Probably the case...but still, it's putting a fair amount of trust in Bond's driving skill; if he doesn't turn in time, Vesper is hamburger in the Aston's grille---and JFF goes home from the cinema much happier )
I don't know if Le Chiffre would have minded. All he needed was Bond's password for the funds. I've seen a lot of people misinterpret the movie (not talking about you or anyone else in particular) and think that he would've needed a bank account number of some sort from Vesper - which is not the case; she merely entered the account number of where the funds would go to in the end.
Now, how he planned to actually USE that password is beyond me. It's not like the Swiss banker gent would confuse him and Daniel Craig.
Banker: "Say, didn't you LOSE the tournament?"
Le Chiffre: "Ehrm, we uh, played one more hand after everyone else left... trust me, I have the password and everything."
if he doesn't turn in time, Vesper is hamburger in the Aston's grille---and JFF goes home from the cinema much happier )
Not just JFF. :v I too would have been delighted for Vesper to have been killed then and there and rescue us from having to experience her presence during the reminder of the film. )
and think that he would've needed a bank account number of some sort from Vesper - which is not the case; she merely entered the account number of where the funds would go to in the end.
But then why would Bond need her and why would Le Chiffre kidnap her?
It's not like the Swiss banker gent would confuse him and Daniel Craig.
We are talking about a Swiss banker, remember. :v Seriously, if Le Chiffre was able to find out the account number and eliminate Bond, getting the money from the banker would be the least of his worries.
"He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back—that’s an earthquake. and then you get yourself a couple of spots on your hat, and you’re finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory." Death of a Salesman
But then why would Bond need her and why would Le Chiffre kidnap her?
To get to Bond.
Yes, but it raises questions such as how did Le Chiffre know that Bond was coming at that particular point? I think this is an example of how messy CR's script got and like Darenhat and others I am not impressed with the reasons the writers provided for Le Chiffre dumping Vesper in the middle of the road.
"He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back—that’s an earthquake. and then you get yourself a couple of spots on your hat, and you’re finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory." Death of a Salesman
Le Chiffre probably had thugs watching Bond who watched him take off after him and they phoned/radioed ahead. In any case, the same thing happened in the book, only instead of dumping Vesper in the road, they dumped a spike-set that burst his tires and caused him to wreck. I think dumping Vesper in the road was more dramatic and just as effective.
I don't think the script is messy at all, and though the motivations are not "crystal" clear, we have enough information so that the "chase sequence" is no mystery:
Despite having lost the game LeChiffre, is far from down and out. He has CIA and MI6 to fall back on. Both organizations have the "Big Picture" in mind, and as LeChiffre tells Bond, oo7 and Vesper are expendible - of no real value compared with LeChiffre and the information in his head.
As in the book, LeChiffre's plan was to lure Vesper out, kidnap her and attempt to ransom her for the password. Presumably, both Bond and Vesper could access the account number and password. Vesper, being a "amateur" would be easy to torture the account number out of. Bond, would succumb to the rope in LeChiffre's expert hands.
Putting Vesper in the road is necessary to derail Bond's pursuit. Bond, has the transponder in his arm. If oo7 follows LeChiffre to his destination - then MI6 and CIA can capture him. LeChiffre did not count on Bond seeing through the "Mathis needs me ruse". Is it a gamble? Could both Bond and Vesper end up dead - YES! But as we know from the film LeChiffre is an accomplished gambler. So such a risk is not "out of charecter".
LeChiffre would odviously prefer to maintain the status quo. He would like to win the money back he lost when Bond foiled the Sky-Fleet/Ellipsis plan, and maintain his freedom and reputation.
Should all the above fail, Bond dies in the crash, and Vesper is run over - no big worry for LeChiffre since he can fall back on plan one, and defect to CIA or MI6.
Actually 7289, Le Chiffre didn't even need an account number. All he needed was the password. The account number that Vesper enters near the end is supposed to simply be the Treasury's account number to which the funds are to be transferred - but, of course, she betrayed her government and sent the money to some secret account which she later withdrew and gave to Mr. White.
Actually 7289, Le Chiffre didn't even need an account number. All he needed was the password. The account number that Vesper enters near the end is supposed to simply be the Treasury's account number to which the funds are to be transferred - but, of course, she betrayed her government and sent the money to some secret account which she later withdrew and gave to Mr. White.
ill have to look again,buti thought le chiffre tells bond (in the torture scene) that he will get the account number from vesper and all he 'needs' from bond is the password?
Actually 7289, Le Chiffre didn't even need an account number. All he needed was the password. The account number that Vesper enters near the end is supposed to simply be the Treasury's account number to which the funds are to be transferred - but, of course, she betrayed her government and sent the money to some secret account which she later withdrew and gave to Mr. White.
ill have to look again,buti thought le chiffre tells bond (in the torture scene) that he will get the account number from vesper and all he 'needs' from bond is the password?
If I understand you correctly, SpectreBlofeld, you're suggesting that LeChiffre didn't need Vesper for the account number. But he did need Vesper. One of the problems of looking back at a movie plot in hindsight is that unlike the characters as the story unfolds, we know what happened next. We're omniscient. The characters are not. LeChiffre didn't expect to die that night. If you were him and had "turned" an employee of MI6, wouldn't you want to keep that asset? By pretending he needed Vesper's half of the code, he protected a very valuable ally. I believe he originally kidnapped Vesper because he was angry at her -- he thought she had betrayed him by giving Bond the additional stake that allowed him to continue in the game and ultimately beat LeChiffre. And that was the whole reason for turning Vesper in the first place. She was supposed to deny Bond the extra funds so that he would be out of the game. Of course there was no guarantee that LeChiffre would beat Bond in the first place, but LeChiffre was simply hedging his bets (and let's face it: there would be no movie if one of the other players had won -- which in real life was always possible and which is a plot contrivance that goes all the way back to Fleming) He didn't know it was Leiter who gave Bond the funds.
That all makes sense, hh, but did all that occur to you at the time? You see, even if they're not plot holes, then it's kind of distracting for those of us having to work that all out while watching. Myself, I was just following Fleming's book at that point, rather than the film.
-- he thought she had betrayed him by giving Bond the additional stake that allowed him to continue in the game and ultimately beat LeChiffre. And that was the whole reason for turning Vesper in the first place. She was supposed to deny Bond the extra funds so that he would be out of the game.
But Vesper was playing her own game - remember, she wanted to steal the money for herself and free her Algerian lover or brother or whoever he was. Vesper's only hope to get the money was for Le Chiffre NOT to win (if LC wins, he uses the money to replace that which he lost in the airline scheme). Vesper need Bonded to win so she would have access to the money in the account. Since that's the case, she should have been jumping at the chance to give Bond a second stake (which she wasn't). This angle makes it very unclear as to whether she was indeed in league with Le Chiffre in the first place.
The deal Vesper makes with regards to the Poker Winnings should have gone like this:
On orders of White, Vesper denies the funds to Bond for the rebuy. Bond is then effectively out of the game.
After her capture by LeChiffre (who wants to ramsome her for the money) Vesper is saved by Mr. White, who agrees to let her lover go in exchange for the Poker Winnings.
Vesper steals the winnings and delivers them to Gettler (a White employee). Prehaps she has been told that once she turns over the winnings, Gettler will take her to her captive lover. She does not count of Bond following her ..........
Vesper unsure of her ultimate fate, leaves Bond the contact information for Mr. White, and prehaps a message we will not see until Bond 22.
That all makes sense, hh, but did all that occur to you at the time? You see, even if they're not plot holes, then it's kind of distracting for those of us having to work that all out while watching. Myself, I was just following Fleming's book at that point, rather than the film.
Yes, at least in part because I had read the novel. I knew all along that Vesper had betrayed Bond and was supposed to help LeChiffre beat him in order to save her boyfriend's life. But I don't know the details. I can only guess at them. I also believe that the guy with the hat in Venice is somehow related to LeChiffre for the simple reason that he also has a bad eye, and it seems a little too much for it to be coincidence that two of the bad guys would just happen to have a screwed up eye. I believe it will transpire in Bond 22 that they were brothers with a common congenital defect. What I don't understand is the exact relationship between Mr. White and LeChiffre. They were not, I believe, part of the same organization. Remember --- White wouldn't vouch for LeChiffre for the African rebels. His organization was only making an introduction. And yet, when LeChiffre lost the money is the airline stock scam, Mr. White executed him saying that his organization valued trust over money. Doesn't really jibe. Unless Mr. White and his organization was working a scheme of his own to get the money for themselves -- hence Mr. White walking away with what is presumably the money in a metal suitcase just like the one we saw floating away in the canal waters moments before. Something happened in the film that is hinted at but that I don't think will be explained until Bond 22.
But what if I hadn't read the novel? Did the murkiness of the plot spoil CR? -- not at all in my view. In a way, it enhanced it, because for the first time in the films Bond is moving through the murky world that a spy should inhabit. Moreover, the mechanics of the plot were not important in CR. We don't need to know them anymore than we needed to know that Jason Bourne was part of a CIA mind-control experiment to enjoy The Bourne Identity. What's important in CR is that Bond was betrayed by someone he loved. THAT is the plot, the payoff, the whole enchilada. The rest, for CR's purposes, is six-of-one, one half-dozen of the other.
Now I believe the reasons for the betrayal and the mechanics of the betrayal will inform much of Bond 22. I just hope that whatever they are, they impact Bond as greatly as the betrayal itself.
-- he thought she had betrayed him by giving Bond the additional stake that allowed him to continue in the game and ultimately beat LeChiffre. And that was the whole reason for turning Vesper in the first place. She was supposed to deny Bond the extra funds so that he would be out of the game.
But Vesper was playing her own game - remember, she wanted to steal the money for herself and free her Algerian lover or brother or whoever he was. Vesper's only hope to get the money was for Le Chiffre NOT to win (if LC wins, he uses the money to replace that which he lost in the airline scheme). Vesper need Bonded to win so she would have access to the money in the account. Since that's the case, she should have been jumping at the chance to give Bond a second stake (which she wasn't). This angle makes it very unclear as to whether she was indeed in league with Le Chiffre in the first place.
I don't think that's the case. It's LeChiffre who holds her Algerian lover to force her to help him.
But if Le Chiffre was actually holding Vesper's lover than he had no need to kidnap Vesper and try to force the account number and password from Bond. All it did was put him at risk. LC was sitting on a win-win situation. Either he won the money in the poker game, or Bond wins the money and he uses Vesper's lover as collateral to transfer the money into the wrong account (which is what finally happened). Now we have no reason for LC to kidnap Vesper (either to get her, or to get at Bond).
But if Le Chiffre was actually holding Vesper's lover than he had no need to kidnap Vesper and try to force the account number and password from Bond. All it did was put him at risk. LC was sitting on a win-win situation. Either he won the money in the poker game, or Bond wins the money and he uses Vesper's lover as collateral to transfer the money into the wrong account (which is what finally happened). Now we have no reason for LC to kidnap Vesper (either to get her, or to get at Bond).
You may be right about LeChiffre being in a win-win situation, but wouldn’t it make sense to win as much as possible if one opportunity was better than another? Again, I think you’re not looking at this from the characters’ limited point of view.
Here’s what happened – It’s really a lot like the book:
LeChiffre, through various contacts, kidnaps the boyfriend of Vesper Lynd, a young accountant at MI6, who is assigned to be the paymaster for James Bond, the MI6 agent sent to defeat him and put a permanent end to his career as a terrorist financier. He threatens to kill him if she doesn’t help him defeat Bond.
She does, telling LeChiffre that Bond believes he has a “tell,” information that LeChiffre uses to clean Bond out. He believes that’s the end of it. But Bond shows up with more dough that he assumes was OK'd by Vesper and beats him.
Infuriated at what he perceives to be her double-cross, LeChiffre summons Vesper to the parking lot and grabs her. Bond sees this and pursues them.
In the car, Vesper denies giving Bond the additional funds. She doesn’t know where he got the money. Mathis perhaps. But she can still get him the money, by entering a phony account when it comes time to transfer the funds from the games escrow account. But LeChiffre sees Bond following them and has a better idea. Vesper’s idea would immediately paint her as a traitor. After all, the account is an MI6 account which the British Treasury has access to. They would know it was her if the money doesn’t show up there.
He tells her she will give her another chance, but they need the password and only Bond has that. He tosses her out on the road in Bond’s path to force him to stop. He figures he will torture Bond until he gives up the password. If Bond does, he gets the money and keeps a valuable asset inside an organization that is hunting him. If Bond doesn’t care about his own life, maybe he can convince him to talk by threatening to torture Vesper. If threats don’t work, then maybe actually torturing her in front of him might work. Lots of good options for LeChiffre there. As an added bonus and to further cast suspicion away from Vesper, he tells Bond that it was Mathis who betrayed him.
However – by that time Mr. White’s organization has discovered that LeChiffre has ripped off the Africans, using their money to play the stock market. Perhaps it has received word that two of LeChiffre's men were arrested with the bodies of two of the Africans in the trunk of their car. It sends him to terminate LeChiffre. He bursts in and kills LeChiffre’s henchmen. Vesper pleads with him, telling him she will get the money for him personally (his employers – the organization -- need not know) if he lets Bond — who she now realizes she loves — live. “But what about you?” Mr. White may have asked. MI6 will know you stole the money.” Vesper says she doesn’t care. She wants Bond to live. She will meet Mr. White in Venice on such and such a date and will give him the money there.
That’s where we see Mr. White kill LeChiffre.
At the hospital, she enters a phony number, diverting the money to another account in Venice. When she arrives in the city with Bond, she is stunned to see Gettler, LeChiffre’s brother and accomplice, obviously looking for her. He found out where she was going the same way he and LeChiffre found out about her boyfriend.
Still, she gives it to Mr. White as promised instead, and goes off to meet with Gettler to offer her life in exchange for her boyfriend’s. She knows that she will be discovered to be a traitor and will lose Bond’s love, and doesn’t care if she lives anymore. When Bond arrives, she can’t face him and chooses to die.
If LC was holding Vesper's boyfriend hostage in the case of 'losing' to Bond, woulddn't it stand to reason that LC was holding someone hostage from ALL the players at the table. LC had no clue as to who would win at the table.
I'm not exactly sure how that's a lot like the book. Admittedly, my memory isn't as sharp as it used to be but in the book there was no 'tell', there was no pleading with Vesper about the buy-in, there was no Mr. White trying to get money for Africans, there was no secret account number or secret password, and there was no throwing Vesper in the road.
This point brings us back the original conundrum: if LC had control over Vesper, he was in a win-win situation and had no reason to fret if Bond won the money. When Bond won, it turned into a win-lose situation, Vesper being his only chance at getting the money back. His tossing Vesper into the road, risking both the lives of Vesper (the account #) and Bond (the password) in a terrible motor accident. Would Bond stop or swerve in time? Would Bond survive when his speeding car swerved off the road. LC had no idea of the outcome of any of that, essentially turning his win-lose situation into a lose-lose situation. And if LC thought Vesper betrayed him once by suspecting her cooperation about the buy-in, would be trust her to comply a second time? It seems that whenever I try to tie two threads together, another one unravels someplace else.
I suppose we could analyze this for days on end. I have this sneaking suspicion that Bond 22 is going to end up like Star Wars Episode III. One hopes they'll explain all of the inconsistencies in Ep II, only to come to the realization that apparently even the writers are as confused as the audience.
Perhaps it's a case of too many writers spoiling the Haggis? (Ouch ;%)
The original Fleming material was worked on by Purvis & Wade, then Paul Haggis. MGW no doubt did some doctoring, and perhaps BB and Campbell threw in some ideas. Theory- at a certain point in the writing process, Le Chiffre was to make Bond crash by a similar method to the book ie using a mechanical device. Someone (any of the above names) comes up with the idea of him throwing Vesper into the road- it's more visual and visceral- and it's agreed to. The result is that 007 crashes spectacularly while avoiding running over his lady, and ends up in Le Chiffre's power as per Fleming, a sequence which early on in the proceedings was selected as being crucial to the film.
This point brings us back the original conundrum: if LC had control over Vesper, he was in a win-win situation and had no reason to fret if Bond won the money. When Bond won, it turned into a win-lose situation, Vesper being his only chance at getting the money back. His tossing Vesper into the road, risking both the lives of Vesper (the account #) and Bond (the password) in a terrible motor accident. Would Bond stop or swerve in time? Would Bond survive when his speeding car swerved off the road. LC had no idea of the outcome of any of that, essentially turning his win-lose situation into a lose-lose situation. And if LC thought Vesper betrayed him once by suspecting her cooperation about the buy-in, would be trust her to comply a second time? It seems that whenever I try to tie two threads together, another one unravels someplace else.
It only unravels because, as I've said before, you know what going to happen. LC doesn't. There's really no conundrum. You're win/win situation is really a win/win bigger situation. Most people would first try to win the bigger prize if given the choice and go from there. Which is what LeChiffre did. If it got to the point of sacrificing his mole, Vesper, or not getting the money, it would have been goodbye Vesper.
As for the holding hostages for everyone at the table, you're right. But it was Fleming's conceit that there were in effect only two players who could win. LC or Bond.
Apologies if this has been discussed but I couldn't find anything; while celebrating a bit after winning the big pot, what clued in Bond that Vesper was in danger when she left the dining room?
I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one confused by this.
The plot was so mismanaged that the writers had to enlist M at the very end, to quickly explain everything to us. ("Oh by the way 007, Vesper had a boyfriend. He was kidnapped by Le Chiffre's organization, and she was blackmailed. Why weren't you killed the night you were tortured? Vesper must have made a deal to spare your life in exchange for the money. Duh!") Horrible plot execution on the part of the screenwriters. Utterly dire!
Well, the novel was the same way... you didn't find out about all that until the bitch was dead.:)) If I remember correctly, in the novel, this was all revealed in Vesper's suicide note to Bond. Besides, if you knew about all that stuff ahead of time, there wouldn't have been much of a surprise about how it all ended.
Of course, Vesper had to be killed off somehow. If she had lived, Bond probably would have quit the Service and married her. Then they couldn't make any more movies!-{
This point brings us back the original conundrum: if LC had control over Vesper, he was in a win-win situation and had no reason to fret if Bond won the money. When Bond won, it turned into a win-lose situation, Vesper being his only chance at getting the money back. His tossing Vesper into the road, risking both the lives of Vesper (the account #) and Bond (the password) in a terrible motor accident. Would Bond stop or swerve in time? Would Bond survive when his speeding car swerved off the road. LC had no idea of the outcome of any of that, essentially turning his win-lose situation into a lose-lose situation. And if LC thought Vesper betrayed him once by suspecting her cooperation about the buy-in, would be trust her to comply a second time? It seems that whenever I try to tie two threads together, another one unravels someplace else.
It only unravels because, as I've said before, you know what going to happen. LC doesn't. There's really no conundrum. You're win/win situation is really a win/win bigger situation. Most people would first try to win the bigger prize if given the choice and go from there. Which is what LeChiffre did. If it got to the point of sacrificing his mole, Vesper, or not getting the money, it would have been goodbye Vesper.
As for the holding hostages for everyone at the table, you're right. But it was Fleming's conceit that there were in effect only two players who could win. LC or Bond.
I must be stupid, then, because I don't see how it is a win/win bigger scenario. When I put myself in LC's shoes, I'm thinking. "I just lost my shot at the money - now I'm going to hunted down and most likely dead. My ONLY shot at getting the money back (and thus surviving) is Vesper who knows the account # of the money, and who seemingly betrayed me by buying Bond back in. Maybe I'll kick here out of the car, where Bond just might run her over and kill her (then I'll never get the money and I'm dead). Maybe Bond will see her, stop in time and save her. Maybe she'll get the money back. Maybe not. I don't know. Can I trust her? I don't know."
I still come back the to the conclusion that LC had no incentive to throw her out of the car, unless he wanted her dead. To get to the money, he needed her alive.
The scenario where he ditched her to make her look innocent and frame Mathis is the best explanation I've heard so far. But it still bottomlines at the fact that he needs her alive, and as desperate as he would have been, I don't see a rational explanation for his method of stopping Bond's pursuit.
The scenario where he ditched her to make her look innocent and frame Mathis is the best explanation I've heard so far. But it still bottomlines at the fact that he needs her alive, and as desperate as he would have been, I don't see a rational explanation for his method of stopping Bond's pursuit.
No, you're not stupid. But rational explanations for characters' motivations are by definition relative in Bond movies. I'm not suggesting this is how it would all go down in the real world. But once you accept the basic premise that a card game will be the means by which a terrorist financier will be stopped, I think my explanation for LC's actions is rationality itself. Don't get me wrong -- I know what you're saying. But in the context of Bond, it's a little like someone watching a Star Warsmovie and saying: "Aahh, that's BS -- space aliens would never do that ..." I think Fleming viewed his yarns as "possible ... but highly improbable." That's pretty much the space that CR and James Bond inhabit, so you have to give it some latitude.
LoeffelholzThe United States, With LovePosts: 8,998Quartermasters
edited October 2007
I think the very fact that we're still parsing individual scenes, examining every plot hole with an electron microsope, and speculating on the characters' veiled motivations, is a testimonial to the film's success,* and naturally causes fandom to look toward #22 with anticipation---for answers to some of these questions, if for no other reason B-)
* And after all, isn't the success of CR the real mystery? :v )
Check out my Amazon author page!Mark Loeffelholz
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
superadoRegent's Park West (CaliforniaPosts: 2,656MI6 Agent
I think the very fact that we're still parsing individual scenes, examining every plot hole with an electron microsope, and speculating on the characters' veiled motivations, is a testimonial to the film's success,* and naturally causes fandom to look toward #22 with anticipation---for answers to some of these questions, if for no other reason B-)
* And after all, isn't the success of CR the real mystery? :v )
Then again, it could be just another unresolved plot fixation, similar to fan guesswork over what Bill Murray whispered to Scarlett Johanson in Lost in Translation.
"...the purposeful slant of his striding figure looked dangerous, as if he was making quickly for something bad that was happening further down the street." -SMERSH on 007 dossier photo, Ch. 6 FRWL.....
Seems CR was set up to have it any way they want it in Bond 22: Vesper's BF is the big bad guy, he's a pawn; Vesper tells Le Chiffre about the "tell," Mathis does; Le Chiffre knows about the BF, or doesn't. This thread may contain far more thought than the filmmakers out into it in the first place.
CR's a thriller, with moments of wildly high drama and excitement, as is common to thrillers. Not all the plot machinations are explained, or even easily surmised. What we DO know: Vesper betrayed Bond and MI:6 because the Organization was blackmailing her by kidnapping her BF. But was Mathis a traitor too? Was Vesper's behind-the-door torture real, or staged to sway Bond? How much was Le Chiffre in the loop about Vesper, and vice versa? How was the "tell" sting arranged: set up in advance with Le Chiffre and ???, or Vesper or Mathis told Le Chiffre about Bond figuring it out and he then used it to beat Bond? I tend to think Le Chiffre knew Vesper was in on it, got the "tell" info from her during the game and then used it to beat Bond, and staged the phony torture to sway Bond. If Vesper's getting blackmailed, why the need to torture her? I'd assume he'd already gotten any info from her he needed before tossing her into the road--she was expendable at that point IMO, a tool to be used to sway Bond so use her like a tool he did. Vesper convinced Mr. White that she could finagle the money to the Organization, and thus saved Bond's life--just like M said at the end. Vesper being a traitor explains a lot at the end IMO, at least for me.
At this point, I wanna know: was Mathis in on it? I don't think so, but maybe. I'm pretty sure we'll find out Vesper told Le Chiffre about Bond discovering Le Chiffre's "tell" during the poker game, and that's the only plot point for which Mathis could be the bad guy IMO.
Is the BF a baddie? Maybe, could work either way.
About the thread title question: either Mathis IS in on it and was suckering Vesper to come out to get kidnapped. Or Vesper was getting a call from Le Chiffre/Mr. White to come out, and simply covered in front of Bond by saying "Mathis needs me." Obviously, just because the game was over and Bond had won, the Organization/Le Chiffre was still trying to get the money. It'll get explained in Bond 22, in about two lines most likely.
I think the very fact that we're still parsing individual scenes, examining every plot hole with an electron microsope, and speculating on the characters' veiled motivations, is a testimonial to the film's success,* and naturally causes fandom to look toward #22 with anticipation---for answers to some of these questions, if for no other reason B-)
* And after all, isn't the success of CR the real mystery? :v )
Then again, it could be just another unresolved plot fixation, similar to fan guesswork over what Bill Murray whispered to Scarlett Johanson in Lost in Translation.
What I want to know is what was in the box in Belle de Jour? I think it was the same thing that was in the box in Pulp Fiction, only Catherine Deneuve and her client in the former were going to use it for different purposes than Travolta's gangster cronies in the latter )
The problem with all this unresolved stuff is that it gives a lot for Bond 22 to hark back to: and that's if they can be even bothered. I'm not sure the writers care much about all these plotholes; they got away with it didn't they? Otherwise, 2 years after, they have to go back and explain all this stuff and generally speaking, each new film benefits from not having to look backwards much at all, or being much connected to its predessessor.
I think the very fact that we're still parsing individual scenes, examining every plot hole with an electron microsope, and speculating on the characters' veiled motivations, is a testimonial to the film's success,* and naturally causes fandom to look toward #22 with anticipation---for answers to some of these questions, if for no other reason B-)
* And after all, isn't the success of CR the real mystery? :v )
Then again, it could be just another unresolved plot fixation, similar to fan guesswork over what Bill Murray whispered to Scarlett Johanson in Lost in Translation.
What I want to know is what was in the box in Belle de Jour? I think it was the same thing that was in the box in Pulp Fiction, only Catherine Deneuve and her client in the former were going to use it for different purposes than Travolta's gangster cronies in the latter )
What I want to know is, in FRWL and TB, who was really Blofeld? Was it the Blofeld of YOLT, OHMSS or DAF and which of them were fakes? Or were they all fakes? )
"He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back—that’s an earthquake. and then you get yourself a couple of spots on your hat, and you’re finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory." Death of a Salesman
superadoRegent's Park West (CaliforniaPosts: 2,656MI6 Agent
I think the very fact that we're still parsing individual scenes, examining every plot hole with an electron microsope, and speculating on the characters' veiled motivations, is a testimonial to the film's success,* and naturally causes fandom to look toward #22 with anticipation---for answers to some of these questions, if for no other reason B-)
* And after all, isn't the success of CR the real mystery? :v )
Then again, it could be just another unresolved plot fixation, similar to fan guesswork over what Bill Murray whispered to Scarlett Johanson in Lost in Translation.
What I want to know is what was in the box in Belle de Jour? I think it was the same thing that was in the box in Pulp Fiction, only Catherine Deneuve and her client in the former were going to use it for different purposes than Travolta's gangster cronies in the latter )
Hahaha, loved that movie, but darnit, it leaves too much...too much of the really interesting stuff (Catherine Deneuve's attributes) to the imagination!
"...the purposeful slant of his striding figure looked dangerous, as if he was making quickly for something bad that was happening further down the street." -SMERSH on 007 dossier photo, Ch. 6 FRWL.....
Comments
I don't know if Le Chiffre would have minded. All he needed was Bond's password for the funds. I've seen a lot of people misinterpret the movie (not talking about you or anyone else in particular) and think that he would've needed a bank account number of some sort from Vesper - which is not the case; she merely entered the account number of where the funds would go to in the end.
Now, how he planned to actually USE that password is beyond me. It's not like the Swiss banker gent would confuse him and Daniel Craig.
Banker: "Say, didn't you LOSE the tournament?"
Le Chiffre: "Ehrm, we uh, played one more hand after everyone else left... trust me, I have the password and everything."
I dunno, maybe it would be that easy.
But then why would Bond need her and why would Le Chiffre kidnap her?
We are talking about a Swiss banker, remember. :v Seriously, if Le Chiffre was able to find out the account number and eliminate Bond, getting the money from the banker would be the least of his worries.
To get to Bond.
Le Chiffre probably had thugs watching Bond who watched him take off after him and they phoned/radioed ahead. In any case, the same thing happened in the book, only instead of dumping Vesper in the road, they dumped a spike-set that burst his tires and caused him to wreck. I think dumping Vesper in the road was more dramatic and just as effective.
Despite having lost the game LeChiffre, is far from down and out. He has CIA and MI6 to fall back on. Both organizations have the "Big Picture" in mind, and as LeChiffre tells Bond, oo7 and Vesper are expendible - of no real value compared with LeChiffre and the information in his head.
As in the book, LeChiffre's plan was to lure Vesper out, kidnap her and attempt to ransom her for the password. Presumably, both Bond and Vesper could access the account number and password. Vesper, being a "amateur" would be easy to torture the account number out of. Bond, would succumb to the rope in LeChiffre's expert hands.
Putting Vesper in the road is necessary to derail Bond's pursuit. Bond, has the transponder in his arm. If oo7 follows LeChiffre to his destination - then MI6 and CIA can capture him. LeChiffre did not count on Bond seeing through the "Mathis needs me ruse". Is it a gamble? Could both Bond and Vesper end up dead - YES! But as we know from the film LeChiffre is an accomplished gambler. So such a risk is not "out of charecter".
LeChiffre would odviously prefer to maintain the status quo. He would like to win the money back he lost when Bond foiled the Sky-Fleet/Ellipsis plan, and maintain his freedom and reputation.
Should all the above fail, Bond dies in the crash, and Vesper is run over - no big worry for LeChiffre since he can fall back on plan one, and defect to CIA or MI6.
Bond’s Beretta
The Handguns of Ian Fleming's James Bond
ill have to look again,buti thought le chiffre tells bond (in the torture scene) that he will get the account number from vesper and all he 'needs' from bond is the password?
If I understand you correctly, SpectreBlofeld, you're suggesting that LeChiffre didn't need Vesper for the account number. But he did need Vesper. One of the problems of looking back at a movie plot in hindsight is that unlike the characters as the story unfolds, we know what happened next. We're omniscient. The characters are not. LeChiffre didn't expect to die that night. If you were him and had "turned" an employee of MI6, wouldn't you want to keep that asset? By pretending he needed Vesper's half of the code, he protected a very valuable ally. I believe he originally kidnapped Vesper because he was angry at her -- he thought she had betrayed him by giving Bond the additional stake that allowed him to continue in the game and ultimately beat LeChiffre. And that was the whole reason for turning Vesper in the first place. She was supposed to deny Bond the extra funds so that he would be out of the game. Of course there was no guarantee that LeChiffre would beat Bond in the first place, but LeChiffre was simply hedging his bets (and let's face it: there would be no movie if one of the other players had won -- which in real life was always possible and which is a plot contrivance that goes all the way back to Fleming) He didn't know it was Leiter who gave Bond the funds.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
But Vesper was playing her own game - remember, she wanted to steal the money for herself and free her Algerian lover or brother or whoever he was. Vesper's only hope to get the money was for Le Chiffre NOT to win (if LC wins, he uses the money to replace that which he lost in the airline scheme). Vesper need Bonded to win so she would have access to the money in the account. Since that's the case, she should have been jumping at the chance to give Bond a second stake (which she wasn't). This angle makes it very unclear as to whether she was indeed in league with Le Chiffre in the first place.
On orders of White, Vesper denies the funds to Bond for the rebuy. Bond is then effectively out of the game.
After her capture by LeChiffre (who wants to ramsome her for the money) Vesper is saved by Mr. White, who agrees to let her lover go in exchange for the Poker Winnings.
Vesper steals the winnings and delivers them to Gettler (a White employee). Prehaps she has been told that once she turns over the winnings, Gettler will take her to her captive lover. She does not count of Bond following her ..........
Vesper unsure of her ultimate fate, leaves Bond the contact information for Mr. White, and prehaps a message we will not see until Bond 22.
Bond’s Beretta
The Handguns of Ian Fleming's James Bond
Yes, at least in part because I had read the novel. I knew all along that Vesper had betrayed Bond and was supposed to help LeChiffre beat him in order to save her boyfriend's life. But I don't know the details. I can only guess at them. I also believe that the guy with the hat in Venice is somehow related to LeChiffre for the simple reason that he also has a bad eye, and it seems a little too much for it to be coincidence that two of the bad guys would just happen to have a screwed up eye. I believe it will transpire in Bond 22 that they were brothers with a common congenital defect. What I don't understand is the exact relationship between Mr. White and LeChiffre. They were not, I believe, part of the same organization. Remember --- White wouldn't vouch for LeChiffre for the African rebels. His organization was only making an introduction. And yet, when LeChiffre lost the money is the airline stock scam, Mr. White executed him saying that his organization valued trust over money. Doesn't really jibe. Unless Mr. White and his organization was working a scheme of his own to get the money for themselves -- hence Mr. White walking away with what is presumably the money in a metal suitcase just like the one we saw floating away in the canal waters moments before. Something happened in the film that is hinted at but that I don't think will be explained until Bond 22.
But what if I hadn't read the novel? Did the murkiness of the plot spoil CR? -- not at all in my view. In a way, it enhanced it, because for the first time in the films Bond is moving through the murky world that a spy should inhabit. Moreover, the mechanics of the plot were not important in CR. We don't need to know them anymore than we needed to know that Jason Bourne was part of a CIA mind-control experiment to enjoy The Bourne Identity. What's important in CR is that Bond was betrayed by someone he loved. THAT is the plot, the payoff, the whole enchilada. The rest, for CR's purposes, is six-of-one, one half-dozen of the other.
Now I believe the reasons for the betrayal and the mechanics of the betrayal will inform much of Bond 22. I just hope that whatever they are, they impact Bond as greatly as the betrayal itself.
I don't think that's the case. It's LeChiffre who holds her Algerian lover to force her to help him.
You may be right about LeChiffre being in a win-win situation, but wouldn’t it make sense to win as much as possible if one opportunity was better than another? Again, I think you’re not looking at this from the characters’ limited point of view.
Here’s what happened – It’s really a lot like the book:
LeChiffre, through various contacts, kidnaps the boyfriend of Vesper Lynd, a young accountant at MI6, who is assigned to be the paymaster for James Bond, the MI6 agent sent to defeat him and put a permanent end to his career as a terrorist financier. He threatens to kill him if she doesn’t help him defeat Bond.
She does, telling LeChiffre that Bond believes he has a “tell,” information that LeChiffre uses to clean Bond out. He believes that’s the end of it. But Bond shows up with more dough that he assumes was OK'd by Vesper and beats him.
Infuriated at what he perceives to be her double-cross, LeChiffre summons Vesper to the parking lot and grabs her. Bond sees this and pursues them.
In the car, Vesper denies giving Bond the additional funds. She doesn’t know where he got the money. Mathis perhaps. But she can still get him the money, by entering a phony account when it comes time to transfer the funds from the games escrow account. But LeChiffre sees Bond following them and has a better idea. Vesper’s idea would immediately paint her as a traitor. After all, the account is an MI6 account which the British Treasury has access to. They would know it was her if the money doesn’t show up there.
He tells her she will give her another chance, but they need the password and only Bond has that. He tosses her out on the road in Bond’s path to force him to stop. He figures he will torture Bond until he gives up the password. If Bond does, he gets the money and keeps a valuable asset inside an organization that is hunting him. If Bond doesn’t care about his own life, maybe he can convince him to talk by threatening to torture Vesper. If threats don’t work, then maybe actually torturing her in front of him might work. Lots of good options for LeChiffre there. As an added bonus and to further cast suspicion away from Vesper, he tells Bond that it was Mathis who betrayed him.
However – by that time Mr. White’s organization has discovered that LeChiffre has ripped off the Africans, using their money to play the stock market. Perhaps it has received word that two of LeChiffre's men were arrested with the bodies of two of the Africans in the trunk of their car. It sends him to terminate LeChiffre. He bursts in and kills LeChiffre’s henchmen. Vesper pleads with him, telling him she will get the money for him personally (his employers – the organization -- need not know) if he lets Bond — who she now realizes she loves — live. “But what about you?” Mr. White may have asked. MI6 will know you stole the money.” Vesper says she doesn’t care. She wants Bond to live. She will meet Mr. White in Venice on such and such a date and will give him the money there.
That’s where we see Mr. White kill LeChiffre.
At the hospital, she enters a phony number, diverting the money to another account in Venice. When she arrives in the city with Bond, she is stunned to see Gettler, LeChiffre’s brother and accomplice, obviously looking for her. He found out where she was going the same way he and LeChiffre found out about her boyfriend.
Still, she gives it to Mr. White as promised instead, and goes off to meet with Gettler to offer her life in exchange for her boyfriend’s. She knows that she will be discovered to be a traitor and will lose Bond’s love, and doesn’t care if she lives anymore. When Bond arrives, she can’t face him and chooses to die.
Ta-daaaa.
I'm not exactly sure how that's a lot like the book. Admittedly, my memory isn't as sharp as it used to be but in the book there was no 'tell', there was no pleading with Vesper about the buy-in, there was no Mr. White trying to get money for Africans, there was no secret account number or secret password, and there was no throwing Vesper in the road.
This point brings us back the original conundrum: if LC had control over Vesper, he was in a win-win situation and had no reason to fret if Bond won the money. When Bond won, it turned into a win-lose situation, Vesper being his only chance at getting the money back. His tossing Vesper into the road, risking both the lives of Vesper (the account #) and Bond (the password) in a terrible motor accident. Would Bond stop or swerve in time? Would Bond survive when his speeding car swerved off the road. LC had no idea of the outcome of any of that, essentially turning his win-lose situation into a lose-lose situation. And if LC thought Vesper betrayed him once by suspecting her cooperation about the buy-in, would be trust her to comply a second time? It seems that whenever I try to tie two threads together, another one unravels someplace else.
I suppose we could analyze this for days on end. I have this sneaking suspicion that Bond 22 is going to end up like Star Wars Episode III. One hopes they'll explain all of the inconsistencies in Ep II, only to come to the realization that apparently even the writers are as confused as the audience.
The original Fleming material was worked on by Purvis & Wade, then Paul Haggis. MGW no doubt did some doctoring, and perhaps BB and Campbell threw in some ideas. Theory- at a certain point in the writing process, Le Chiffre was to make Bond crash by a similar method to the book ie using a mechanical device. Someone (any of the above names) comes up with the idea of him throwing Vesper into the road- it's more visual and visceral- and it's agreed to. The result is that 007 crashes spectacularly while avoiding running over his lady, and ends up in Le Chiffre's power as per Fleming, a sequence which early on in the proceedings was selected as being crucial to the film.
It only unravels because, as I've said before, you know what going to happen. LC doesn't. There's really no conundrum. You're win/win situation is really a win/win bigger situation. Most people would first try to win the bigger prize if given the choice and go from there. Which is what LeChiffre did. If it got to the point of sacrificing his mole, Vesper, or not getting the money, it would have been goodbye Vesper.
As for the holding hostages for everyone at the table, you're right. But it was Fleming's conceit that there were in effect only two players who could win. LC or Bond.
I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one confused by this.
I just assumed that Bond and Vesper's suite was on the same floor as Le Chiffre's.
Well, the novel was the same way... you didn't find out about all that until the bitch was dead.:)) If I remember correctly, in the novel, this was all revealed in Vesper's suicide note to Bond. Besides, if you knew about all that stuff ahead of time, there wouldn't have been much of a surprise about how it all ended.
Of course, Vesper had to be killed off somehow. If she had lived, Bond probably would have quit the Service and married her. Then they couldn't make any more movies!-{
I must be stupid, then, because I don't see how it is a win/win bigger scenario. When I put myself in LC's shoes, I'm thinking. "I just lost my shot at the money - now I'm going to hunted down and most likely dead. My ONLY shot at getting the money back (and thus surviving) is Vesper who knows the account # of the money, and who seemingly betrayed me by buying Bond back in. Maybe I'll kick here out of the car, where Bond just might run her over and kill her (then I'll never get the money and I'm dead). Maybe Bond will see her, stop in time and save her. Maybe she'll get the money back. Maybe not. I don't know. Can I trust her? I don't know."
I still come back the to the conclusion that LC had no incentive to throw her out of the car, unless he wanted her dead. To get to the money, he needed her alive.
The scenario where he ditched her to make her look innocent and frame Mathis is the best explanation I've heard so far. But it still bottomlines at the fact that he needs her alive, and as desperate as he would have been, I don't see a rational explanation for his method of stopping Bond's pursuit.
No, you're not stupid. But rational explanations for characters' motivations are by definition relative in Bond movies. I'm not suggesting this is how it would all go down in the real world. But once you accept the basic premise that a card game will be the means by which a terrorist financier will be stopped, I think my explanation for LC's actions is rationality itself. Don't get me wrong -- I know what you're saying. But in the context of Bond, it's a little like someone watching a Star Warsmovie and saying: "Aahh, that's BS -- space aliens would never do that ..." I think Fleming viewed his yarns as "possible ... but highly improbable." That's pretty much the space that CR and James Bond inhabit, so you have to give it some latitude.
* And after all, isn't the success of CR the real mystery? :v
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
Then again, it could be just another unresolved plot fixation, similar to fan guesswork over what Bill Murray whispered to Scarlett Johanson in Lost in Translation.
CR's a thriller, with moments of wildly high drama and excitement, as is common to thrillers. Not all the plot machinations are explained, or even easily surmised. What we DO know: Vesper betrayed Bond and MI:6 because the Organization was blackmailing her by kidnapping her BF. But was Mathis a traitor too? Was Vesper's behind-the-door torture real, or staged to sway Bond? How much was Le Chiffre in the loop about Vesper, and vice versa? How was the "tell" sting arranged: set up in advance with Le Chiffre and ???, or Vesper or Mathis told Le Chiffre about Bond figuring it out and he then used it to beat Bond? I tend to think Le Chiffre knew Vesper was in on it, got the "tell" info from her during the game and then used it to beat Bond, and staged the phony torture to sway Bond. If Vesper's getting blackmailed, why the need to torture her? I'd assume he'd already gotten any info from her he needed before tossing her into the road--she was expendable at that point IMO, a tool to be used to sway Bond so use her like a tool he did. Vesper convinced Mr. White that she could finagle the money to the Organization, and thus saved Bond's life--just like M said at the end. Vesper being a traitor explains a lot at the end IMO, at least for me.
At this point, I wanna know: was Mathis in on it? I don't think so, but maybe. I'm pretty sure we'll find out Vesper told Le Chiffre about Bond discovering Le Chiffre's "tell" during the poker game, and that's the only plot point for which Mathis could be the bad guy IMO.
Is the BF a baddie? Maybe, could work either way.
About the thread title question: either Mathis IS in on it and was suckering Vesper to come out to get kidnapped. Or Vesper was getting a call from Le Chiffre/Mr. White to come out, and simply covered in front of Bond by saying "Mathis needs me." Obviously, just because the game was over and Bond had won, the Organization/Le Chiffre was still trying to get the money. It'll get explained in Bond 22, in about two lines most likely.
What I want to know is what was in the box in Belle de Jour? I think it was the same thing that was in the box in Pulp Fiction, only Catherine Deneuve and her client in the former were going to use it for different purposes than Travolta's gangster cronies in the latter
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Hahaha, loved that movie, but darnit, it leaves too much...too much of the really interesting stuff (Catherine Deneuve's attributes) to the imagination!