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And I think you can make a distinction between the serious/"intelligent" Bond films and the artsy Bond films, if that makes sense. OHMSS for example is brilliantly made and written, it has a great script and Bond is fleshed out as a character. But I wouldn't say it's artsy. There's no attempt at social commentary or some deeper meaning. We don't get any dramatic moments of reflection like Bond and M staring across the gloomy Scottish landscape. It just focuses on being a very, very good spy/action movie with a good story and good characters.
I'd say the artsy ones are, as you mentioned, QoS, SF and SP. And SF was very good and I loved SP but I enjoyed them in spite of the artsy stuff rather than because of it. And by arty stuff I mean the Tennyson scene, the mother/brother stuff they did with Bond and M and Blofeld, the dead are alive caption; I don't mean actually giving Bond character development or the film itself seriously (again there's that distinction). And I do think when you overdo that stuff, there is a danger of the film coming across as pretentious or it detracting from the story (QoS).
I don't want to come across as rude, and I hope you can take this as constructive criticism... but you do have a tendency to reiterate yourself and elaborate on your points to an unnecesarry degree. That again makes reading your posts in entirity feel both exhausting, and at times, dear I say, redundant...
That being said I both enjoy and respect your contribution to the forum a great deal. However you should respect people's ability to understand the point you are making without having to read a full essay of anecdotes and metaphors... ;)
The films don't have to be "deep" to convey meaning or be worthy of discussion. If something is a phenomenon, like Bond, then it can most definitely be explored.
We are confusing "artsy" and "deep" with those things worthy of deep discussion. And I would disagree that OHMSS isn't artsy. It is most definitely so.
The ski chases in OHMSS may not be deep, but they are meaningful in the sense that no action sequences like those had ever been filmed before. What did they add to the character? Or the franchise? Those sequences (and Barry's score that accompanied them) made that film. How and why? Those sequences were most definitely an art. Wally Bogner's camerawork was exceptional--and artistic.
Personally, I see no reason to believe that the film is anything but sincere and straight in trying to put this message across (the message is backed up by Sam Smith's epic love song)... Madeleine loves Bond. But I don't buy it, so I'm happy to call it shoddy writing, and no amount of fan wankery will convince me otherwise.
And on that topic, I don't find anything @0BradyM0Bondfanatic7 is saying is offensive.
His greatest crime is that he's a pretty damn passionate fella, with some genuine observations. It really isn't hurting anyone when he breaks into one of his explanations, is it?... I mean, you could always skip reading it, right?... and if you do skip it, you don't then have to comment on something you didn't read, right? Perhaps if you followed these two simple steps, your blood pressure would even-out.
Now back onto topic: @Milovy I agree with you: SP clumsily handled the romance-- Maddy's supposed to be in love with James; James is supposed to be in love with Maddy. The problem is they forced it upon the story (tell, instead of show), instead of letting the romance blossom organically (see: CR).
As you said, no fan wankery will ever convince me that the writing and execution of their romance is anything other than horribly conceived, forced, rushed, and it just wasn't believable (every time I saw SP in the theatre, I remember a few embarrassed guffaws when Bond and Maddy burst into their train compartment locking lips; and yes, as a 44 year old man, I too felt embarrassed... it was just so... off...)
@thelivingroyale, a lot of this will come down to our perspective and what we view to be "artsy," but I feel it's interesting to touch on. Usually, I view the franchise comparatively just amongst the 24 films to gauge which ones may set themselves farther on an arty side, without letting other parts of cinema to bleed through and muddle things. I mentioned OHMSS simply because it was drastically different in its production than the films before it and for long, long after it, a delineation that gives it a comparatively "artsy" feeling (but I don't want that word to take a negative connotation as these parts of OHMSS I really enjoy).
Just looking at how Bond is introduced in small shots in shadow at the start and the later beach fight already underscore how much the movie was stylistically setting itself apart and was being relatively avant-garde in light of the other 60s films. The films leading up to OHMSS, while being beautifully shot (they had Ted Moore and Freddie Young, after all), were much more traditionally composed and didn't seem like they were really making a show of themselves or wildly experimenting. Even the Young films which I think are the best of that group are very restrained in how the shots are composed, as DN, FRWL and TB are almost filmed like stage plays.
OHMSS was the first movie, and really the standout for much of the series, when it came to how it shot it's scenes. The jarring, flashing imagery, quick cuts and constant shifts from wide to close shots in addition to a punching up of the sound and a dizzying score from Barry on top of it in moments like the beach fight and Bond's face-off with Che-Che really give OHMSS a completely unique feeling that is very art focused when one sees the attention paid to how the elements of filmmaking are used together. Perspective is played with, experimentation is done with wide and close shots, blur is often used to simulate movement and kinetic energy in the fights, and the camera is also later used to simulate Bond being knocked out and waking up to stir us viscerally and to feel his point of view. This isn't even to mention the ski chases, which @TripAces quite rightly called out for their immense craft in how they were composed.
For me, a film with an "artsy" focus doesn't have to rely on a particular tone or bit of storytelling to be considered by that label (like your view of those films being made up of social commentary), but can also reach that point through how the film is shot, how color is used, what editing tricks are implemented, how score is layered, etc. That's why I feel that the mix of Michael Reed's photography, John Glen's editing and Barry's music come together to create sequences that are unlike anything we've seen before or since, and that, for me, connect to Bond films as art for the eyes.
I am perhaps more critical of OHMSS's script that a lot of people (Blofeld's scheme has never wowed me), but I've certainly appreciated the additional elements added to the script and how the film is compiled that give it an art-like feeling besides just how it's shot. I've always viewed it as a Bond film meeting a Greek tragedy, as the tone and ultimate climax feed a tragic moment for the spy character and the imagery of a man facing his greatest enemy (who is brought down by his own hubris) in a location high up in the sky gives off that mythical feeling for me, as does Fleming's use of the Angels of Death, who fill the sort of goddess roles in my mind. Directly in the film itself, Tracy is called Helen of Troy by Blofeld, connecting her to the woman of history who is caught between two men after being kidnapped, and Tracy goes on to reference some verses of James Elroy Flecker's play "Hassan" to build up the villain as the "Master of the World" to play to his ego as Bond and Draco approach Piz Gloria. As with the Craig films, slight or possible allusions to art, history, literature and more are leaned on in OHMSS to create an atmosphere in the film, ground the themes that could be in the story and to build up the characters in a certain way just as the films are composed through the camera box with importance placed on space, perspective, use of color, light and shadow and more that set them apart from all the other more standardly executed/shot movies.
Just to stress again with finality that I don't view this "artsy" label as bad for any of the Bond films that I perceive to be that way, and I'm sure a far better word could be used to describe this quality that doesn't immediately give the film a bad name for being attached to it. I just can't find that particular word right now. Artful, maybe? I dunno.
That all said, I'm a QOS lover. ;)
I would agree with those who see the art in OHMSS. However, recognizing we're all going to have a different definition of artsy, I would probably call YOLT the first 'artsy' one. Barry's music, Adams's sets, and Young's photography were all heightened and fused together in a way they hadn't been to the point.
The latest one I've heard is that Laz's drop in the gun-barrel was symbolic of his proposal to Tracy.
I somewhat agree, but for different reasons (I'd also say GF is perhaps the worst paced of the lot, but that's not the place for this discussion). There's certain silly elements in OHMSS that do take away from its otherwise earnest approach, which can tonally make it quite bizarre. I think films like DN, FRWL or TB from that time are more able to reign in their tones to be less at war, with FRWL being my favorite as far as a composed piece of filmmaking goes where elements are balanced over the entire film.
But you're exactly right that a lot of OHMSS's artfulness and artistic touches are through the visuals and sound, with Reed really experimenting in a lot of the scenes and Barry going there with synth and a lot of original music from other collaborators. It's probably the strangest collection of music I've heard from a Bond film, with everything from love ballads to Christmas songs with a child choir and straight up bombastic action tracks.
I seriously doubt that when Maurice Binder shot the gunbarrel he directed George to remember that later in the film he would be proposing to Tracy, and to use his gunbarrel stance as a symbol of this romantic gesture.
Me too. I read it was George's idea. I doubt very much he would have viewed it like that. Most likely reason was that he thought it looked cool.
Of course!
So obvious now you mention it.
I thought I'd heard it before somewhere but someone in a different group made reference to it the other day.
For shame.
The pacing in the spy who loved me is super slow though
In Becoming Bond, Laz admits it was just his way of doing it, no mention of Tracy. And the director couldn't get him to stop. The best take they had was the one they used. (If memory serves, they filmed it after principal shooting had commenced.)
To the subject line and do we read too much into certain Bond films? Yes. Absolutely.
Too much into ones disliked.
And not enough into the ones loved. Never enough.
@Murdock This comment stuck with me. I started analyzing the Bond films more since I've been here, but lately I find myself not wanting to do it as much, at least not in a critical way. I like just enjoying them for what they are: good, solid fun, with a hero that I place above the others, because he wears suits and drinks Martinis instead of jumping around buildings wearing a cape or wielding a laser sword. Just a cooler, more realistic, adult kind of hero, for me, anyway.
I couldn't disagree more, but this is an argument that has been done to death. DAD wasn't a great comparison to include here, or any 90s film outside of maybe GE, though. I think it's creatively dishonest to say that the way those Brosnan films were made were exactly the same as what are made today, especially when your SF example has a master artist behind the camera that makes those 90s films look like TV movies in comparison. I think the vast majority of cinemaniacs would be able to see exactly where DAD and SF separate, and which of those is more worthy of being called artful.
Not to knock any one style of Bond film, but it's like trying to compare Ted Moore or Freddie Young or even Michael Reed's lensing and how those early films looked and were shot to the 80s films that, irrespective of budget cuts, were a shell of the atmospheric and cinematic treats their celluloid ancestors were. What the current Bond films have that the 90s lacked, not even counting their employment of theme or anything relating to storytelling, is a return to rich color palettes, truly wide photography and scene setting, a certain operatic sensibility, innovation behind the camera, greater attention to composition and staging and basically anything else that relates back to creating a mood or atmosphere through scenes and images. I think a lot of people could sit down to TWINE or DAD and enjoy themselves (laughing painfully in the latter case) but put on the Craig films for them and I think you'll see their reactions change because the way the films are crafted changed immensely and demand a different set of viewers to take in. Like the 60s films handed off to the later 80s films that let go of Bond's cinematic quality, the low cinema of the 90s gave way to a backwards revitalization of cinematic filmmaking with how the Craig films have been shot and crafted.
We can see clear delineations since the series began and how each movie or era became different in how they were ultimately created, either in a good way or bad way from what you prefer to see. But this argument would be like saying the TV movie style that LTK is criticized for is exactly the same as how OHMSS was shot, a film that remains one of the most finely styled and artfully crafted Bond films ever made. In a rush to claim complete creative unity where no film is any different from the other behind the lens, one misses the point of what art is and how things always change. I just can't imagine any cinephile worth their salt that could watch a late 90s Bond and a Craig Bond (especially the best shot of all four) and objectively claim that they have no distinct identity from one another. They couldn't be more different in every conceivable way, but most obviously from the camera lens.
I would pay money to have someone go in a time machine and screen DAD for 50s moviegoers alongside SF. I'm sure that, in the age of Orson Welles, John Huston, Hitchcock and Billy Wilder, the audience would be quick to conclude that DAD and SF were 100% creatively equivalent with no differences in sight. :))
I'd be prepared to make a daring bet that most of the theater would clear out of DAD's screening before the fencing scene even began, and wager with little doubt that nobody would remain to see Icarus fire.
What I'm talking about has nothing to do with production qualities. It's one thing to say the films look better now, which comes down to personal preference at the end of the day (is Quantum of Solace really considered a better edited film than GoldenEye? Never heard anyone say that before), but it's quite another to argue that that means there is a difference in the subject matter. You're talking about presentation, I'm talking about content. Like I said in my earlier post, all the supposed emotional depth and themes of the Craig films comes down to window dressing for the action, sex, and locations which form the foundation of all 24 Bond adventures in the series. To act otherwise is the true intellectual dishonesty. It's like saying I grow more wise when I smoke a pipe or wear a tie. When you boil it down, Bond is about formula. The formula Cubby scribbled down very early on is to a large extent followed to this very day, and as far as I can see nothing has changed. All that has changed is the packaging. If you remove the packaging, what you're left with is the same - equivalents. Anyone not exposed to our nitpicking, image obsessed culture will see that this is the case, and any veneer of Artfulness one tenure may claim over another is wholly superficial. It's a shell of sophistication that people fall for and invest their time into. In the end, Bond is only as deep as sex, danger, exotic locations, fast cars and evil villains can be.