I can agree that Dalton's Bond in LTK feels weirdly Un-Fleming esque in that way ironically, where Craig's Bond feels more like a valid reinterpretation of these ideas. I love LTK incidentally. But obviously all of this is subjective.
And yes, I think Craig's charisma and ability to communicate so much with so little is impressive. Another reason I associate him with Connery in my mind as Bond (the latter didn't get quite as much opportunity in terms of Bond's character, but he had this ability to communicate what he was thinking with the slightest expression at his best, and he had that unconventional but distinct charisma. I feel most of the other Bond actors have been much more expressive in their performances, amazing as they've been).
That is very well put, my friend. A tornado of intensity indeed. And I too loved that particular energy. Let's hope they keep it in some way or form, although, as you so aptly put it, it all depends on the actor, and Craig was full of it :)
Thank you, @Univex. What I love about Craig's Bond is what I love about Bale's Batman: a fire burning inside them. The screen radiates when they are on.
Oh yeah, Connery was a master of not needing to do too much and communicating a mood, or quite often a gag, with little more than a flick of the eyes. I often think of that little gag in Entrapment (of all things!) where he's leading Catherine Zeta Jones in a training run around his castle and stops to bellow at her to pick the pace up, she runs past and he gives just the slightest flicker of a look of exhaustion before running after her- it's a really nice little gag because he plays it so subtly, he was great at that sort of thing. Or like his look of boredom at the idea of Q briefing him for a couple of hours on the Aston Martin, so beautifully underplayed.
I love Roger completely, but subtlety was never his thing! :D
To me, at times, Dalton's portrayal of inner turmoil came across like an actor trying really hard to portray inner turmoil. It seemed forced. That isn't to say I disliked Dalton in the role. I thought he was put in a very difficult position following Moore and trying to bring something new to the character. It's a shame he didn't get a third film. I think a case could be made that each actor's third film (GF. TSWLM, TWINE, SF) is his best.
Well put. Much more succinctly than i could.
I love watching Craig on screen in anything he's in. He has such a captivating screen presence.
I feel sorry for those who disliked his Bond. Must have been a rough 15 years as a Bond fan.. :))
I know some people who weren’t sold on Craig at first, but most of them changed their minds after SF. Still, must have been a hard decade-and-a-half, indeed.
Can’t say that I agree with you there. Theatrical? Yeah I’d say so but forced? Not to my eyes.
This is the one criticism i have with Dalton's performance in LTK. He's trying too hard and you can see the acting so i would agree with @TripAces
I still think he was a great Bond and his performance in Daylights is one of the best in the series.
That said, I can understand why going forward MGM weren’t as keen on him continuing in the role. It’s hard to shake this feeling he may have been a bit limited in terms of what he could do as Bond despite his talent as an actor. I always find Brosnan’s performance in GE the more subtle, convincing one compared to Dalton’s in LTK, and find there’s actually a bit more going on there with Bond.
That’s a good point, he is good in that scene.
Yes, I think Brosnan also just knew what the audience wanted from Bond: it’s an acting performance but also an entertainment one. They want the vicarious pleasure of watching someone being just a little bit of a dick and getting away with it in a way we know we couldn’t in real life because no one is as cool as Bond: that’s part of the fun of him as a screen character. Dalton wanted to play the book character, which is admirable but just not quite what audiences expected after 14 movies of the Bond we knew. It might say ‘Ian Fleming’s James Bond 007’ at the top, but really it’s Ian Fleming, Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman’s version of the character we’re watching.
I love TLD, it’s maybe my favourite and I do enjoy how Dalton adds to the more serious tone of it, but I can’t help but think Brosnan would have been a bigger hit in it.
Again, what I find ironic is that LTK’s biggest asset isn’t that it’s a particularly Fleming-esque take on Bond (Bond acts rather uncharacteristically getting involved the way he does you could argue). But I don’t think it’s a film we’d have gotten with Brosnan.
Brosnan had his limitations too, don’t get me wrong. But with GE at least I think he showed he was capable of giving us a good cinematic Bond that didn’t feel like a caricature nor was it too stripped back.
Oh I think that's a sure thing! That said, I think Brosnan could have done it: considering he was the star of comedy detective show Remington Steel, he gives a surprisingly convincing cold and dangerous performance in Fourth Protocol- watching that I think he'd have handled all of the colder moments of TLD and LTK just fine, although yeah, LTK is more suited to Dalton.
Mind you, I have sort of run the thought experiment of putting Rog in LTK, and I think even that would have worked! It's not really a million miles away from the stuff he was doing in FYEO (same director of course so they're not that different) or indeed Wild Geese and the like, and to be honest I can imagine him at the wedding -and indeed having any sort of screen chemistry and connection with David Hedison- actually better than Dalton! I'm not saying he'd have been more suited to it than Dalton, or that it would have been a good move to do it, but I don't think it would have been impossible :D
I think he absolutely has limitations too, yes(!), but he was also a proper movie star and just what the series needed at the time. It was funny during that GE watchalong when he said he intentionally pitched his performance between Sean and Roger, which is probably accurate but I think maybe doing himself down slightly, I think there's more to it than that.
To be honest I feel that way more about Craig as opposed to Dalton - particularly in his last two outings.
Really all actors have their limitations but I’ve never let them stop me from enjoying the performances. I don’t think Timothy or Pierce have Daniel Day Lewis levels of acting but I found them incredibly entertaining as the leads of their films - and Dalton in particular just continues to rise up in my estimations the more I revisit his films. I respect everyone’s views on the man and his Bond but I just don’t agree really - and going by the results of our recent ranking of the actors - he’s a lot more than what people are describing him as and he still resonates with fans to this day.
Pierce’s portrayal in GE is my personal favorite of the series - you can see where he borrowed elements from his predecessors but yet he feels more calculated - like a true professional who is the best at his work. I think he sort of loses that edge as his films go by and that’s such a shame imo. Still he’s my favorite Bond largely because of his performance in GE.