Mathis

avekev

There seems to be a lot of discussion about the way James Bond handles the death of Mathis.

On one side of the coin we have the tenderness of the way Bond cradles Mathis as he takes his last breath. Then on the other side we have the brutal way he disposes the body into a wheelie bin (dumpster) and removes the cash from his wallet.

Some Posters have expressed their disgust at the way Mathis' body is disposed of by a so called friend. But my take on this is that Bond realizes that Mathis is gone, there is nothing more that he can do for him now and so his training takes over and he has to think about his own wellbeing.

So by disposing the body in this way and taking the cash from his wallet makes it look like a violent street mugging. He knows that Mathis would probably do the same if the rolls were reversed.

I would be interested in other theories on this?

BFAzure

Yeah, another stupid scene. I hated the treatment of Mathis (and the wonderful Giancarlo Giannini) in this movie. What could have been a nice "out-and-out" between Mathis and Bond over Vesper's death was an unexplained, chummy dialogue leading to them travelling to Bolivia, leading to him showing up dead in a trunk, with Bond not caring in the slightest.

What?!?

7289

Glad that Mathis was "innocent".

His scenes with Bond were some of the best in the film. His death was a repeat of Vesper's - but Bond handled it in a professional way.

I would have preferred that Mathis not have been killed off.

00-Agent

I too was sorry to see Mathis die. Giancarlo was great. I thought that this question was addressed in the movie. Camille asks Bond if this is how he treats his friends and Bond responds that Mathis wouldn't care. He then proceeds to take the money out of Mathis' wallet. In other words Mathis would understand that he needed to get the heck out of there before anyone elso showed up and would not want them to put themselves at risk by sticking around. Its not that Bond doesn't care about Mathis but that he had a job to do and could not afford to grieve and properly dispose of the body at that moment.

jamesbondagent007

00-Agent wrote:

Its not that Bond doesn't care about Mathis but that he had a job to do and could not afford to grieve and properly dispose of the body at that moment.

Exactly. I thought that was pretty obvious in the film, and made sense.

Monza860

I love this scene but why couldn't he just put his body in the boot?

Pendragon

I nearly broke down crying when Mathis got shot, and then again when Bond cradles him in his arms while he dies. When Bond threw him in the dumpster, I agree with whomever said that Bond wanted to make it look like a violent mugging. It just seems to fit with the whole scene and instability of the government as portrayed throughout the whole movie.

~Pendragon -{

Agent Wade

Bond had been framed so much up to that point, there was no point in trying to cover his tracks. He was a broken man after all; his sense of self-destruction was in full swing. I thought at first it was strange that he never bothered to correct M of the accusations against him until I had time to really think about it. Bond was so far off the deep end distraught by his losing Vesper that he didn't care what happened to him anymore. He just wanted to run, punish and cause as much distruction to compensate for the amount of pain he's been dealt. Mathis was just another casualty of being in his company. Quantum of Solace showed that Bond needed to recover his balance of pompous ego vs. cold-heart. The death scene shown I think was valuable for Bond to realize that despite Mathis' unfortunate fate, he still understood what the young spy was dealing with and made the ultimate sacrifice to help him.

slinger

Mathis' death made be cry.
I've seen it 3 times so far and each time I tear up.
Bond does care about Mathis. My wife swears Bond even lets a tear go during that scene.
Leaving Mathis where he does was just the business side of Bond.
The question I have is, what does it mean when Bond asked Mathis if Mathis was his cover name? Is Mathis really named Mathis?
What did that refer to?

Macrossmaster

I think he remembers Mathis' words in CR:

"Just because you are dead, doesn't mean you can't be useful."

Taking the money and dumping the body is the last way Mathis can help Bond – by throwing people off the trail so Bond can escape.

MI-6 AGENT 003

slinger wrote:

The question I have is, what does it mean when Bond asked Mathis if Mathis was his cover name? Is Mathis really named Mathis?
What did that refer to?

I questioned this as well. My interpretation of it was that Mathis truly was working for Quantum the whole time and that's why Bond asked him his name because he had figured it out. Mathis realizing he had been betrayed by Quantum then decided to tell Bond the truth about him and Vesper. I could be wrong, but that's the way I took it.

slinger

That's the way I've been taking it. But I don't want Mathis to be part of Quantum. I liked him really being Bond's ally.

Youknowthename

Mathis was cleared, hence he got the house on the island. He simply had an alias name because he was a spy...think no more of it.

Youknowthename

Mathis was cleared, hence he got the house on the island. He simply had an alias name because he was a spy...think no more of it.

Gassy Man

I posted elsewhere about this, but did I mishear or was there some business about forgivng each other? If so, forgiveness for what? I usually listen carefully but cringed through a lot of this scene because the dialogue ended up getting hokey.

I also wondered why it was even necessary given that we already would get a sacrificial lamb with Fields. She could have been the one to die in Bond's arms (a la Vesper, making Greene's dig and Bond's finally saving the girl at the end even more pointed). Then, Bond and Mathis have a similar conversation about forgiveness while being escorted to the airport -- only Bond escapes. Mathis could have an exchange with M about trusting Bond and he presumably returns to retirement in his villa.

I'm not saying this just to keep Mathis alive but because his death came across more as a cheap stunt in the movie to illicit sadness than to contribute overall to the story -- Fields' death already provided that.