169 replies to this topic

[Mr. Blofeld]

BOND: "Dom Perignon '52 with 45 bucketfuls of beluga caviar, please..."

[Double-Oh Agent]

Wasn't that Terence Young's idea? Sadly, we never see it again in the series...

"Bond..." *click* "...James Bond."

Why would we want to see it again? We saw it once, it worked well in Dr.No and I see no reason to try to copy and do it again.

But when someone like Forster copies Hamilton's Golden Girl shot in QOS it's celebrated as genius...cough cough.

Who said copying Hamilton's golden girl shot in QoS was genius???????

Not on this thread but in the Quantum Of Solace forums that has been the case on a number of occasions.

[Stephen Spotswood]

Bond: "I'll have the Bollinger 1996 Grande Annee with Beluga Caviar. And some Cheetos."

In the next Bond movie, they'll have Craig saying, "I'll have a Malt 45 and a bucket of buffalo wings."

[Gothamite]

How about Bond smoking weed?

Not a bad idea.

After all, a drug habit didn't hurt Sherlock Holmes, did it...?

Fleming's Bond often takes Benzedrine and that's highly illegal, now.

[Judo chop]

But when someone like Forster copies Hamilton's Golden Girl shot in QOS it's celebrated as genius...cough cough.

Who said copying Hamilton's golden girl shot in QoS was genius???????

Not on this thread but in the Quantum Of Solace forums that has been the case on a number of occasions.

I’m a huge supporter of the Golden Girl homage. I wouldn’t call it ‘genius’ though, as that would imply the filmmakers should be credited for its conception. Obviously it’s borrowed, not conceived. That’s what makes it a homage.

I would call it a tremendously risky decision that succeeds on a spectacular level, being both tasteful within QoS and simultaneously respectful of GF’s iconography.

[00Twelve]

But when someone like Forster copies Hamilton's Golden Girl shot in QOS it's celebrated as genius...cough cough.

Who said copying Hamilton's golden girl shot in QoS was genius???????

Not on this thread but in the Quantum Of Solace forums that has been the case on a number of occasions.

I’m a huge supporter of the Golden Girl homage. I wouldn’t call it ‘genius’ though, as that would imply the filmmakers should be credited for its conception. Obviously it’s borrowed, not conceived. That’s what makes it a homage.

I would call it a tremendously risky decision that succeeds on a spectacular level, being both tasteful within QoS and simultaneously respectful of GF’s iconography.

Yep, meeting of the minds here. Exactly as I see it.

[Revelator]

I’m a huge supporter of the Golden Girl homage. I wouldn’t call it ‘genius’ though, as that would imply the filmmakers should be credited for its conception. Obviously it’s borrowed, not conceived. That’s what makes it a homage.
I would call it a tremendously risky decision that succeeds on a spectacular level, being both tasteful within QoS and simultaneously respectful of GF’s iconography.

If it's tasteful and respectful then it isn't "tremendously risky" in the first place, and even if it wasn't it's not as if they risked having outraged Goldfinger fans rise from their seats to riot in the theaters. Homage is an intrinsically unrisky act that plays it safe: those who don't get the reference will think it's more original than it really is while those who do get it will be flattered by the filmmakers throwing a bone to their experience and knowledge. In some cases homages can be somewhat justifiable, as in OHMSS referencing the Connery area to emphasize it's the same character. But QoS referencing a film that doesn't exist in the continuity established by CR is less justified. Visually being covered in oil is a pretty nifty way to die, and the oil motif is justified by the story somewhat. But the scene ultimately homages an aspect of the Bond films that doesn't deserve homage or continued use: the disposable bedmate whose primary reason for existing is to be bedded and killed. I don't mind Bond having multiple bedmates--the public expects it--but I see no reason why every woman Craig has sex with should die.

Edited by Revelator, 23 January 2009 - 09:38 PM.

[Judo chop]

If it's tasteful and respectful then it isn't "tremendously risky" in the first place and even if it wasn't it's not as if they risked having outraged Goldfinger fans rise from their seats to riot in the theaters.

Don't be silly. Of course the price of failure isn't death to the producers or riots in the aisles. It's just an artistic crash. Halle Berry emerging from the sea as an example. Lazily conceived + horribly executed = Iconic moment brutalized.

Jill Masterson's death is arguably THE iconic image of Bond. Artistically there is much at risk. If art isn't your concern, then I'm not going to be able to sell you on the risk involved.

But the scene ultimately homages an aspect of the Bond films that doesn't deserve homage or continued use: the disposable bedmate whose primary reason for existing is to be bedded and killed.

I agree that that is what the scene 'homages'; the essense of the disposable Bond girl that echoes throughout the series. And I clearly don't agree that it doesn't deserve homage. It's a big part of Bond and it is worked marvelously into QOS. That is one of the great reasons why I find it to be tastefully done. It's not JUST a scene from Goldfinger that's slapped up on the screen without thought or basis... it has meaning.

Then of course the image is also beautifully rendered and offers the same level of visual/emotional shock as the original, but comes with its own distinct flavor as well.

I don't mind Bond having multiple bedmates--the public expects it--but I see no reason why every woman Craig has sex with should die.

I don't know what you're getting at. Fields' death is a kind of compilation statement for all those girls who have gone before. ('Before' in our world, that is. Bond continuity thrown out the window). Her death is probably the most meaningful, or at least the most pointed, in the series.

Maybe next film he'll get some and she'll live and you'll get your wish.

[jaguar007]

-but I see no reason why every woman Craig has sex with should die.

Of course there are plenty of women dying to have sex with him

[Stephen Spotswood]

That's why I gave up on the John Gardner Bond books. I think I read about four of them. Not only did he not develop any character at all for Bond, he over-emphasized weapons technology for guns and such, but it seemed in every book Bond had two potential girlfriends, and ultimately one was tied in to the bad guys and given a nasty death. I seem to recall one fight scene where the girl was revealed, and she and Bond were fighting around a guillotine, and she ends up getting her arms chopped off and bleeding to death.

After that I decided to just stick to Ian Fleming.

[Revelator]

]Don't be silly. Of course the price of failure isn't death to the producers or riots in the aisles. It's just an artistic crash. Halle Berry emerging from the sea as an example. Lazily conceived + horribly executed = Iconic moment brutalized.

Don't be melodramatic. It's not an artistic crash, it's just a wink at the viewer that's unnecessary, as most homages are. It doesn't make the original scene in Dr. No any less iconic or lovely. It's not as if it doesn't take the viewer out of the scene any more than the QoS homage did--that's the nature of homages. Lest it seem that I'm defending DAD, it's more that I find homages to almost all be gratuitous. A good movie usually has little reason to quote other movies.

Jill Masterson's death is arguably THE iconic image of Bond. Artistically there is much at risk. If art isn't your concern, then I'm not going to be able to sell you on the risk involved.

You're not going to sell me the risk involved because the risk is something you've inflated to sell the scene. A (depressingy) large amount of the audience hasn't seen Goldfinger to begin with, so they'll think there's more originality there than there was to begin with. Those who have seen the older film will be pleased that an iconic shot has been recreated within the direct context of the plot, thus making it seem less gratuitous, rather than solely being there to wink at the audience.
Lastly, I had thought you above such crude tactics as implying that anyone who disagreed with you wasn't concerned with art. My concern is evident, and rests on the assertion that a work of art is not at its most artistic when it quotes other works of art to make its point.

I agree that that is what the scene 'homages'; the essense of the disposable Bond girl that echoes throughout the series. And I clearly don't agree that it doesn't deserve homage. It's a big part of Bond and it is worked marvelously into QOS.

How does one of the most utterly misogynist and artistically lazy aspects of the series deserve homage? The disposable playmate--she of little character but great tits--is one of the most retrograde aspects of the Bond movies, one that's been hammered into the ground and hardly deserves being lovingly resurrected. The idea that some of Bond's women are just there to get ed and die isn't at the heart of the Bond mythos, it's just one of the cliches that have been repeated formulaically over the decades because it happened to feature in the most legendary Bond movie. And it's depressing that the Craig films, which are designed to cut away so much of the flab that has grown on the Bond formula, have decided to keep one of the slimiest bits of that formula, and that they've excused this by retrograde action by directly quoting a Bond film, one that doesn't even exist in their continuity. Some people might appreciate their fandom being thrown a bone. Others might question why this homage is being used to excuse using a part of the hackneyed formula these films were made to revamp in the first place.

Her death is probably the most meaningful, or at least the most pointed, in the series.

The "meaning" of Fields' death doesn't extend to anything beyond "sleeping with Bond is a kiss of death." Why quote another movie just to enforce Women in Refrigerators Syndrome (as it's called in comics)? Why should we be so affected by the death of a near non-entity of a character who's mainly there to make sure Bond gets to have sex at least once in the movie?

Maybe next film he'll get some and she'll live and you'll get your wish.

I don't think it's odd to be concerned with the fact that every woman he's slept with has died. The idea that having sex with Bond is a death sentence is both silly and puritan and doesn't deserve repetition. Bond ought to be able to enjoy sex with multiple women, but making some of them disposable mannequins is just repeating the most outmoded aspects of the old series.

Since this thread is more concerned with Dalton and Fleming than the merits of QoS' homaging other films, I'll try making this post more on topic by noting that Dalton's films mainly avoided the bed-and-die cliche. TLD is monogamous, which has led to accusations of AIDS era timidity. Perhaps Bond should have bedded Kara mid-way through. LTK has two women, and nicely avoids the disposable playmate syndrome by keeping Lupe alive and having her compete with Pam for Bond's affections. Bond is thus charged with having to handle the emotional demands of two women and meeting those of at least one. Given that what little we saw of Fields was potentially endearing, perhaps it would have been better to have kept the character alive to stand in continuing contrast with Camille, though not outright competition.
(I am not trying to say that any of these films is better than the other, but simply comparing how they handle a trope.)
Neither disposable playmate nor competing women figure very large in Fleming. Goldfinger is the sole real example of bed-and-die syndrome. The film adapted this in a superior way, but unfortunately the movie's popularity established the soon-to-be dead playmate as part of the series' formula. As for competing women, Fleming's Bond was a one-woman-at-a-time man, and thus not liable to be as caddish as his movie counterpart (Bond's closet treatment of Goodnight in the film of TMWTGG is a sad example of the latter tendency.) Speaking (I guess) as a Fleming purist, or at least partisan, I find the disposable bedmate repugnant as a feature of the series, especially since Fleming indulged in it only on one occasion, and while I was fine with the film of Goldfinger following suit, I'm less pleased to see it become one of the few parts of the old Bond formula to survive to the present day.

[Turn]

The "meaning" of Fields' death doesn't extend to anything beyond "sleeping with Bond is a kiss of death." Why quote another movie just to enforce Women in Refrigerators Syndrome (as it's called in comics)? Why should we be so affected by the death of a near non-entity of a character who's mainly there to make sure Bond gets to have sex at least once in the movie?

Yeah, Fields seemed to be one of the most unnecessary characters in QOS. She's rather forgettable and I doubt many will dwell on her death, which doesn't have anywhere near the impact of Mathis's or Vesper's. Bond seems to react somewhat the way he did to Solange's death.

If we want to read anything into Fields' death, it could be another reminder that Bond can't get close to women because they don't survive around him. He is still early in his 00 career at this point. I don't know if I'd go that far.

The difference between Jill Masterson and Fields is Masterson, although she was admittedly mixed up with a dangerous man, is still pretty much an innocent, whereas Fields works for the Service, meaning she's taking her chances in the field.

[Judo chop]

Lastly, I had thought you above such crude tactics as implying that anyone who disagreed with you wasn't concerned with art. My concern is evident, and rests on the assertion that a work of art is not at its most artistic when it quotes other works of art to make its point.

Do you mean to stir me into guilt, sir? Or should I take that as a compliment? My point was not to claim that you didn’t care about art. My point was that there is a tactful way of incorporating an homage, and a foul way of doing it. Like any other scene in a film – it can be done well, or poorly. DAD’s was done poorly and tactlessly. If you don’t meet me there, then there is no more conversation to be had. (That’s an if/then statement. I’m not presupposing the premise = TRUE.)

Forgive me for being too lazy to cut quotes.

Moving on, it seems we disagree on the worth of the homage. You seem to claim (and lest I offend/fail you again, I add the caveat request to please correct me if I’m wrong) that the homage is intrinsically and necessarily ‘less artistic’ than the original thought. I don’t agree with that position. One, I think one could argue against the pure originality of all things QoS (or any other film) outside of the homage. So much of any film is inspired/borrowed from ideas of the past. Secondly, I see the homage as every bit the creative tool, though I would agree that it’s a tool best used sparingly. The choice to use it or not is a creative decision in itself. And from there it can be done well, or not, like any creative decision.

As for the worth of the meaning behind Agent Fields’ death, I respectfully disagree once again. Over the years Bond hasn’t really been about much. He has a few facets. One of them is the taste for the casual sex partner, and the unfortunate possibility that her involvement with Bond will lead to her demise. You can describe his Kiss of Death as you have - a trivial, annoying cliché - or you can think of it as a rather large and important part of him which has now been given some due attention in Fields’ death. I cannot tell you why you should find anything worthy of your affection. I’m just telling you that I do.

[Stephen Spotswood]

Just fer ya, Judo-Chop:



I would say the most meaningful death in the Bond series was of Tracy Bond.

Edited by Stephen Spotswood, 27 January 2009 - 03:01 PM.

[Judo chop]

I would say the most meaningful death in the Bond series was of Tracy Bond.

Sorry for mincing words here, but I would say Tracy’s death is arguably the most emotional. Not the most meaningful. It would have had meaning had the following film dealt with it at all (or if OHMSS had continued). As it stands, it’s a sad thing for Bond, and then that’s it. We don’t get to find out what it means to Bond.

Fields' death deals with Bond directly. It has meaning, because it shapes Bond’s psychological character. And Fields’ death is symbolic, which gives it an extra dose of meaning. Or at least I see it as being symbolic. (Funny thing about symbolism, that.)

Just fer ya, Judo-Chop:

Thank you for that little bit of silliness, SS. It was a splash of Kina in my otherwise very dry and bitter gin.

[Revelator]

Do you mean to stir me into guilt, sir? Or should I take that as a compliment?

I mean this: a sentence like "If art isn't your concern, then I'm not going to be able to sell you on the risk involved" can be construed as to imply that someone who can't be "sold on the risk" isn't concerned with art. If you did not mean to imply this that's fine, but I advise you to take care with potentially loaded statements.

As for homages, some are simply more egregious than others--the scene in DAD adds little to the film, doesn't have any relevance to the plot and is thus pointless. The homage scene in QoS is saved, not because it's better filmed, but because it serves a tangible plot purpose in the picture. That's what separates a good homage from a bad one. All homages are ultimately egregious, but some are more justified than others.
The supposed risk in a homage is usually vitiated by the fact that homages take advantage of the audience's inbuilt goodwill toward what's being homaged, since what's being homaged is already a classic. (No one's going to homage A View to a Kill.)

One, I think one could argue against the pure originality of all things QoS (or any other film) outside of the homage. So much of any film is inspired/borrowed from ideas of the past.

Reaching for the "nothing new under the sun" cliche isn't very helpful in this case. Yes, movies, and especially movies as formula-based as the Bond movies, build upon their predecessors. But so many other acts are more creatively fruitful, and far less irritating in their obviousness, than outright quotation. A movie can build upon the past without nearly-repeating it, and the best moments in the Bond movies are twists on tradition that don't need to repeat the past to evoke it. Homage is an unsubtle way of underlining a point.

Over the years Bond hasn’t really been about much.

If Bond needs lines of women to drop dead for him to finally mean something, then I seriously question the worth of that "meaning". Again, it's Women in Fridges syndrome. The knowledge that having sex with Bond will lead to a woman's demise does not strike me as a "large and important" part of his character. It strikes me as a way of feeding the audience's lust with characters the filmmakers can then easily throw away after they've outlived their usefulness, the way one throws out soiled tissues. In earlier Bonds such disposable-lady deaths at most led to a few seconds of grief--now they can be rationalized to give Bond emo grief and bless the audience with tired phrases like "everything he touches dies!"
Yes, Bond knows that his profession and actions can bring death down upon anyone he works with, loves or befriends--and this point was made far more movingly and forcefully with Mathis's death than with Fields'.

You can describe his Kiss of Death as you have - a trivial, annoying cliché - or you can think of it as a rather large and important part of him which has now been given some due attention in Fields’ death.

Or you can think of it as the writers using a trivial, annoying cliche to spuriously add fake depth to Bond's character. But really, how is this "large important part" given any more due attention with Field's death than it was with Solange and Vesper's?

Sorry for mincing words here, but I would say Tracy’s death is arguably the most emotional. Not the most meaningful.

The mincing ducks the larger issue, which is that meaning with little emotional pull isn't effective in the first place. Did anybody's heart really bleed for Fields? Doubtful--her death mostly makes audience members congratulate themselves for catching a reference to an older Bond movie. Fields wasn't enough of a character in the first place for her death to earn any heavy meaning. Any meaning it has is thus just schematic, because we weren't involved with the character in the first place, so the effect it's supposed to have on Bond is short-circuited by our own lack of response.

We don’t get to find out what Tracy's death means to Bond.

We get a pretty good idea from Bond's numbed, shattered reaction: he's been dealt a blow he can hardly process, which he mentally hides from. Given that we've never seen Bond in this state before or since, we can easily infer the meaning to be that Bond's world has utterly come apart, and for the first time in his life he's mentally helpless and lost.

Fields' death deals with Bond directly. It has meaning, because it shapes Bond’s psychological character.

How? He grieves for two minutes of screentime and then goes after the villain. How is Bond's character changed by Fields' death? Solange's death made pretty every point that Fields's made. At this point it's just the old formula reasserting herself.

Edited by Revelator, 28 January 2009 - 05:42 AM.

[Double-Oh Agent]

I would say the most meaningful death in the Bond series was of Tracy Bond.

Sorry for mincing words here, but I would say Tracy’s death is arguably the most emotional. Not the most meaningful. It would have had meaning had the following film dealt with it at all (or if OHMSS had continued). As it stands, it’s a sad thing for Bond, and then that’s it. We don’t get to find out what it means to Bond.

Fields' death deals with Bond directly. It has meaning, because it shapes Bond’s psychological character. And Fields’ death is symbolic, which gives it an extra dose of meaning. Or at least I see it as being symbolic. (Funny thing about symbolism, that.)

I don't see how Fields' death is all that particularly memorable or meaningful. She's hardly on-screen, doesn't do anything other than dress in a trench coat, sleep with Bond, and trip a useless henchman going down the stairs and her death is a near carbon copy of Jill Masterson's in Goldfinger (yawn).

Sorry, I'm not big on homages. Die Another Day's homage-fest was passable because it was a celebration honoring the longevity of the series. I'd rather the writers, et al, come up with something original or at least a variation on what has gone before. For instance, leaving Fields' body on a couch or the floor or in the bathtub would have been better, rather than the exact same pose on another bed like Jill Masterson in Goldfinger. Otherwise, it ruins the impact of the scene. You're consciously thinking of the Goldfinger scene rather than focusing on her dead body.

Also, Tracy di Vicenzo's and Vesper Lynd's deaths are much more memorable and meaningful than Fields', whose demise is nowhere near the top of the series' ranks. Shoot, just off the top of my head I'd put Jill Masterson, Aki, Andrea Anders, Corinne Dufour, and Solange Dimitrios' deaths above Fields' for memorableness and meaningfulness. The top two meaningful deaths in the Bond series are Tracy's and Vesper's. Either one has a valid argument to be number one.

[Judo chop]

If you did not mean to imply this that's fine, but I advise you to take care with potentially loaded statements.

Thank you. I advise you to consider that if/then statements may be less loaded than you have thought them to be in the past. It’s tiring for a person to have to constantly remind his listener that ‘if’ connotes uncertainty.

As for homages, some are simply more egregious than others--the scene in DAD adds little to the film, doesn't have any relevance to the plot and is thus pointless. The homage scene in QoS is saved, not because it's better filmed, but because it serves a tangible plot purpose in the picture.

Yes. Everything that I’ve already said. You call it ‘saved’, as if it was a mistake to begin with, but just got lucky squeaking out with a passing grade. I say, it was a creative choice to use it in the first place because it takes a certain skill to know when and how to incorporate the homage well. How much longer shall we go on with this? Our minds are separated by opinion, not fact.

Also, I’m not sure by your statement whether you mean the QoS homage wasn’t filmed well, or if you’re saying it was, but only that that wasn’t the reason why it is ‘saved’. I don’t agree with either stance, but I really don’t agree with the first one. It’s a beautifully rendered shot.

The supposed risk in a homage is usually vitiated by the fact that homages take advantage of the audience's inbuilt goodwill toward what's being homaged, since what's being homaged is already a classic. (No one's going to homage A View to a Kill.)

The risk is that if you, the director/writer/producer, pull a DAD (a ‘tribute’ to one of the great iconic scenes of cinema done poorly), you have that shame about your neck. The knowledge that you did a bad job. That what you have produced fails to have any chance of earning the esteem of fans and cinephiles ‘round the world. If that sounds pretentious, well, it’s the same for every other scene you shoot in the movie. Artistic success is the goal and therefore the risk.

I would argue that the homage is a riskier move b/c it is more shameful to borrow and fail than to be original and fail, yet the rewards of success are equal.

If Bond needs lines of women to drop dead for him to finally mean something, then I seriously question the worth of that "meaning". Again, it's Women in Fridges syndrome. The knowledge that having sex with Bond will lead to a woman's demise does not strike me as a "large and important" part of his character. It strikes me as a way of feeding the audience's lust with characters the filmmakers can then easily throw away after they've outlived their usefulness, the way one throws out soiled tissues. In earlier Bonds such disposable-lady deaths at most led to a few seconds of grief--now they can be rationalized to give Bond emo grief and bless the audience with tired phrases like "everything he touches dies!"

Yes, Bond knows that his profession and actions can bring death down upon anyone he works with, loves or befriends--and this point was made far more movingly and forcefully with Mathis's death than with Fields'.

Agent Fields is a bystander, which makes her different than Bond’s friends. Yes she’s an agent, but not a field agent. (Irony?) She’s an office clerk. And she’s different from Solange in that Bond was not using her for information, and different from Vesper in that Bond is not in love with her. Solange is a stepping stone, Vesper is the real thing, and Fields is a shallow romantic interest. To my eyes, she, in fact, symbolizes the shallow romantic interest of the past 45 years of Bond, by manner of deed and name. This is the new, rebooted Bond. His tragic experience with Fields is the start of building a part of Bond’s story.

Now listen to me. I see the “Kiss of Death” aspect of Bond as being important. I have listened to you, and you keep telling me it’s not important, and it’s getting boring. Instead, why don’t you tell me what you think IS important to Bond’s character, and maybe try to convince me that I should be diverting my focus instead of insisting that I deny it. The latter approach isn’t working.

The mincing ducks the larger issue, which is that meaning with little emotional pull isn't effective in the first place. Did anybody's heart really bleed for Fields?

What do you think I’m going to say here? If you’ve been listening, you’ll know the answer.

We get a pretty good idea from Bond's numbed, shattered reaction: he's been dealt a blow he can hardly process, which he mentally hides from. Given that we've never seen Bond in this state before or since, we can easily infer…

I’m glad you agree that we’re allowed to infer. Or are only you allowed to infer?

Fields' death deals with Bond directly. It has meaning, because it shapes Bond’s psychological character.

How? He grieves for two minutes of screentime and then goes after the villain. How is Bond's character changed by Fields' death?

Inference?
If that doesn’t work for you (though I’m not sure why it wouldn’t), how about because QoS is Part II of Bond’s construction into the man who exists in DN through DAD (more or less). If you start from the perspective that QOS is pre-DN, the formation of Bond, Fields’ death has great impact on his psychological character.

[Stephen Spotswood]

I always wished Mike Myers casted Diana Rigg as Vanessa Kensington's mother in Austin Powers.

That and I always wished Mike Myers would play himself being killed by Michael Myers in a Halloween sequel take-off.

Edited by Stephen Spotswood, 30 January 2009 - 08:20 PM.

[Panavision]

If I want a Fleming Bond, I read the books. If I want a cinematic Bond, I watch the film.