30 replies to this topic

[stromberg]

As I managed a while ago to get myself a LALD tarot deck, I head an extra eye on them when watching the movie yesterday. There was something that confused me:

When Baron Samedi burns one of the cards and later when Bond is shown the ones that were found in Mr.Big's lair, these are totally different cards from those we see in the rest of the film.

The Bond tarot deck was especially designed for the movie by Fergus Hall (originally, Cubby wanted Salvador Dal

[iain]

A film is rarely shot in order. I would imagine that the later scene was shot first and the special deck was not yet ready. Just a guess.

[Mister Asterix]

I don’t think they are totally different cards than what Baron Samedi burns. The Fergus Hall deck that can be bought either as the 007 Tarot or The Tarot Of The Witches is different than the one used in the film. The films deck of Tarot cards use a different lower arcane (Six of Coins, Ace of Swords, et cetera). The upper arcane (Death, The Fool, The Lovers, et cetera) is exactly the same. It seems that whenever a lower arcane card is shown in the film it is a modified version of the Rider-Waite cards (or some other Waite based deck), changed to be more like the Fergus Hall upper arcane. You can see two of these modified lower arcane cards (I believe the 6 of Coins and the 6 of Staffs/Batons) used when we first see Solitaire laying down the cards. ‘A man comes.’

The actual Fergus Hall lower arcane is quite dull and very uninspired. Perhaps Cubby didn’t want to pay Mr. Hall to illustrate an entire deck.

[stromberg]

Might be like you said, Iain. That's my guess as well: just a continuity error.

But I have to disagree to you, Mr. A. The card that is burned and shown to Mr. Big by Baron Samedi is "The Death", clearly an upper arcane, and that is from the Rider-Waite deck (this was the specific card that I used to identify the deck). Will have to watch the 'man comes'-scene again... But I think the ones that Felix had were also upper arcanes (I'm not 100% sure, can't check it out, *insert usual whining about DVD player still not working* Jeez, I really have to get a new one.).
On the other hand, the upside down "Queen of Cups" (a lower arcane) Bond gets at the hotel is clearly one of the Hall deck.
And I don't think that the Raider-Waite cards shown in the film are modified, why should they?

I agree to you that the lower arcanes are rather dull, compared to other decks. They are more like normal playing cards, whereas other decks have different images throghout the whole deck. My theory why that is goes as follows: they wanted to sell them as merchandise items. Given that there are not that much people around who can handle a tarot deck, the thought might have been "We need a deck that can be used as regular playing cards as well without confusing people too much, in order to sell a few more, make us one like this, Mr. Hall."

And for those who want to see and compare the complete decks, check it out here:
007-Deck: http://www.tarot.com....php?newdeck=57
Rider Waite: http://www.tarot.com....php?newdeck=23

And if my informations are correct, Salvador Dal

[Blofeld's Cat]

Salvadore Dali?? :eek:

I know for a fact that Mister Asterix has done quite a bit of extensive research on the Live and Let Die tarot cards, but I've also done some research myself, even so far as buying the Tarot of the Witches deck and book set, but this is the first time I've heard Dali thrown into the mix.

I'd be intereted to know from where you base your theory, stomberg. Very interesting indeed.

In the preface of his book Stuart R. Kaplan tells of when Fergus Hall visited the Eon offices where

"Hall described in considerable detail each painting."

I assume he had paintings to all of the deck, but more likely only the major arcana as the minor arcana cards are quite bland and hardly require description in "considerable detail." So in that respect maybe only the major arcana were utilised in the movie along with the odd card from the Rider-Waite deck.

Your theory about the deck being able to be used as a normal deck is right on the money, stomberg, but not specific to this particulardeck. In chapter one Stuart indicates that

"today's ordinary deck of playing cards is a direct descendant from the fourteenth century tarot pack. As card playing increased in popularity, the Major Arcana cards were dropped except the Fool which became the Joker. The Knight  and Valet were combined into today's Jack, thus giving us the standard pack of fifty-two cards plus Joker."

And the Tarot of the Witches deck is no exception.

As for the Dali deck, I can't see where it fits in all this.

[stromberg]

I did some research when I was bidding on the deck to find out what would be a reasonable price (paid a fair price about 25 Euros including the book, which wasn't in very good condition).

Cubby contacted Dal

[Blofeld's Cat]

I ran that page through Google's language tools and got this.

Still a little confusing, but any report on Bond that talks about a "Harry Broccoli" must to treated as suspect?

I'll try another translator and if it does any better.

[stromberg]

hahaha, good old google translation.
As I said, I'll try a lose translation, but don't expect it before the next two or tree hours.

But you're right, the Harry Broccoli bit also made me a bit suspicious. But as it was written by a tarot and not a Bond expert, he maybe just was confused. I see, I have to contact the author to verify this.

BTW, anyone who owns the Hall deck: on mine, the 4 color printing plates don't seem to fit very well with each other, the difference is sometimes almost 1,5mm (sorry, I'm quite unable to express these technical terms in proper English, is it understandable?). Is that normal or do I have a flawed deck?

[Mister Asterix]

Originally posted by stromberg
But I have to disagree to you, Mr. A. The card that is burned and shown to Mr. Big by  Baron Samedi is "The Death", clearly an upper arcane, and that is from the Rider-Waite deck (this was the specific card that I used to identify the deck). Will have to watch the 'man comes'-scene again...  But I think the ones that Felix had were also upper arcanes (I'm not 100% sure, can't check it out, *insert usual whining about DVD player still not working* Jeez, I really have to get a new one.).
On the other hand, the upside down "Queen of Cups" (a lower arcane) Bond gets at the hotel is clearly one of the Hall deck.
And I don't think that the Raider-Waite cards shown in the film are modified, why should they?

I agree to you that the lower arcanes are rather dull, compared to other decks. They are more like normal playing cards, whereas other decks have different images throghout the whole deck. My theory why that is goes as follows: they wanted to sell them as merchandise items. Given that there are not that much people around who can handle a tarot deck, the thought might have been "We need a deck that can be used as regular playing cards as well without confusing people too much, in order to sell a few more, make us one like this, Mr. Hall."

You scould be right, that makes sense for the 007 Tarot but not for the Tarot Of The Witches. Why wouldn’t they use the fully illustrated version for the deck they are trying to sell as a full force Tarot deck? Well, there is that they already have the printing plate for the 007 deck done and it would be much cheaper.

Unfortunately, my copy of Live and Let Die is packed away right now so I can’t take a look at the burnt cards. Can someone remind me which cards they were? I think I remember one of them was ‘The Moon’, they definitely were not even the same cards we saw the Baron burn, but nothing says that more cards weren’t burnt that we didn’t see the actual act.

The two sixes used by Solitaire are clearly art based on the Rider-Waite deck. They may have been created just for the film, even by Hall himself, or they maybe just art taken straight from one of the many other Waite based decks.

[stromberg]

Originally posted by Mister Asterix

The two sixes used by Solitaire are clearly art based on the Rider-Waite deck. They may have been created just for the film, even by Hall himself, or they maybe just art taken straight from one of the many other Waite based decks.

I guess that they just took a (Waite-based) deck that they had at hand or could easily get at the tarot shop around the corner, nothing special designed. I can't imagine that any artist would do a variation of another design if his own artwork wasn't ready to use. He would have used rough sketches of his own design and color them or something like that. (And producer-wise: why pay more money to this guy to do some design that would never see the light of day because it would just be a stand-in and thus never be marketable, just because that *** Swiss printers couldn't deliver in time ).

He-ho, members out there, could anyone tell us which cards we're actually talking about

[stromberg]

Here's the translation of the article on the Bond tarot, hope my pidginish English reads a bit better than babelfish:

"Of course there are a lot of myths and legends about the great master's work, they say about this deck that it's mysticism was mainly influenced by Dali's russian-based wif Gala, who is portrayed on the "Empress" card. It is said that she was an excellent tarot reader and that she predicted his love to Amanda Lear years ago by prophecying that he would one day fall to the charm of a young man. As Amanda Lear always contradicted the rumour about having been a man before, it remains unclear if the prophecy was truly fulfilled. (Note: Amanda Lear was well known as a singer in the 70's and 80's, "Follow Me" was one of her big hits. She had a very deep voice and there have always been rumours that she originally was a man.) But it is sure that she contributed essential parts to the Dali tarot and it is possible that she even did the design all by herself. That happened as follows:

1966 Harry Broccoli (Note: the author might have been a bit confused on the names, not being a Bond expert), producer of the James Bond movie "Live And Let Die" travelled to Cadaques to negotiate with Dali about a tarot deck that the great master should design for the movie that was about Vodoo and other transcendental subjects. Facing Dali's exagerated claim, they very soon agreed that they couldn't agree. Amanda Lear continued negotiations for Dali in London, but with no result.
At this point, Dali already had done some sketches and developed some ideas on this subject. Amanda Lear picked them up to design the Dali tarot. The so-called James Bond tarot was then designed - considerably less expensive - by Scottish designer Fergus Hall. The cards were published as 'The Witches Tarot' in 1973 and have been popular ever since amongst modern witches."

I'll try to contact the author to ask about his sources and if he's got any further information, but it seems that he's abroad right now. He's timetable says that he's curently having a lecture in St. Petersburg. Hope he doesn't have any trouble with General Orumov...

[Blofeld's Cat]

Originally posted by stromberg
1966 Harry Broccoli (Note: the author might have been a bit confused on the names, not being a Bond expert), producer of the James Bond movie "Live And Let Die" travelled to Cadaques to negotiate with Dali about a tarot deck that the great master should design for the movie that was about Vodoo and other transcendental subjects.

The name mixed up is understandable and easily explained, but is it possible that the year was a mix-up too? I mean, Eon planning Live and Let Die as much as 6 years beforehand? And I can't imagine tarot ever being considered for You Only Live Twice.

Anyway, it's a very interesting notion that needs more research.

I've always planned to sit down and carefully view the parts of Live and Let Die that show the tarot cards to compare them to the deck I bought, and see which are actually the Rider-Waite ringins. This thread is as good a nudge as any, so I'll start tonight.

[Blofeld's Cat]

Originally posted by Blofeld's Cat

Anyway, it's a very interesting notion that needs more research.

Now knowing there's a possible Dali connection I did another search of alt.tarot and found only 1 result that included both "Dali" and 'James Bond,' in this thread.

This particular post reads:

What I've heard is that the Witch's Tarot was not the original deck meant for the Bond movie... they had to go with that deck because the artist that was creating the "special" movie deck... Dali... was taking much too long. The Dali deck is now available.. he did eventually finish it.

Can't really confirm the acuracy of this comment, but unfortunately this person refers to the wrong tarot, there is another tarot deck called The Witch's Tarot.

The Dali comment seems correct though as the deck was finally published in 1985 (off the top of my head), so I don't think any of it was used as a substitution in Live and Let Die.

[stromberg]

Originally posted by Blofeld's Cat

The name mixed up is understandable and easily explained, but is it possible that the year was a mix-up too? I mean, Eon planning Live and Let Die as much as 6 years beforehand? And I can't imagine tarot ever being considered for You Only Live Twice.

Anyway, it's a very interesting notion that needs more research.

What the....? You're right, mate! Didn't notice the 1966 myself. That really sounds strange. Hope the rest of the article doesn't contain more confusion (especially of the sort we wouldn't notice imediately). But let's wait and see what the author has to say about it.

I've always planned to sit down and carefully view the parts of Live and Let Die that show the tarot cards to compare them to the deck I bought, and see which are actually the Rider-Waite ringins. This thread is as good a nudge as any, so I'll start tonight.

That's exactly that's how I got into it: "Hey man, there's LALD on TV, pay attention which cards are used in the film." Too bad you still can't rewind and fast forward on TV .

[Mister Asterix]

Originally posted by stromberg (edited)
Too bad you still can't rewind and fast forward on TV .

Sure you can. That’s how I orginally identified the two sixes as being Rider-Waite style. I love TiVo.

[Kara Milovy]

Samedi definitely turned over un-altered, normal Rider-Waite cards. That is a big deal among tarot readers, because only about 6 years ago were modified versions of Rider-Waite first available, and readers everywhere went nuts. The colors have been completely restored. So I can assure you that there is no history of Waite's deck being modified until the 90s.

I don't think it's a goof. It is pretty normal for a tarot reader to have multiple decks. I have about a half-dozen. Sometimes if you're not feeling "it" a change of deck can be refreshing.

There is a goof, tho', in that one of the cards Samedi burns turns up later in a reading. A reader wouldn't have duplicates of the same deck.

[stromberg]

Ah, I knew someone would drop in who knows a bit more about tarot.
Thanks for the information, Kara.

I still consider it a goof. Tarot-wise, you may be right that Solitaire had multiple decks. But as we all know, the movie doesn't care that much about TC (tarotical correctnes, does that word exist? ). I've heard that it's complete humbug what she reads from of the cards. As I posted above: They wanted to sell the particular deck they had designed. Why use another one?

Meanwhile, Mr. Banzhaf has answered my email. He had multiple sources for that story on the internet, but only one of these pages is still up. Names and numbers come from that page, so it wasn't his fault. Unfortunately, this is a Spanish page. My knowledge of Spanish isn't very good, but as I understand it, the appropriate paragraph basicaly is a Spanish version of the German text. Here's the link: http://usuarios.lyco...tes/arti63.html (He thought he also had read it in some book, but couldn't track it down.)

I've also found a PDF-file about "Dal

[Mister Asterix]

Originally posted by stromberg (edited)
I've heard that it's complete humbug what she reads from of the cards. As I posted above: They wanted to sell the particular deck they had designed. Why use another one?

I wouldn’t say it was humbug. Remember there are two types of Tarot readers: the literal and the intuitive. Solitaire is clearly an intuitive reader. For the intuitive reader a card doesn’t have to have the same meaning each time it comes up. For the book’s Solitaire then the cards meant nothing anyway she only used them as a prop. She simply knew what the answers were. The film’s Solitaire obviously relies on the cards, but that doesn’t mean she take the official definition of the cards.

[stromberg]

Originally posted by Mister Asterix


I wouldn’t say it was humbug. Remember there are two types of Tarot readers: the literal and the intuitive. Solitaire is clearly an intuitive reader. For the intuitive reader a card doesn’t have to have the same meaning each time it comes up. For the book’s Solitaire then the cards meant nothing anyway she only used them as a prop. She simply knew what the answers were. The film’s Solitaire obviously relies on the cards, but that doesn’t mean she take the official definition of the cards.

Yep, you might be right on this. Don't know that much about tarot reading, the humbug thing was something I had read somewhere else.

[Blofeld's Cat]

Originally posted by stromberg
Tarot-wise, you may be right that Solitaire had multiple decks.

Yes, good point Kara. She may have had a cupboard full of them, or at least 78 decks, as that can explain how Bond was able to stack his "The Lovers" deck.

Can't imagine he'd waste taxpayers money buying them all just to get into bed with a pretty, stunning, shaggable.......

Forget it.

[stromberg]

Originally posted by Mister Asterix
I don’t think they are totally different cards than what Baron Samedi burns. The Fergus Hall deck that can be bought either as the 007 Tarot or The Tarot Of The Witches is different than the one used in the film. The films deck of Tarot cards use a different lower arcane (Six of Coins, Ace of Swords, et cetera). The upper arcane (Death, The Fool, The Lovers, et cetera) is exactly the same. It seems that whenever a lower arcane card is shown in the film it is a modified version of the Rider-Waite cards (or some other Waite based deck), changed to be more like the Fergus Hall upper arcane. You can see two of these modified lower arcane cards (I believe the 6 of Coins and the 6 of Staffs/Batons) used when we first see Solitaire laying down the cards. ‘A man comes.’

The actual Fergus Hall lower arcane is quite dull and very uninspired. Perhaps Cubby didn’t want to pay Mr. Hall to illustrate an entire deck.

I finally got to watch the scenes in question on a DVD player. What I saw was this:

Solitaire uses a Fergus Hall deck and nothing else, until the last reading. In this reading, she uses a regular Rider-Waite deck (you can see the cards lying on the table). Of that deck, we see Samedi burn "The Death", and the burned cards that Felix shows to Bond are "The Death", "The High Priestess" and "The Moon". Strangely enough, somehow (), both decks have the same back with the 007-pattern (as I already pointed out above).

The only questionable (but very interesting) scene is the first reading. It goes like this:

"A man comes..." - Solitaire turns around the Knight of Batons -
"He travels quickly" - she turns a Six (of Swords?) -
"He has purpose" - "He comes over water" - Knight of Swords -
"He will oppose" - another Six (of Batons?)
"He brings violence and destruction" - The Tower

The two sixes Solitaire turns around are of particular interest. These cards do have - unlike the official 007-deck - a special motive. They both have images that also appear on the appropriate cards of the Rider-Waite deck: the Six of Swords has a ferryman on it, the Six of Batons has someone who might be a victorious king with a laurel crown. (This is where Mr. A. comes in with his theory of a modified R-W deck). But those cards do clearly match the painting style and overall layout of the 007-deck.

IMHO, these are cards were produced from paintings by Fergus Hall but remained unused for the official deck for whatever reasons. Unfortunately, every trace of Mr. Hall seems to be lost after 1973. Searching the www for him does only produce results in combination with the 007-deck, nothing about any other work he's done.

Nothing new on the Dal

[Kara Milovy]

Originally posted by Blofeld's Cat

Yes, good point Kara. She may have had a cupboard full of them, or at least 78 decks, as that can explain how Bond was able to stack his "The Lovers" deck.

Can't imagine he'd waste taxpayers money buying them all just to get into bed with a pretty, stunning, shaggable.......

Forget it.

Ah, but the taxpayer's money was wasted. We saw Bond go into Oh Cult Voodoo Shop to buy the 78 decks.

I can't imagine a store that small having 78 of the same deck in stock! LOL!

[Kara Milovy]

Originally posted by stromberg

"A man comes..." - Solitaire turns around the Knight of Batons -  
"He travels quickly" - she turns a Six (of Swords?) -  
"He has purpose" - "He comes over water" - Knight of Swords -  
"He will oppose" - another Six (of Batons?)
"He brings violence and destruction" - The Tower

The two sixes Solitaire turns around are of particular interest. These cards do have - unlike the official 007-deck - a special motive. They both have images that also appear on the appropriate cards of the Rider-Waite deck: the Six of Swords has a ferryman on it, the Six of Batons has someone who might be a victorious king with a laurel crown. (This is where Mr. A. comes in with his theory of a modified R-W deck). But those cards do clearly match the painting style and overall layout of the 007-deck.

IMHO, these are cards were produced from paintings by Fergus Hall but remained unused for the official deck for whatever reasons. Unfortunately, every trace of Mr. Hall seems to be lost after 1973. Searching the www for him does only produce results in combination with the 007-deck, nothing about any other work he's done.

The Fergus Hall deck, like the vast majority of Tarot decks created in the 20th Century, is based on Rider-Waite. Arthur Edward Waite was the first person to create a Tarot deck with an illustrated Minor Arcana, before that, all decks showed merely pips, like playing cards, for the numbered Minors. (In fact, modern playing cards are derived from the Minors.) Waite's Tarot was extraordinarily influential. Most of the popular decks in current usage are based on Waite's, including Fergus Hall, Morgan-Green, Hanson-Roberts, Aquarian, Thoth (loosely), the Herbal Tarot, and the Alice in Wonderland Tarot! Dali's own deck, when he finally produced it in the 80s, was strongly influenced by Waite (the deck sold for $80 when it was released, which was a LOT of money then, I don't have it; I have the book about the deck, which is now a very rare item indeed).

I think Solitaire's interpretations are a legitimate combination of reading the cards and psychic intuition. In the above quoted reading...

Knight of Wands (Batons) can mean a man, an arrival, movement, or fiery movement.
Six of Swords can mean travel, travel by water, escape, escape in shame, or abandoning difficulties.
Knight of Sword can be a man, a violent man, violent movement, forced or willful action, or a combination of these.
Six of Wands is travel, long-awaited travel, triumph, glory, or a combination of these.
The Tower is destruction and unraveling of edifices; of the things we've built, especially evil things.

So, the only questionable part is exactly what she said as each card was laid down, the overall reading surely matches the cards.

[Mister Asterix]

Originally posted by stromberg
The two sixes Solitaire turns around are of particular interest. These cards do have - unlike the official 007-deck - a special motive. They both have images that also appear on the appropriate cards of the Rider-Waite deck: the Six of Swords has a ferryman on it, the Six of Batons has someone who might be a victorious king with a laurel crown. (This is where Mr. A. comes in with his theory of a modified R-W deck). But those cards do clearly match the painting style and overall layout of the 007-deck.

One theory I have on the sixes is that Fergus Hall painted only these two cards of the numbered lower-arcane because they were the only ones needed for the film and rather than paint the other 38 of the numbered cards he decided to just use the pipped versions. It would certainly have saved alot of time for Mr. Hall.

The other theory is that these two sixes were painted by someone in the prop department, using the the Rider-Waite cards as a beginning design. (Though one of the sixes is flipped from the Rider-Waite design.)

[stromberg]

Originally posted by Kara Milovy
.....
Knight of Wands (Batons) can mean a man, an arrival, movement, or fiery movement.
Six of Swords can mean travel, travel by water, escape, escape in shame, or abandoning difficulties.
Knight of Sword can be a man, a violent man, violent movement, forced or willful action, or a combination of these.
Six of Wands is travel, long-awaited travel, triumph, glory, or a combination of these.
The Tower is destruction and unraveling of edifices; of the things we've built, especially evil things.

So, the only questionable part is exactly what she said as each card was laid down, the overall reading surely matches the cards.

That's about the same way I see it (from what I've read in the Kaplan book), but I didn't dare to do an interpretation of my own, knowing there's someone out there who can do better. Thanks for explaining, Kara.

Originally posted by Mister Asterix

One theory I have on the sixes is that Fergus Hall painted only these two cards of the numbered lower-arcane because they were the only ones needed for the film and rather than paint the other 38 of the numbered cards he decided to just use the pipped versions. It would certainly have saved alot of time for Mr. Hall.

The other theory is that these two sixes were painted by someone in the prop department, using the the Rider-Waite cards as a beginning design. (Though one of the sixes is flipped from the Rider-Waite design.)

That's exactly the two theories I have about that, Mr. A., totally agreed.
I tend to believe that the first one is right, especially the Six of Batons is too far away from the R-W deck and they both are too close to Halls design (IMHO) to have been painted by another person.
And it would certainly not only have saved time for Mr. Hall but also some bucks Messrs. Saltzman and Broccoli

[Blofeld's Cat]

I purchased the original 1973 Kaplan book, but it appears that it's gone missing in the post.

[stromberg]

I purchased the original 1973 Kaplan book, but it appears that it's gone missing in the post. 

Lost in the mail? That's too bad. Hope you didn't pay too much for it...

Thanks for bumping this one up again, Brett. Had been wanting to re-read this for some time but somehow I kept forgeting about it.

On recent researches, I managed to find a first trace of Fergus Hall other than the Bond tarot:

An aficionado of the Tarot, Robert Fripp enlisted the services of Fergus Hall, a celebrated Tarot designer, to illustrate A Young Person's Guide To King Crimson and The Compact King Crimson .

Good old Robert Fripp, lo and behold. Never really got into KC, otherwise I would have noticed this before: "Compact King Crimson" could have been taken directly from the tarot...

The Compact King Crimson:


and

Cirkus - A Young Person's Guide To King Crimson:

[Mister Asterix]

Very sweet, Stromberg. Nice to see some other work from Mr Hall.

[Blofeld's Cat]

Nice find Heiko. I couldn't find on the net anything he'd done.

I wasn't really into King Crimson either, but the lead singer John Wetton left and formed the 80's super group Asia, which I'm a HUUUUUGE fan of. They're stiil going, but without him.

Another member, Eddie Jobson, did the music for Nash Bridges TN series.

[Blofeld's Cat]

Looks like Fergus Hall also illustrated AND wrote a childrens' story book called GROUNDSEL.