66 replies to this topic

[00Twelve]

Like the suspense of Fleming's OHMSS ski chase being based on Bond's inner monologue and perception, so too is Le Chiffre's menacing effect. Quite a few of these quotes are based upon how Bond sees him and sums him up... We can't be in Bond's head, only watch them glare at each other across the baize and try to interpret the mental conversation.

I think you are miscomparing both scenes. Much of the suspense in OHMSS depends on Bond mentally tabulating when his colleague will crack, and when Bond will be blown and sent for, and what conditions might be like once he makes his escape. That can't be rendered onscreen. Much of CR however consists of LeChiffre being silent and Bond having to try and "read" LeChiffre's expressions from his eyes. I think movies do this even better than books, because they can have us look from Bond's viewpoint. You can't be in Bond's head, but you can be in his eyeballs, and in the gambling scene that's what counts, because we're in Bond's position anyway--when LeChiffre glares at the camera he's glaring at us, and we're intrigued about reading his expression. LeChiffre's menacing effect probably would be even greater onscreen, because the combination of silence and being directly stared at is even greater when conducted through image and sound, rather than mere words. So no, I very much disagree.

Oh no, not a miscomparison, other than the situation. Le Chiffre looking through to Bond's soul and such is an observation that requires the kind of omniscience that we the viewer don't have in a film. We see both from the outside, and perhaps from a first-person POV, but we certainly can't discern their inner monologue, which is where much of the striking effect that Le Chiffre has on Bond takes place. We can see a shot of him glaring directly at the camera, but we may not see it quite as Fleming did (unless the director and DP are just absolute masters of their craft). Likewise, the effect of suspense in OHMSS required Bond's thinking (albeit more vocal, not an omniscient voice, and there, yes, I realize the miscomparison ).

There were many instances in the book of GF's eyes "looking past his eyes, through to the back of Bond's skull." Much unspoken conversation between he and Bond, and much to be said by his non-verbal actions and glares.

I think these however are clearly subsidiary to the verbal interaction between Bond and Goldfinger, who's one of the first villains Bond really goes to town with in verbal sparring. Gert Frobe was such an odd looking phyiscal specimen that he probably was even better for the role than what Fleming had in his head. Frobe has that instant-photograph look in his eyes, and he's wonderful when he looks shifty or perturbed.

Well, that's of course a subjective opinion, though not completely unfounded. We may never know if GF would have been better had they found a good actor that fit the literary description more closely (somehow! ), but the man whom they chose gave them the opportunity to make up for what he lacked in the literary version by being more physically imposing and yes, he did a rather good job of glaring the way that, we assume (and can only assume) Fleming's did. We can also assume that it was better, but that's up to each individual.

Goldfinger and Bond don't have the single-duel and torture relationship that counted in CR. They keep meeting multiple times and getting to know each other better. Having a relationship based on silence and eye contact would not have worked for them. It's important that they talk to size each other up.

I felt that the talking was less essential in sizing them up (though Bond was well into his method of quickly verbally provoking his nemeses) and more essential in explaining GF's motivation. For his development, it was indeed fundamental. But it was Bond's observation (which we can only hope to match, it's not guaranteed) when Goldfinger had stopped speaking and looked at him that there was no negotiation with this man. There wasn't so much of this in the film, because much of that happened when Bond was GF's employee (an angle that I missed, but that's really OT and neither here nor there).

Le Chiffre also had to be more outwardly scared and determined to get his money so that the non-Flemingo audience could grasp the situation.

I think this is a little unfair to the audience. Once told LeChiffre's motivation, I think they can keep it in mind.

If he can sell it, yes. In a long, complex film like CR, he needs boosts to keep the threat close to the forefront of our minds, lest we feel nothing when it finally happens. Perhaps it would have been just as effective to make him all strong and such up until the very end, then make him a weak mess when about to be killed, but as SNF pointed out, the character was more three-dimensional in the film.

I certainly think LTK is right up there with CR in terms of Fleming's spirit, but it's critically hampered down by remnants of the Moore-era aesthetic, and so one has to see though more haze to realize the Fleming feel.

That's the first time I've heard LTK accused of carrying Moore-era aesthetics (TLD usually gets that criticism). I think the charge that it carries too much Miami Vice aesthetics is more valid, though I dispute that one too.

Semis popping wheelies, driving on their sides, the character of Professor Joe, the choice of Wayne Newton to play him, a fictional country, giving Q a load of field time, the winking fish...all these elements can thank the Moore era for their inclusion. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against ALL of them, but without the era of camp, they'd be out like tapered jeans (which are now curiously back in...). The Dalton films were fantastic IMO, but were unfortunately hampered down by the Moore camp. The producers weren't as bold in making their changes as they were with CR, and as a result, the spirit of Fleming comes out much more clearly, IMHO.

[blackjack60]

I take your point, and yes, there is some element of the triumphant about it, and a sop to fans. I wouldn't have minded if he had not said the line and we hadn't had the theme kick in, personally, but I'm perverse. However, I think beyond that superficial air-punching, Craig's performance and the weighting of some of his lines earlier means that this effect wears off pretty quickly, and after a while what you're left with - or what I was left with, at any rate - was the feeling that it was a hollow soulless triumphalism, which he could really have done without.

I think that is a wonderfully sensitive reaction, but I think it's perhaps more than the filmmakers deserve. I wish I could say I was left with a sense of hollow triumphalism, but it's hard to feel that when the film is metatextually suggesting--and in none too subtle terms--JAMES BOND HAS ARRIVED! I think there is also a contradiction in your position. If Bond has embarked on his quest to catch the spies that make the spies spy, and has obviously achieved success, then his standing over White is not part of a hollow triumph, but instead a significant one. Through the information Vesper left, Bond was able to apprehend the man behind the scenes. That may not be a victory over the whole organization, but it's a victory over a character who've come to understand to be an even bigger villain than LeChiffre. So it's hard to feel that Bond has achieved a hollow triumph, when in fact he's scored. He's on his way to solving the problem. Had Fleming left us with a victory of that size at the end--had Bond caught up with SMERSH's regional controller, the novel would have been robbed of much of its fury and sense of loss. Vesper's suicide after all doesn't lead to Bond catching anyone in the book. It's that sense of a disaster with very little to redeem it that makes the end wrenching. The movie softens this by having Vesper help Bond deal a blow to Ellipsis--from beyond the grave.

Read the description of Solitaire to see how scarred Bond is by Vesper's death: she is almost a clone of Vesper, and Bond doesn't even think about it.

Very true, but this is a flaw of Fleming's post CR work, not the novel itself. And since Bond 23 will pick up where CR left off, it will presumably rectify Fleming's fault, which will certainly help.

I don't read the line that way, but as the knowing acknowledgement and quasi-nostalgia of someone who has long lost their soul for a time when they, too, felt something when committing murder.

I think that is a very good point. Yet I think the line is not there to make us primarily reflect it back on its speaker, who is a rather scummy traitor who we don't feel too bad about Bond killing anyway. It's a ultimately a rhetorical question, which is part of my negative reaction toward it.

I guess I think that CASINO ROYALE got so much so right, after so long waiting for precisely these elements to be gotten right, that I am more prone to forgiving some of its weaknesses.

My basic feeling is that a successful adaptation retains what is most vivid about its source. Sometimes this is not merely plot but the ideas propelling the plot and characterizations. On its own I think CR is a very fine, if somewhat annoyingly structured and tortuous Bond film that successfully gives the character a level of humanity that the Brosnan films were never able to successfully pledge bring out in depth. As an adaptation I think it mostly misses the boat because it doesn't quite understand what made the novel effective, and most of the major setpieces from the novel lack their effectiveness onscreen.

It is uneven and dissatisfying in plenty of ways, but I suppose I'd rather look at how it expands on what we have seen already and what I loved about it and what it opens up for the next films than dwell on its - to me - minor faults. Perhaps it is just that I don't want to consider the faults for fear it will impact my enjoyment of the film.

I think this has been the overwhelming reaction with Bond fans and the general public. Most of the standard negative criticism CR has received--how it isn't enough of a Bond movie and so forth--is of very little interest to me, since it's often been used to punish other strong films in the series anyway. But I don't think many people have critiqued the film from the perspective of its strength as an adaptation, and I'm interested in pursuing that line of thought.

I don't think considering CR's faults will impede your enjoyment. I still like CR and enjoy it a great deal. I just regret that it's not as good of an adaptation as it easily could have been.

There isn't much physical descrption of Bond in the novel, but what there is usually relates to coldness, and his emotional state is often described in those terms.

Definitely. But this is part of the dynamic of the book and of the series in general--Bond likes thinking of himself as cold, and the author fantasizes over his creation that way, but Bond really isn't cold; he's a romantic who's posturing coldness. I've always been amused by the line 'Like all harsh, cold men, he was easily tipped over into sentiment', because if someone is truly cold and harsh, they aren't easily tipped over into sentiment.

Well, you found the shower scene and the armour dialogue hammy; I think it reflected the above very well indeed.

That's the problem--it didn't merely reflect them, it broadcast them with a megahorn. SENSITIVITY MOMENT! RED ALERT! BOND IS BEING SENSITIVE! I must say that to the film's credit, many women were taken with these scenes. Indeed, I must give the film credit for having made Bond sexy with the opposite sex again. I found these scenes hammy, but thousands of women enjoyed them as scenes where a cold man let down his exterior. All I can say is that while too much subtlety might have prevented such reactions, a little more might have even inflamed them.

The second quote was drowned out for you by the large gun, the line and the theme tune, but the set, cold face was there for me, and chilled me.

But the set, cold face is after all a cliche of action movies. Had Arnold grinned like an idiot while saying "Hasta la vista baby", it wouldn't have looked half as cool. Similarly, I would have been weirded out if Craig had been staring down his hated enemy with a gun while making goo-goo eyes at him.

Bad actors can also impose their personalities on the material when the material is flawed enough. And good actors like Craig can of course do so too. Brando imposed himself on practically everything he did, even when he gave a bad performance. Connery has Brando's charisma and can do roughly the same thing. Craig perhaps has less, but he's still got a lot.

Re: Crowley. I don't have the missing piece of the puzzle, but I think the Crowley as inspiration bit holds some water. Henry Chancellor's book is the latest to state the case somewhat persuasively.

I think the two are very different. One mode presupposes greater knowledge and know-how than the people who created the piece of art, while the other seeks to celebrate and learn from it.

That is rather restricting dichotomy. As Pauline Kael noted, you don't have to have laid an egg in order to say whether it tastes good or not.

Of course we should criticise - we'd have little to discuss otherwise. But your criticisms sometimes strike me as excessively pedantic and overarching and, in a way, condescending. You alone seem to know precisely what they did wrong, and how it all could and should have been rectified. You've got it all worked out, and we're just here to listen.

I wish I did! If so, I'd be rebutting people with my own script of Casino Royale. Alas, I can only proceed by gut feeling. If I alone seem to know precisely what went wrong, that might be because someone who utters an opinion that very few others agree with is bound to seem like its sole exponent and proponent, and to be against the mass. I do not after all go around accusing all the people who praise the film of knowing what it did right. If I thought everyone was here to listen I would probably be annoyed at having people contradict me, which many have, rather than seeing an opportunity to further develop what I believe by testing it in rebuttal.
I should say that Pedanticism is definite danger one encounters in comparing films to their source materials, and at times I have fostered that impression, though against my better instincts.

Perhaps too brutal and cold? Perhaps you could take off the mask for another moment and show us the warm loving humanity inside?

There is none.

I don't watch him eager to see emotions break through the automaton card player. I don't feel the tension in his insistent gaze at Bond (because the movie doesn't go for this), and if the filmmakers were really interested in doing so, they wouldn't have given him that distracting weeping eye either. I don't feel the silent tension that the book delivered, and I don't feel the true perversity of the character.

This all sounds to me a bit like: 'They didn't make the film precisely as I would have done'.

I think it's more like "they missed evident opportunities, and though they took the path they believed right, it may have not been as effective as the original." The viewer is of course not infallible, but neither are the filmmakers.

I thought there was plenty of silent tension in his staring at Bond over the table.

Yet it could have been greater, and the movie would have likely been strengthened by it. Sometimes the road not taken is vague and hard to imagine. Sometimes it's already written out.

One could endlessly dissect differences and weaknesses in the film.

I think those who discuss differences and weaknesses do so under the assumption that the ones they bring up are significant. While it might have been nice to have Bond have scar, it doesn't matter too much, since Daniel Craig looks dangerous anyway. On the other hand, if the character in the book strikes one as far more imposing than the movie version, it may strike one as worthwhile to question whether the tension created by unbroken silence and the cinematic use of close-ups into eyes and so forth might have created a better viewing experience than by giving the villain a cartoonish deformity and having him grumble about Bond ordering a martini.

He needs no help at all, surely.

I guess I differ in thinking that the chance that he might some. But then again, I like the craziness of MI6's gamble. FRWL's schemes aren't too plausible either, but they're appreciably nutty too. By himself LeChiffre might have lost everything, or a little, or made enough to temporarily stave off disaster. Or not. I have to confess that I'm not to bothered about the most logical inconsistencies in the mechanism that sets the plot going. If the emotional logic and dream logic works I think a film can bypass certain errors, and many have. And as I've said, I do think the film version does improve on certain parts of the novel...just not all right ones.

[blackjack60]

Le Chiffre looking through to Bond's soul and such is an observation that requires the kind of omniscience that we the viewer don't have in a film.

I don't think so. The director is able to place the viewer in a position of omniscience and in the perspective of the hero, and that's part of the advantages films can have over books.

we certainly can't discern their inner monologue, which is where much of the striking effect that Le Chiffre has on Bond takes place.

Part of LeChiffre's effect on Bond is precisely in that Bond finds LeChiffre's stare innately mysterious, and this is better rendered in movies, where you can have things such as intense close-ups of eyes that are there for the viewer to puzzle over and stare into. Having a direct stare at the camera forces the viewer to attempt to figure out those mysteries himself. The camera does something the book cannot, which is to literally make the viewer do Bond's looking for him. We can't capture Bond's inner monologue (the film certainly doesn't in its card scene) but since LeChiffre doesn't have one in the book, we can capture the experience of trying to divine what the actor is doing by looking into his eyes and reading his face, which is improvement on the page. The effect LeChiffre has on Bond is transferred to the viewer simply through the the viewer possessing Bond's eyes and thus identifying with him.

But it was Bond's observation (which we can only hope to match, it's not guaranteed) when Goldfinger had stopped speaking and looked at him that there was no negotiation with this man.

Yes, but there's no negotiating with any Bond villain, is there? We already know that Goldfinger is a big criminal and tycoon, and he wouldn't have been one if he didn't set the negotiations.

Perhaps it would have been just as effective to make him all strong and such up until the very end, then make him a weak mess when about to be killed, but as SNF pointed out, the character was more three-dimensional in the film.

Making him scared doesn't make him three-dimensional. CR is long, but it's not that complex. I really don't need to be continually reminded that LeChiffre has the wolf at the door when it's imperative for the good of the story that in some scenes the character keep his wits about him.

Semis popping wheelies, driving on their sides, the character of Professor Joe, the choice of Wayne Newton to play him, a fictional country, giving Q a load of field time, the winking fish...all these elements can thank the Moore era for their inclusion.

I think that a fictional country would have been used regardless (Panama was a hot spot at the time), and if one is planning on a rip-roaring truck chase, not including some spectacular action like wheelies or side-driving would probably count as criminal negligence. I certainly would have missed it. Celebrity cameos were not a fundamental feature of the Moore-Bond films, and if one is going to feature a slimy, unctuous showman of a preacher in a movie, Wayne Newton is a pretty good choice. I don't think Q's roles were necessarily that much bigger in the Moore period anyway--he appeared more on location certainly, but he was never Bond's true assistant. In any case, I think that LTK was very much Q's finest hour, and I wouldn't have cut him for the world. Lastly, the winking fish is definitely a Moore-era touch, but it's so unimportant (it comes at the very end of the film and is wholly inconsequential) that I have no problem with it.

The producers weren't as bold in making their changes as they were with CR, and as a result, the spirit of Fleming comes out much more clearly, IMHO.

I'm not so sure that it's Fleming's spirit that's on display. For what it's worth, Craig and the filmmakers created a Bond of their own. In terms of adaptation, I still hold that LTK caught the fundamental spirit, even if CR played often to the letter.

[Judo chop]

Trying to get in here is like trying to jump through a fan and coming out unsliced! I stand before it crouched, my body metronomically pulsing up and down, trying to lock into the rhythm of the whirling blades

[spynovelfan]

Your posts always make me think, blackjack60, but the last few have made me smile. There is some humanity there, after all - I'm sure I detected it! Forgive my truculence and task-takingness. I'm on board. Let's get down to brass tacks.

But the gambling scene is the big showdown. Bond has little to no interaction with LeChiffre beforehand, since there was no reason for them to meet beforehand.

You're right. I think it's the very opening of the book that has made me feel this way. It's a minor thing, but it just unbalances it for me somehow: we see Le Chiffre but don't meet him. He somehow doesn't seem that important, or Bond as concerned as he should be. Can't explain it better than that, but he feels undeveloped to me. I think physically he is completely unmemorable: we're given tons of details, but they don't seem to belong to the same man, and I can never really imagine him when reading. Or if I do imagine him, it's certainly not as someone with reddish-brown hair, false teeth, small but hirsute hands, a very pale complexion, and so on. Do you see what I mean? There are too many distinctive details.

Let the camera create the tension through cutting between glances and by delineating the space between the players, and creating a mystery as to what LeChiffre is thinking.

I thought they did that rather well. I concede that Mikkelsen could have done with being more imposing, but still: I felt tense watching the play between them, the cross-looks, the ordering of the cocktail and the 'That last hand...' line. I liked all that business.

I think that Fleming essentially wanted the best of all worlds, and thus he gave his character elements from commandos and agents he'd known in addition to his own background.

I think you're absolutely right - and I think it applies to Fleming in general. He picked what he felt was most exciting at any given point and didn't fret too much about other considerations. I've looked into the commando aspect very thoroughly recently, and I think he worked up a lot of experiences or incidents he knew about from the war from friends, acquaintances, books and films and he did the same with strictly intelligence stuff, and he added himself into the mix, of course. It's pretty inconsistent in the novels. My point was simply that, yes, Vesper seems to be in the right area judging by Bond's reaction, but she doesn't guess very specifically: former SAS type, Oxford or wherever. As this is the only hint in the entire film, and it isn't that specific, I think it's a little unfair to say Craig's Bond is more commando than Fleming's - Fleming wasn't very specific, and mixed and matched as he saw fit, but there arestill aobut a dozen references in the books to commandos, and the sum of this adds up to at least as much as one vague comment from Vesper, that Bond does not explicitly acknowledge and which is never explored further. I felt the film did maintain the balance here, more or less.

[spynovelfan]

Had Fleming left us with a victory of that size at the end--had Bond caught up with SMERSH's regional controller, the novel would have been robbed of much of its fury and sense of loss. Vesper's suicide after all doesn't lead to Bond catching anyone in the book. It's that sense of a disaster with very little to redeem it that makes the end wrenching. The movie softens this by having Vesper help Bond deal a blow to Ellipsis--from beyond the grave.

Yes - and all cogently and well put stuff. Perhaps because Fleming never followed up this line I was pleased to see it and go along with it, but I also was surprised by the line about his wanting to get out before he lost his soul, and this just seemed to me like the inevitable, bitter conclusion to that. Perhaps it's giving too much credit to the script, but I see that last scene as a massive subversion of the Bond mythos, with all of those elements being put to use in a way never seen before, and which is fairly shocking. The Bond we have grown up with has no soul. The line, the attitude, the theme music, are all accompaniments to one man's deliberate re-entry into hell. Our country and our world is better served by this, but his mission from this point on is to submerge his grief so deep and never drop his armour again. It's all those cliches they wheeled out at every press conference and Pierce Brosnan mentioned in every GQ interview - but for real. I wasn't as surprised as I might have been, though, because Craig's previous roles and the stare he gave the camera at the end of the titles sequence already had me in mind that he was quasi-psychotic.

I think that is a very good point. Yet I think the line is not there to make us primarily reflect it back on its speaker, who is a rather scummy traitor who we don't feel too bad about Bond killing anyway. It's a ultimately a rhetorical question, which is part of my negative reaction toward it.

Yes, I see why you think that. It didn't bother me at the time, but okay, perhaps it could have been a little less leading. I thought greater weaknesses were that it was far too brief, they didn't explain the background to the kills in any way - what led Bond there, why they were linked, any hint at all as to what the substance of the treachery here was - did not link the sequence to the main plot, and chickened out of explaining Bond's background properly. But I still loved it.

My basic feeling is that a successful adaptation retains what is most vivid about its source. Sometimes this is not merely plot but the ideas propelling the plot and characterizations. On its own I think CR is a very fine, if somewhat annoyingly structured and tortuous Bond film that successfully gives the character a level of humanity that the Brosnan films were never able to successfully pledge bring out in depth. As an adaptation I think it mostly misses the boat because it doesn't quite understand what made the novel effective, and most of the major setpieces from the novel lack their effectiveness onscreen.

I think some of the innovations were very clever, and it was much more faithful than I'd thought or hoped it would be, but I agree that some of it was tortuous and the structure irritatingly weak at times. Where I disagree more strongly is that it 'successfully gave the character more humanity' and didn't quite understand what made the novel effective. I think it went far beyond that - it gave the character far more humanity than I thought possible, far more than the novel even. I thought they - and Craig - got Bond absolutely right. Here's something I wrote about the novel well before the film was released:

'Beyond its innovation in the genre, beyond its unerring prose style, this is a novel about what it takes to be a man. How to be a man in the best of circumstances

[Brent]

WEll, this has turned into a debate between spynovelfan, blackjack60 and 0012. It has caused me several times to go back through my falling apart Signet paperbacks of Casino Royale(I can't believe it was .50), OHMSS, and Goldfinger.Having taken some time to digest all of this I have come to the following conclusions for my own feelings.
1. Casino Royale is the best film in the franchise since Licence to Kill, which was the best one since OHMSS.
2. For one who has read the novels and waiting for so long to have an authentic portrayal of this pivotal story (I even started having delusions that the Peter Sellars-Orson Welles game was a great filmed moment in Bond history)and having been chilled by the torture scene in the novel so many times, I remain disappointed in the filmed version of the scene. I remember sitting in the theater last November and was thrilled when the henchmen took out a knife and started to cut out the cane char but started feeling a little apprehension when I saw no table, no coffee carafe and no second chair. Sure enough, the scene evolved with a rope replacing a carpet beater which took away the scene of Le Chiffre letting the beater pass gently under the chair. I think the dialogue could have been kept almost in sync with the book, the nanny line and game for grown ups. My Dear Boy would have felt out of place with Mikkelsons age but the rest would have fit.

3. I did not like the big gun Craig had at the end. The PPK would have been more in character with the last line.

4. I think Fleming was of 2 minds when he wrote CR. Certainly he did not see a whole franchise of books come out of it. He wrote a book that can stand on its own like a Graham Greene novel but that could also be a start of a series like Raymond Chandler's Phillip Marlowe, who was an influence on Fleming. This reflect in the relationship he creates with Vesper and it is why this book is the only one that spends the last 1/4 on Bonds recovery and his subsequent relationship with Vesper. All the rest of the books, except for TMWGG which the ending may not have been penned by Fleming,end with the end of the mission and the recovery if any is described in the beginning of the following book, DAF and FRWL beig the best example of this. It also shows that Vesper could have been made not to be a traitor with Mathis taking the role as it appears to be in the film.

Bond softens over the series of the books but then returns to a colder person by the end in TMWGG. He starts with selfish attitude about women in CR that is dissipated over the series and leaves him vulnerable. He is hurt badly by women over the series, first by Tiffany Case, which is explained in FRWL, then by the death of Tracy, which leads up to his attitude about Mary Goodnight in TMWGG, the room with a view that would always pall.

Edited by Brent, 18 May 2007 - 07:20 PM.