63 replies to this topic

[baerrtt]

Where and how Bond lives is not important. He was missing for 14 months in DAD and upon his return to London the first thing on his mind wasn't getting home and checking his backlog of mail for his Publisher's Clearing House prize announcement. We have never seen where John McClane, Indiana Jones or Rambo live either, and I can live with that. And if we'd never seen Bond's flat in Dr. No or LALD, I wouldn't have noticed it missing. In fact, the fact that his digs have only been worked in twice in a 22-episode franchise is all that makes its appearance significant.

And for what it's worth, I liked his flat in LALD better than the one in Dr. No (yes, I'm the one). There was something too dainty about the chairs in the vestibule, and someone - I think it was John Pearson - mentioned that Bond did not own a television set.

So what do you want to see Bond doing at home, swigging Guinness while watching American Idol? Banging another Italian agent? If the writers could have thought of something genuinely interesting for Bond to be doing at home, they probably would have filmed such a scene sometime in the last 27 years.

Bond is an international man of mystery - an enigma, "The man who was only a silhouette." Like his predecessors, Daniel Craig is more interesting on the road, staying at grand hotels, than he is at home.

IMCO.

Actually we have seen Indy's home in two movies (RAIDERS and KOTCS) but it does support your point about Bond as they don't really add any interesting insight to the character.

[The Shark]

Where and how Bond lives is not important.

It is, but we've never had really had the chance to delve into that.

He was missing for 14 months in DAD and upon his return to London the first thing on his mind wasn't getting home and checking his backlog of mail for his Publisher's Clearing House prize announcement.

Considering it was DAD, I don't think the first thing on the writers' minds was sticking to Fleming's source, and showing Bond in his Chelsea Flat, off Kings Road.

We have never seen where John McClane, Indiana Jones or Rambo live either

Well that's where Bond differs. Flemiing's Bond was a more compelling character than all three of those put together, from day one.

So what do you want to see Bond doing at home, swigging Guinness while watching American Idol? Banging another Italian agent?

Chain smoking? His rigid morning routine? There are tonnes of things that could be shown and taken from the novels, that provide an acute insight into Bond's character. It makes him a more vulnerable, and interesting character, to contrast with his outlandish affairs abroad.

Bond is an international man of mystery - an enigma, "The man who was only a silhouette."

He's more than that, particularly in Fleming's material. What you've essentially described is the rather limited cliché of Bond, but provides a dead-end for filmic Bond.

Like his predecessors, Daniel Craig is more interesting on the road, staying at grand hotels, than he is at home.

But how would you know? We've never seen him at home. My central point is that Craig is a character actor, and functions best portraying the flawed, darker sanctums of a character. This is an opportunity, directly derived from Fleming to provide that challenge, and not letting his talents go to waste by regulating him to a robotic stunt-man.

[RufusCobb]

- Make him unattractive? Whaaat? Bond does not "date". He beds married women
in what little spare time he has, and never at his flat, so no one would even
know he had a housekeeper.

Anyway, it would make him unattractive to the women in the audience! And that's the best reason why the producers won't give Bond a "Scottish treasure" of a housekeeper.

Have Bond walk around his apartment shirtless or naked, while May oggles at the size of his manhood.

OK, now even the men in the audience will retch!

It's no worse than sitting through the speedo scene. But with BARBARA BROCCOLI in control of Bond, I wouldn't be surprised if something like that happens.

Thank you, Shark. I have made similar comments about Barbara Broccolli's attitude to Craig and Bond before and been shot down for it. I'm glad someone else can see it too.

[Shadowman]

"Where and how Bond lives is not important...."

True, in the films it really is not. True, if they had never shown his flat in those two films, no one would have noticed.

"We have never seen where John McClane, Indiana Jones or Rambo live either.."

False. You may have not seen the Indiana Jones films enough times or it may have been a while since you have viewed them. We see his house in the very first film when he is packing for his trip to Napal and talking to Brody. We see it again in a scene in the last film. Speaking from the point of view of an experienced filmmaker, the reason for putting such scenes in is too add extra weight, dimension and above all realism to the main character. This is especially useful when the film is an escapist adventure. In the case of Jones, it showed visually he was a bachelor and dedicated to his profession within a matter of seconds (which is why his house looks like a museum full of aniquities). Do we need this in the Bond films? No. Everyone knows who Bond is...or do they? It's obvious the producers wanted to put the series in a new direction using Craig, the first novel and taking it back to the reality and hardcore physicality of the first films when they were spy movies and not the superhero Austin Power movies they had morphed into. That is why I believe it wouldn't be out of kilter to show a few minutes of Bond at his flat (but only if it were intregral to the story, as we saw with them showing M.'s flat in CR). It helps ground these characters even further into our real world. Cinematically, there's no reason to show Bond having his meetings with M at headquaters. He could easily be shown getting his orders another way...but showing him receiving them in this formal way again grounds the audience into a real world. These little devices are really necessary when you have characters in this fictional world with names like Pussy Galore!

I agree about the flat set in Dr. No. It is obvious that the foyer he enters and the other room with the tv (that really irritated me when I first saw it as I knew he would never have one) were put together without a lot of imagination..looks like they just grabbed some set walls from storage and threw in a few furniture props. Look at the carpet in that scene...it doesn't look like it was even stretched properly or fitted to the baseboards. You can see that a lot of the sets were given short shift moneywise in order to pay for Dr. No's lab and underwater cave living room.

It is not that the writers could not thing of an interesting scene in Bond's flat. Because of time constraints and urgency it was a nice twist seeing M and Moneypenny at Bond's flat to give him his assignment in LALD - even if it were not that logical (logic is not a huge commodity in the series). The writers may have come up with a number of scenes through the years that would have been in his flat...they may just never have been included for a variety of reasons - budgets, scheduling, etc..

'Bond is an international man of mystery - an enigma, "The man who was only a silhouette." Like his predecessors, Daniel Craig is more interesting on the road, staying at grand hotels, than he is at home.' - If they had only made a few Bond films or had only made the one Indiana Jones film, I would agree. However, because of how many people have seen these films (and the number of times they have seen them), they lost their mystery and unfamiliarity long ago.

I think the producers are right. If we left characters like Bond and Jones to just be plane/boat/train hopping two dimensional shadows, the films would pall. The Bond series did in fact. That is why the Moore films ran out of steam. Dalton was needed to bring the character back to reality, but it was too much of a jolt. It would have been better if they could have done Goldeneye after Moore. Brosnan still had the charm and jokes but you could see they were trying to make the character more real. The Living Daylights would have been a nice antidote to DAD..with Dalton bringing in even more reality and depth. This way, CR following LTK would not have been a huge shock..it would have seemed just a progressive direction towrards more realtiy. Of course, given the ages of the actors, none of this could have happened. The audience has grown more mature over the years in it's relation to the real world. That is why the villains and storylines in the adventure films and even the comic films have gone in the reality direction. There will always be those who prefer their heroes as two dimensional cartoons, running or flying through their plots while they thow out quips...and if they appear in only one or two films even I have no problem with it. Personally, if I get attached to a character over a series of adventures, I like to get to know them more over the years. I don't need to know where they shop for their bullwhips or tuxedos or capes, but I do enjoy seeing them at home once in a while...whether it be Wayne's Manor or the Fortress of Solitude or Peter Parker's apartment or Harry Palmer's low rent flat. Which reminds me...if any of the members out there have never seen The Iprcress File or it has been a long time since your last viewing...you should check it out. In the first few minutes of the credits showing Harry Palmer at his flat making breakfast the audience immediately gets some of this characters traits and makes him interesting and creates the desire to know more about him and what might happen to him. Need I say more?