CR on British Film Forever

John Drake

UK viewers will be able to see Daniel Craig talking about CR and James Bond in a programme called British Film Forever. It airs on Saturday 28th July at 9.05pm. It's a 7 part series celebrating British film. The first episode is concentrating on the thriller so Bond should feature quite prominently.

emtiem

Yeah- should be good, this. There's Michael Caine talking about The Ipcress File too, which I'm looking forward to.

emtiem

Here's a little guide to the season, in fact (including 2 Bond films): http://www.bbc.co.uk/britishfilm/summer/whats_on/

Barbel

Watched it last night. Some clips (mainly from GF), a little nice behind-the-scenes stuff from YOLT and LALD, one line from MGW & BB, a few words from The New Guy (with beard) on pretending to be 007 as a kid then ending up with the part, plus as usual a lot of opinions from people who have nothing to do with it.

The main point made was that Bond's glamorous globetrotting made a startling contrast with the kitchen sink/low key violence British films which preceded him.

John Drake

There was more Bond on show than I thought there would be. BB mentioned that you need a serious hero for a serious world, which leads me to think that they will continue in the direction that CR took them.

Harry Palmer got short shrift. A shame as there some perceptive comments about The Ipcress File and it would have been good to see them cover the beguiling Billion Dollar Brain. Michael Caine, Bob Hoskins and the superb Kate Hardie had some interesting things to say about the films they appeared in.

I didn't think much of the way the programme makers dealt with Neil Jordan's Mona Lisa. Describing that as a film with a happy ending is a bit silly. If anything it's a case of learn to make do with what you have, rather than yearn after a romantic fantasy. That's a tough-minded, pragmatic world view, not a sugar-coated cop-out as the programme-makers seemed to imply.

Still, it was well worth watching and I'll be tuning in next week. I think comedy is next.

John Drake

I watched the second episode of BFF and was seriously unimpressed with the approach taken by the programme makers. I skipped the third and won't be bothering with the rest.

The British directer Alex Cox gave the show a slagging in The Guardian. Here's an excerpt where he mentions CR.

http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,,2149012,00.html

In this Film Council/BBC vision of the world, everything is multi-culturally marvellous. Asian girls play football. Thatcher's excesses have been put right. And Casino Royale is a British film.

Only it isn't. The James Bond franchise belongs to a US studio, MGM. Some British actors and technicians may get paid to work on the pictures, but the profits are repatriated to Los Angeles. The American Bond marque involves the biggest "movie-based gaming franchise" in history, and highly lucrative product placement (usually of German cars). The franchise also serves an outright propaganda purpose, as one of the US producers interviewed in British Film Forever, makes clear: "It's a more serious world. We expect our heroes to fight their battles with less frivolity."

I like Cox and agree with him about this programme and his comments on the Film/Council and BBC, but he's talking out of his a*** about CR being political propaganda for American foriegn policy.

Dan Same

John Drake wrote:

I like Cox and agree with him about this programme and his comments on the Film/Council and BBC, but he's talking out of his a*** about CR being political propaganda for American foriegn policy.

I agree. I don't think that CR has anything to do with American foreign policy whatsoever.

emtiem

The nice bit about CR's appearance on this show was some behind-the-scenes stuff I haven't seen elsewhere, including a shot of Bond smashing a urinal over the bad guy's head in a shot lost from the pre-credits fight.

John Drake

I tuned in again for the horror episode. I avoided the last two, (kitchen sink and costume dramas). What a frustrating show. On one level there was some great stuff about the late Michael Reeves and his brief career, as well as an interview with his regular leading man, Ian Ogilvy, about The Sorcerers and Witchfinder General.

However it skimmed over the 80's, mentioning Hellraiser in passing, but ignoring The Company of Wolves and Paperhouse, two of the best UK horror/fantasy films ever made. Then it spends ten minutes on Terry Gilliam's Brazil, which is an American studio movie and has no place here. I think this series is a real missed opportunity.

Sweepy the Cat

I saw the comedy one, the horror one, the thriller one and the war one