CR/DN/FRWL
blueman
PDXPosts: 1,667MI6 Agent
Thought there was a thread similar to what I've been thinking about lately, but I couldn't find one so here it is.
I watched both DN and FRWL recently, and a couple things strike me vis a vis CR tossing out the 1960s versus the 2000s thing, and just looking at the character of Bond and the stories told. IMO, it's very easy to see Craig's Bond go on to meet Dr. No and Honey, and Tania and Grant and Rosa. I've always thought Connery refined Bond film to film, and rewatching DN and FRWL really brought that home for me, he's so raw in DN, and quite considerably a smoother character in FRWL (some of that is storyline, but mostly it's just him growing into the character...and I don't think he was trying to show an arc but simply getting more comfortable wearing Bond's skin).
Craig's Bond in CR seems very much in line Connery's early protrayal, and I can see Craig at the end of CR moving towards a post-DN Connery Bond: his attitude in that last iconic scene is more FRWL than DN IMHO. It really begs the question, what will Craig do with Bond in Bond 22? It was certainly nice to see early Bond again IMO, that kinda raw edginess plays well on the big screen IMO.
A side thought about all this: EON has been very good about casting Bond appropriate to what they're trying to do with him IMO. Lazenby (surprisingly) and then Moore were both very effective with the more urbane Bond that grew from the late 60s and into the 70s; and Brosnan was a good fit for the Everyman Bond EON seemed to be about in the 90s. To my tastes, that young Connery/early 60s Bond WAS Bond, so this Craig arc is starting off on the right foot with me.
Anyway, some more random CR-inspired thoughts...wonder if we'll get an uber-smooth GF Bond from Craig in Bond 23?
I watched both DN and FRWL recently, and a couple things strike me vis a vis CR tossing out the 1960s versus the 2000s thing, and just looking at the character of Bond and the stories told. IMO, it's very easy to see Craig's Bond go on to meet Dr. No and Honey, and Tania and Grant and Rosa. I've always thought Connery refined Bond film to film, and rewatching DN and FRWL really brought that home for me, he's so raw in DN, and quite considerably a smoother character in FRWL (some of that is storyline, but mostly it's just him growing into the character...and I don't think he was trying to show an arc but simply getting more comfortable wearing Bond's skin).
Craig's Bond in CR seems very much in line Connery's early protrayal, and I can see Craig at the end of CR moving towards a post-DN Connery Bond: his attitude in that last iconic scene is more FRWL than DN IMHO. It really begs the question, what will Craig do with Bond in Bond 22? It was certainly nice to see early Bond again IMO, that kinda raw edginess plays well on the big screen IMO.
A side thought about all this: EON has been very good about casting Bond appropriate to what they're trying to do with him IMO. Lazenby (surprisingly) and then Moore were both very effective with the more urbane Bond that grew from the late 60s and into the 70s; and Brosnan was a good fit for the Everyman Bond EON seemed to be about in the 90s. To my tastes, that young Connery/early 60s Bond WAS Bond, so this Craig arc is starting off on the right foot with me.
Anyway, some more random CR-inspired thoughts...wonder if we'll get an uber-smooth GF Bond from Craig in Bond 23?
Comments
I hope not, if by uber-smooth you mean that Bond goes back to being a superficial, stuffed tuxedo.
At the risk of pegging myself as some kind of Stanley Kowalski, I'm a little puzzled at the suggestion by some (not so much by you, Blue) that Craig's Bond didn't display any Bond-like sophistication. Sometimes I think I must have missed the part where Craig slurped his soup, or picked his nose at the poker table. I thought Craig showed a good deal of "smoothness" (not exactly the toughest part of the Bond gig, IMO) just not the never-ever-break-a-sweat, comic-book variety that we've become accustomed to over the years. Certainly, Roger Moore's Bond would have conducted the surveillance of Mollaka in a perfectly cut dinner jacket, and backed down the embassy guards with a withering witticism while opening his gun-metal case to remove a Moreland cigarette, but that era, mercifully, is over. At least I hope it is. This Bond, like the Bond of the novels, makes mistakes and behaves like a gentlemen only when the circumstances warrant it. Otherwise, he's a pretty rough SOB. I hope to hell that doesn't change.
Seems when Bond in whatever incarnation loses that physical egde, he becomes more of a superhero-type, thinner characterazation. One might call the GF PTS Connery's graduation from the one to the other: great fight scene, then the iconic one-liner. Still love Connery's prformance in GF, just noting differences, mind.
Craig's final line in CR seems to hint at a similar progression to me, so what comes next for him will be...? Pins and needles, pins and needles.