One of the big strengths of the Bond movies throughout their history has been the editing. I am not just talking about the innovative way Peter Hunt cut the action scenes in the first place, but most of the Bond directors have had a precise eye for blocking shots for the edit. Two of the Bond directors were of course former 007 editors themselves.
Until I saw QOS, I thought the worst edited Bond films were MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN and DIE ANOTHER DAY. In defense of the latter, I will say that while being distractingly, stylistically inappropriate, at least Christian Wagner's editing choices would not look out of place in a Bruckheimer/Rob Cohen movie. Also, when Wagner wasn't doing those already dated speedramps and MTV dissolve montages, at least he could cut a dialogue scene between characters in a more or less acceptable fashion. MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN on the other hand is a badly cut assembly at best, with no rhthyms and non-existent pacing. It must have the worst cut car chase ever commited to the screen (this side of QOS), and who could excuse the clumsiness of the transition between the main titles and the opening scene in M's office? Terrible. Bert Bates, who oversaw LIVE AND LET DIE and was involved with DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER, did not return for MWTGG. Instead, Hamilton promoted editor John Shirley, who would later gain notoriety cutting the bloopermongous epics KING SOLOMON'S MINES (remake) and SUPERMAN IV. So while DIE ANOTHER DAY was not trying to be cut like a Bond film, it was good at being a distracting fad clone, while MWTGG was aspiring to be Peter Hunt level, but was bogged down with incompetency.
Now with QOS, it seems we have the worst of both DAD and MWTGG, i.e. QOS was seemingly not trying to be cut like a Bond film, but rather a distracting fad (*cough* Greengrass/Bourne *cough*), but failed to be even an acceptable fad clone. It's as fad chasing as DAD but with all of the incompetency of MWTGG, IMO.
Who knows if all of the footage in QOS was designed and shot to be cut in such a head-hurting form. While this seems no doubt true regarding the much criticised action sequences (shot with the very cramped, Bourne-aping close up compositions and blurry/shakey camera movement that isn't present in the rest of the film), the remaining dramatic/dialogue sequences are shot in a much more elegant fashion, with slow and graceful dolly moves and thoughtful blocking that goes against the Greengrass-aping style. It seems really jarring that so many of these beautiful non-action dramatic moments are mutilated by the distracting and unneccesary editing. I could only count the back-kissing post Field's bedding scene as the one time in which a scene is played in one shot, and it's gorgeous. Forster seems obviously more comfortable and sincere to his own tastes with this kind of non-Bourne/Greengrass cutting too. From what I remember, none of Marc Forster's other movies are cut in the aggressively distracting Greengrass-aping way either (please correct me if I am wrong), which only draws attention to co-editor Richard Pearson's notable presence on QOS, alongside Forster's regular editor Matt Chesse. Pearson came straight from the Greengrass/Bourne universe, so is it a coincide that this new Bond is cut more like the Bourne Supremacy than a Marc Forster film? That said, how come QOS seems to be cut in a less coherent fashion than the Greengrass/Bourne movies that it so lovingly wishes to mimic (and with the same cutting personnel onboard)? At the end of the day, Forster seemed to be very much behind the wheel on who he was hiring and his "vision" for Bond, so was this messy editing style really intentional, to work against his precision camera moves and artful compositions?
Like I said though, who knows what and why on the game plan regarding how the footage was designed, shot and cut and who was responsible for what. Even if we had that information, the cutting style is still a head hurter!The one thing I feel certain on is that DIE ANOTHER DAY, compared to the notoriety gathered by QOS, will nolonger seem like the immediate, infamous, editing black sheep of the recent 007 movies. I only hope that whoever cuts and edits Bond 23 returns to the more classically innovative editing fashion that the series has prided for most of it's run so far. CASINO ROYALE did a superb job of respecting this.
Do you think QOS is the worst edited of the 22 James Bond movies? If not, which one do you think deserves that title instead?
