Just saw episode one and have to say that as pretty as it is - and as deliciously lovely as Lara Pulver and Annabelle Wallis are - it's actually worse than I feared. Now, that may well only be because I expect some degree of fact in films/series/programmes that are based on fact (silly, I know), but it's just sooooo loosely based on fact that it might just as well be fiction. Well, not wuite, but close. To use an analogy, it is as much about the real Ian Fleming as Dominic Cooper looks/sounds/acts like the real Ian Fleming. Not to say that it's not entertaining or well made, because it is. Sadly though, we all knew we were in trouble when Cooper was hired and our worst fears have been realised. You get the feeling that the writers almost reverse-engineered the connection between Bond and Fleming: instead of Bond developing from Fleming, it's as if Fleming evolved from Bond.
There is a fair bit of fact, but there is just so much that leaves you doing anything from shaking your head and tut-tutting to actually shouting at the telly "That never happened" or "He wasn't even remotely like that." It's such a shame because Fleming is a great character who led a remarkable life. How any screen treatment of Fleming that intends to uncover the basis of Bond could ignore Fleming's Russian travels in the 1930s is beyond me, but that aside, there's just too much wrong for a purist and a stickler for fact like me to be happy.
I will continue watching it - who knows, may even buy it for the library - but we still don't have a proper, well-made and authentic screen story of Fleming. Shame.
Just saw episode one and have to say that as pretty as it is - and as deliciously lovely as Lara Pulver and Annabelle Wallis are - it's actually worse than I feared. Now, that may well only be because I expect some degree of fact in films/series/programmes that are based on fact (silly, I know), but it's just sooooo loosely based on fact that it might just as well be fiction. Well, not wuite, but close. To use an analogy, it is as much about the real Ian Fleming as Dominic Cooper looks/sounds/acts like the real Ian Fleming. Not to say that it's not entertaining or well made, because it is. Sadly though, we all knew we were in trouble when Cooper was hired and our worst fears have been realised. You get the feeling that the writers almost reverse-engineered the connection between Bond and Fleming: instead of Bond developing from Fleming, it's as if Fleming evolved from Bond.
There is a fair bit of fact, but there is just so much that leaves you doing anything from shaking your head and tut-tutting to actually shouting at the telly "That never happened" or "He wasn't even remotely like that." It's such a shame because Fleming is a great character who led a remarkable life. How any screen treatment of Fleming that intends to uncover the basis of Bond could ignore Fleming's Russian travels in the 1930s is beyond me, but that aside, there's just too much wrong for a purist and a stickler for fact like me to be happy.
I will continue watching it - who knows, may even buy it for the library - but we still don't have a proper, well-made and authentic screen story of Fleming. Shame.
I don't understand what it is about Fleming that makes producers want to fictionalize so much of his life and make him into Bond - or make their productions like a pseudo-Bond film. Is it they just don't take the subject seriously and think they can just cash in using the Bond series connection?
Is is that they approach his life from too modern a viewpoint and cannot do it from the POV of people from that era? Are the people making these productions just too young to relate to the decades Fleming lived in or are they just chasing a money tree? I wish I knew the answer.
I remember watching THE KINGS SPEECH by Tom Hooper and thinking...now there's someone who can capture the time, place and famous characters from that era and make them real. Pity he doesn't do Fleming's life.
I don't understand what it is about Fleming that makes producers want to fictionalize so much of his life and make him into Bond - or make their productions like a pseudo-Bond film. Is it they just don't take the subject seriously and think they can just cash in using the Bond series connection?
Is is that they approach his life from too modern a viewpoint and cannot do it from the POV of people from that era? Are the people making these productions just too young to relate to the decades Fleming lived in or are they just chasing a money tree? I wish I knew the answer.
I remember watching THE KINGS SPEECH by Tom Hooper and thinking...now there's someone who can capture the time, place and famous characters from that era and make them real. Pity he doesn't do Fleming's life.
Well, looking at his imdb page, he's free to work on anything right now. So maybe he could direct the Fleming biopic in the works.
The use of sex scenes to fill in the gaps in the story has made me lose interest in the show. The sex scene in episode two... just after SPOILER REMOVED in the air raid - seemed somewhat of a desperate move by the producers to try and keep the viewer interested in the show. I don't know if we were supposed to be shocked by Fleming's sadomasochistic side - "oh, he's a bit kinky!" but Fleming hitting the backside of his future wife looked somewhat comical.
Lord knows what Ian Fleming's relatives think of the show. They probably think it's ludicrously over-the-top and make-believe.
It's such a shame because Fleming is a great character who led a remarkable life.
Hmm, real life tends to be a lot duller than fantasy. Who knows, perhaps Fleming's real life wouldn't make for a compelling drama. You could argue this is one of reasons he wrote James Bond novels. He wanted to create a world that was an exaggeration, more exciting, more glamorous than the real world.
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 27,750Chief of Staff
I don't know if we were supposed to be shocked by Fleming's sadomasochistic side - "oh, he's a bit kinky!" but Fleming hitting the backside of his future wife looked somewhat comical.
But that was a big side to their relationship...they often hurt each other verbally too.
Hmm, real life tends to be a lot duller than fantasy. Who knows, perhaps Fleming's real life wouldn't make for a compelling drama. You could argue this is one of reasons he wrote James Bond novels. He wanted to create a world that was an exaggeration, more exciting, more glamorous than the real world.
Have you read Andrew Lycett's biography of Fleming ? If not, I recommend that you do...its a great read.
I've just watched episode 1 and I have to say I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.
I expected to watch it and moan about how it made Fleming out to be a Bond-like figure yet it hasn't, not yet anyway. It kept pretty much to the story of Fleming's life that I knew about anyway.
Dominic Cooper doesn't really look like Fleming and he doesn't sound like him but he's a good actor and gave a solid performance. The other cast were good as well.
As a piece of TV I found it entertaining and as a Bond fan I found it interesting. It will be interesting to see how it develops over the next three episodes.
"You are about to wake when you dream that you are dreaming"
The use of sex scenes to fill in the gaps in the story has made me lose interest in the show. The sex scene in episode two... just after SPOILER REMOVED in the air raid - seemed somewhat of a desperate move by the producers to try and keep the viewer interested in the show. I don't know if we were supposed to be shocked by Fleming's sadomasochistic side - "oh, he's a bit kinky!" but Fleming hitting the backside of his future wife looked somewhat comical.
Lord knows what Ian Fleming's relatives think of the show. They probably think it's ludicrously over-the-top and make-believe.
It's such a shame because Fleming is a great character who led a remarkable life.
Hmm, real life tends to be a lot duller than fantasy. Who knows, perhaps Fleming's real life wouldn't make for a compelling drama. You could argue this is one of reasons he wrote James Bond novels. He wanted to create a world that was an exaggeration, more exciting, more glamorous than the real world.
It's obvious from reading his bios and watching the film Fleming had a life long love/hate relationship with his mother, and this is what gave him his skewed outlook towards women. Being outshined by Peter and having his mother obviously dote on him over Fleming was just another wound he had to struggle with until Bond got him famous. Even then he remained insecure because his wife and his other peers considered his writing no higher than "yellow press journalism". Fleming heard it enough to the point that he believed that's as well as he could write, so he exploited his own creativity by going from Casino Royale - with a woman named Vesper Lynn and a real villain like Le Chiffre - to women named Pussy and Kissy and villains named Goldfinger. It really wasn't fair, as he really was a great storyteller.
I disagree and believe Fleming's life does make compelling drama. What's more dramatic than the psychological turmoil within his family and female relationships growing up? Than being sent to Russia to cover the spy trial? Than being assistant to the Director of Royal Naval Intelligence during WWII? Than creating a band of commandos to steal intelligence material? Than creating schemes to thwart the Nazis war effort? Than getting to travel to Lisbon and the Caribbean and Washington and meeting high ranking diplomats, military/intelligence officers and being friends with figures like Wild Bill Donovan and William Stephenson? Than dining with JFK and Jackie or knowing the scores of celebrities like Noel Coward, David Niven, Sir Anthony Eden, etc.?
In fact, Fleming's life is so rich with material that a proper miniseries on it could be as many episodes as Downton Abbey. No one will probably ever put that kind of time and money in it, but if they did, I for one would not miss any of it.
I disagree and believe Fleming's life does make compelling drama. What's more dramatic than the psychological turmoil within his family and female relationships growing up? Than being sent to Russia to cover the spy trial? Than being assistant to the Director of Royal Naval Intelligence during WWII? Than creating a band of commandos to steal intelligence material? Than creating schemes to thwart the Nazis war effort? Than getting to travel to Lisbon and the Caribbean and Washington and meeting high ranking diplomats, military/intelligence officers and being friends with figures like Wild Bill Donovan and William Stephenson? Than dining with JFK and Jackie or knowing the scores of celebrities like Noel Coward, David Niven, Sir Anthony Eden, etc.?
In fact, Fleming's life is so rich with material that a proper miniseries on it could be as many episodes as Downton Abbey. No one will probably ever put that kind of time and money in it, but if they did, I for one would not miss any of it.
Perfect summation of his life. Makes you wonder if the producers and writers actually looked at anything of Fleming's life beyond the most shallow and obvious. As you so eloquently say, the only problem with Fleming's life is that there's too much to put into a 4-part series or a movie...so I guess they decided to stick to the shallow and obvious!
Caspar might have been embarrassed. I doubt he would enjoy a film that shows his parents having sadomasochistic sex.
I get the feeling that this series took the easy way out of portraying the life of a writer. Hacks always try to over-dramatize things and trump up action. It's more difficult to portray the complicated process whereby a writer draws upon his life and imagination and mixes the two to create fiction.
I think an imaginative writer and director could make a more honest, less sensationalistic biopic of Fleming, especially if they had license to dramatize bits and pieces from Fleming's fiction.
Such a film could portray the life of the mind. It wouldn't need to be told in chronological order. Instead it could be anchored by quick scenes of Fleming writing at his desk in GoldenEye and reflecting on his past. While typing the screen might fade to the casino in Estoril, showing Commander Fleming in his Naval Intelligence days watching Nazis gamble and fantasizing about foiling them; then the scene might gradually transform into the Bond/LeChiffre card game battle in Casino Royale. A cut back to GoldenEye, showing Fleming's marriage to Ann, might be intercut with Bond's romance with Vesper. Scenes of the couple swimming in Jamaica could be juxtaposed with underwater scenes from the books. Later scenes of the Fleming's souring marriage could be contrasted with romantic scenes from the later Bond novels. Details of Fleming's international travels could shade into Bond's. Eventually fact and fiction would grow intermingled and impressionistic, reminiscent of the some of the hallucinatory scenes from the The Singing Detective, where a writer and his creation interact and clash. The series could end with Fleming's miserable death, visually showing how Bond exhausted and killed his creator.
I would be interested in watching such a series. But I'm not interested in seeing Fleming's life distorted into a fake Bond film. The truth is much more interesting, especially if augmented by examination of how Fleming's imagination worked, and how it invented a fictional world whose relation to reality is far subtler than anything starring Dominic Cooper.
Thanks Revelator. They did that to a certain extent if I recall with Dance in Goldeneye (using the flashbacks), but it's obvious from repeated viewings it had a minor budget and once again they over dramatized events and created ones that never happened. It really does come down to budget and writing and shallow writing really shows it's cheap ugly head in film and TV. I remember watching Lincoln recently for the (??) time and am drawn by how Logan and Webb wrote such compelling drama from what could have been mundane conversations about political machinations. You put that in the mouths of skilled actors and you'll always have a winner.
Watched the first episode last night and won't be watching another. I found the Fleming character in this was completely unlikable and the rest of the cast obnoxious. I'll stick with the books and Bond films.
"Thank you very much. I was just out walking my RAT and seem to have lost my way... "
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 27,750Chief of Staff
I've watched the first two episodes....and I enjoyed them....although it was impossible to stop myself from saying "that didn't happen"....highly enjoyable if you treat them as a 'tv version of the truth'.... )
And @ Muston...Fleming WASN'T a likeable person, unless he liked you....
And @ Muston...Fleming WASN'T a likeable person, unless he liked you....
Quite. I think it's a given then Fleming was a fairly insufferable moneyed snob. Mixed with the same. And there were other things - some of which FLEMING seems to be touching upon - which one may, or may not, consider to be particularly unpleasant.
Then again, Fleming didn't need to be "a nice person" for us to enjoy his books (just as we don't have to "admire" Daniel Craig just because we enjoy his film Bond).
Indeed, I've often though that had Fleming to meet us - his "fans" - he wouldn't be particularly pleasant with us.
Indeed, I've often though that had Fleming to meet us - his "fans" - he wouldn't be particularly pleasant with us.
Probably true, although I have seen quite a few very nice letters written by him to admirers and autograph collectors at auction over the years in which he was extremely polite, gracious and self-deprecating. There aren't tons of his autographs out there - perhaps due in part to his untimely death, or perhaps because he was a reluctant signer often - but when he did comply, he seemed very nice to his fans.
Indeed, I've often though that had Fleming to meet us - his "fans" - he wouldn't be particularly pleasant with us.
Probably true, although I have seen quite a few very nice letters written by him to admirers and autograph collectors at auction over the years in which he was extremely polite, gracious and self-deprecating. There aren't tons of his autographs out there - perhaps due in part to his untimely death, or perhaps because he was a reluctant signer often - but when he did comply, he seemed very nice to his fans.
Fair comments.
Though there is a difference between a limited number of polite, contemporary hand written letters to an author on his way up keen to be appreciated, and the fawning lunacy of the great internet unwashed. -{
Underwhelmed by the series though it was still nice and enjoyable to have new Bond related entertainment. Definitely won't be buying this series when it comes out on DVD though. I don't think Dominic Cooper is a bad actor necessarily, but I did not enjoy his portrayal of Fleming. Over dramatized and didn't focus on the aspects of his life that I was most interested in, which was life after the war. The CGI was really poor too, which can be expected for a tv mini-series, but it was significantly distracting when watching.
Sadly, I think a lot of Bond fans flatter themselves when it comes to Ian Fleming, particularly how interesting his life really is as TV or cinema entertainment.
The big picture is the war stuff. Unfortunately, if you don't and you also focus on the pre-war stuff and the later push for Bond, you end up with the tale of a heavy drinking, insecure snob totally dominated by his mother, who took that out on women to such an extent that he could probably be described as a misogynist. And much of the war stuff needs to be sexed up (in the Tony Blair sense).
The reality probably doesn't make great sense for most producers without trying to dilute the real life by making Fleming out to be some kind of handsome, crypto James Bond in WWII as has been the focus of the Connery, Cooper and even Dance tv productions.
Personally, I'd happily watch a film which focus on the 50s and 60s but I don't make entertainment for a living.
I blasted through all 4 episodes. Incredible work. Cooper was good but I just wish Benedict Cumberbatch was playing Fleming. I think he'd have been closer to the Fleming we recognise from interviews . Other than that it was outstanding. Nice little Skyfall reference in episode 2 with the music. Def getting it on bluray.
Really, really, really annoyed me at the end of episode 4 with the scene with Fleming's brother, making out like that was how the name "James Bond" was created yet only a few seconds later, it showed Fleming at Goldeneye along side the West Indies bird book written by James Bond.
How can you deviate from the truth yet show the truth a few seconds later? It's just confusing. If I didn't know how he actually thought of the name, I'd be so puzzled by the ending.
Also, the scene with the brother lasted like 30 seconds whilst the book was only on the screen for a few moments and it only said "Bond" not "James Bond". Think it could have been handled a lot better.
Overall thoughts on the series; it was ok. I can't really get enthused about it beyond that. I won't rush to rewatch it.
"You are about to wake when you dream that you are dreaming"
Asp9mmOver the Hills and Far Away.Posts: 7,535MI6 Agent
How can you deviate from the truth yet show the truth a few seconds later?
You could say the same thing for the whole series. Dreadful.
Dominic Cooper was on the radio last week talking about this series...he said the producers went with the angle of "this is the truth the way Fleming would have liked to see it"....ie a romanticized, Bond-esque view....I think it works on that level...
Comments
Yes. 4 1hour episodes
There is a fair bit of fact, but there is just so much that leaves you doing anything from shaking your head and tut-tutting to actually shouting at the telly "That never happened" or "He wasn't even remotely like that." It's such a shame because Fleming is a great character who led a remarkable life. How any screen treatment of Fleming that intends to uncover the basis of Bond could ignore Fleming's Russian travels in the 1930s is beyond me, but that aside, there's just too much wrong for a purist and a stickler for fact like me to be happy.
I will continue watching it - who knows, may even buy it for the library - but we still don't have a proper, well-made and authentic screen story of Fleming. Shame.
I don't understand what it is about Fleming that makes producers want to fictionalize so much of his life and make him into Bond - or make their productions like a pseudo-Bond film. Is it they just don't take the subject seriously and think they can just cash in using the Bond series connection?
Is is that they approach his life from too modern a viewpoint and cannot do it from the POV of people from that era? Are the people making these productions just too young to relate to the decades Fleming lived in or are they just chasing a money tree? I wish I knew the answer.
I remember watching THE KINGS SPEECH by Tom Hooper and thinking...now there's someone who can capture the time, place and famous characters from that era and make them real. Pity he doesn't do Fleming's life.
Well, looking at his imdb page, he's free to work on anything right now. So maybe he could direct the Fleming biopic in the works.
Lord knows what Ian Fleming's relatives think of the show. They probably think it's ludicrously over-the-top and make-believe.
Hmm, real life tends to be a lot duller than fantasy. Who knows, perhaps Fleming's real life wouldn't make for a compelling drama. You could argue this is one of reasons he wrote James Bond novels. He wanted to create a world that was an exaggeration, more exciting, more glamorous than the real world.
But that was a big side to their relationship...they often hurt each other verbally too.
Have you read Andrew Lycett's biography of Fleming ? If not, I recommend that you do...its a great read.
I expected to watch it and moan about how it made Fleming out to be a Bond-like figure yet it hasn't, not yet anyway. It kept pretty much to the story of Fleming's life that I knew about anyway.
Dominic Cooper doesn't really look like Fleming and he doesn't sound like him but he's a good actor and gave a solid performance. The other cast were good as well.
As a piece of TV I found it entertaining and as a Bond fan I found it interesting. It will be interesting to see how it develops over the next three episodes.
It's obvious from reading his bios and watching the film Fleming had a life long love/hate relationship with his mother, and this is what gave him his skewed outlook towards women. Being outshined by Peter and having his mother obviously dote on him over Fleming was just another wound he had to struggle with until Bond got him famous. Even then he remained insecure because his wife and his other peers considered his writing no higher than "yellow press journalism". Fleming heard it enough to the point that he believed that's as well as he could write, so he exploited his own creativity by going from Casino Royale - with a woman named Vesper Lynn and a real villain like Le Chiffre - to women named Pussy and Kissy and villains named Goldfinger. It really wasn't fair, as he really was a great storyteller.
I disagree and believe Fleming's life does make compelling drama. What's more dramatic than the psychological turmoil within his family and female relationships growing up? Than being sent to Russia to cover the spy trial? Than being assistant to the Director of Royal Naval Intelligence during WWII? Than creating a band of commandos to steal intelligence material? Than creating schemes to thwart the Nazis war effort? Than getting to travel to Lisbon and the Caribbean and Washington and meeting high ranking diplomats, military/intelligence officers and being friends with figures like Wild Bill Donovan and William Stephenson? Than dining with JFK and Jackie or knowing the scores of celebrities like Noel Coward, David Niven, Sir Anthony Eden, etc.?
In fact, Fleming's life is so rich with material that a proper miniseries on it could be as many episodes as Downton Abbey. No one will probably ever put that kind of time and money in it, but if they did, I for one would not miss any of it.
Perfect summation of his life. Makes you wonder if the producers and writers actually looked at anything of Fleming's life beyond the most shallow and obvious. As you so eloquently say, the only problem with Fleming's life is that there's too much to put into a 4-part series or a movie...so I guess they decided to stick to the shallow and obvious!
Review of the first episode.
Caspar might have been embarrassed. I doubt he would enjoy a film that shows his parents having sadomasochistic sex.
I get the feeling that this series took the easy way out of portraying the life of a writer. Hacks always try to over-dramatize things and trump up action. It's more difficult to portray the complicated process whereby a writer draws upon his life and imagination and mixes the two to create fiction.
I think an imaginative writer and director could make a more honest, less sensationalistic biopic of Fleming, especially if they had license to dramatize bits and pieces from Fleming's fiction.
Such a film could portray the life of the mind. It wouldn't need to be told in chronological order. Instead it could be anchored by quick scenes of Fleming writing at his desk in GoldenEye and reflecting on his past. While typing the screen might fade to the casino in Estoril, showing Commander Fleming in his Naval Intelligence days watching Nazis gamble and fantasizing about foiling them; then the scene might gradually transform into the Bond/LeChiffre card game battle in Casino Royale. A cut back to GoldenEye, showing Fleming's marriage to Ann, might be intercut with Bond's romance with Vesper. Scenes of the couple swimming in Jamaica could be juxtaposed with underwater scenes from the books. Later scenes of the Fleming's souring marriage could be contrasted with romantic scenes from the later Bond novels. Details of Fleming's international travels could shade into Bond's. Eventually fact and fiction would grow intermingled and impressionistic, reminiscent of the some of the hallucinatory scenes from the The Singing Detective, where a writer and his creation interact and clash. The series could end with Fleming's miserable death, visually showing how Bond exhausted and killed his creator.
I would be interested in watching such a series. But I'm not interested in seeing Fleming's life distorted into a fake Bond film. The truth is much more interesting, especially if augmented by examination of how Fleming's imagination worked, and how it invented a fictional world whose relation to reality is far subtler than anything starring Dominic Cooper.
And @ Muston...Fleming WASN'T a likeable person, unless he liked you....
Quite. I think it's a given then Fleming was a fairly insufferable moneyed snob. Mixed with the same. And there were other things - some of which FLEMING seems to be touching upon - which one may, or may not, consider to be particularly unpleasant.
Then again, Fleming didn't need to be "a nice person" for us to enjoy his books (just as we don't have to "admire" Daniel Craig just because we enjoy his film Bond).
Indeed, I've often though that had Fleming to meet us - his "fans" - he wouldn't be particularly pleasant with us.
Probably true, although I have seen quite a few very nice letters written by him to admirers and autograph collectors at auction over the years in which he was extremely polite, gracious and self-deprecating. There aren't tons of his autographs out there - perhaps due in part to his untimely death, or perhaps because he was a reluctant signer often - but when he did comply, he seemed very nice to his fans.
Fair comments.
Though there is a difference between a limited number of polite, contemporary hand written letters to an author on his way up keen to be appreciated, and the fawning lunacy of the great internet unwashed.
Ah well, 20 months til Bond 24 {[]
are laugh out loud funny, which I don't think they intended.
The big picture is the war stuff. Unfortunately, if you don't and you also focus on the pre-war stuff and the later push for Bond, you end up with the tale of a heavy drinking, insecure snob totally dominated by his mother, who took that out on women to such an extent that he could probably be described as a misogynist. And much of the war stuff needs to be sexed up (in the Tony Blair sense).
The reality probably doesn't make great sense for most producers without trying to dilute the real life by making Fleming out to be some kind of handsome, crypto James Bond in WWII as has been the focus of the Connery, Cooper and even Dance tv productions.
Personally, I'd happily watch a film which focus on the 50s and 60s but I don't make entertainment for a living.
I blasted through all 4 episodes. Incredible work. Cooper was good but I just wish Benedict Cumberbatch was playing Fleming. I think he'd have been closer to the Fleming we recognise from interviews . Other than that it was outstanding. Nice little Skyfall reference in episode 2 with the music. Def getting it on bluray.
Really, really, really annoyed me at the end of episode 4 with the scene with Fleming's brother, making out like that was how the name "James Bond" was created yet only a few seconds later, it showed Fleming at Goldeneye along side the West Indies bird book written by James Bond.
How can you deviate from the truth yet show the truth a few seconds later? It's just confusing. If I didn't know how he actually thought of the name, I'd be so puzzled by the ending.
Also, the scene with the brother lasted like 30 seconds whilst the book was only on the screen for a few moments and it only said "Bond" not "James Bond". Think it could have been handled a lot better.
Overall thoughts on the series; it was ok. I can't really get enthused about it beyond that. I won't rush to rewatch it.
You could say the same thing for the whole series. Dreadful.
Dominic Cooper was on the radio last week talking about this series...he said the producers went with the angle of "this is the truth the way Fleming would have liked to see it"....ie a romanticized, Bond-esque view....I think it works on that level...