Pierce Brosnan - Ian Fleming's Bond??
mrbain007
Posts: 393MI6 Agent
I remember a few years ago reading a quote from Christopher Lee:
"In my opinion - and I think I know as much, if not more about James Bond than anyone in the world, particularly about the characters on whom Ian told me Bond was based - Pierce Brosnan was by far the best and the closest to the character,"
Now I know PB gets a lot of hack about how he turned Bond into a superman, ruined the franchise bla bla. Indeed I'm not saying he's right. But does Lee have a case here? I mean he was Ian Fleming's cousin and probably knew the man better than any of us do.
Ideas
"In my opinion - and I think I know as much, if not more about James Bond than anyone in the world, particularly about the characters on whom Ian told me Bond was based - Pierce Brosnan was by far the best and the closest to the character,"
Now I know PB gets a lot of hack about how he turned Bond into a superman, ruined the franchise bla bla. Indeed I'm not saying he's right. But does Lee have a case here? I mean he was Ian Fleming's cousin and probably knew the man better than any of us do.
Ideas
Comments
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Seriously, I agree with Agent_M - PB could have been the perfect Bond - a good mix of SC & RM with a squirt of Cary Grant...
IMHO Wilson and B.Broccoli have ruined the franchise...
Jimmybondi
As Fleming's cousin and succesful Bond actor - I'm sure he's just blown away by your opinions.
http://apbateman.com
It's not his opinion I have a problem with, it's the way he's inflating it. Honestly, you don't see some hyperboyle in saying "and I think I know as much, if not more about James Bond than anyone in the world" ? Give me a break. Not even Kingsley Amis would have made such an absurd statement and I doubt Christopher Lee could have written something like The James Bond Dossier. Lee's full of it just like Scaramanga.
I've always thought PB was the most "rounded" incarnation (certainly out of all the movie Bond's). IMO he had all the traits to be Bond (the right image, charismatic, yet troubled, indulgent yet also highly professional). Unlike say RM he played it straight (despite some cheesey lines).
Ive seen this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_IzoKbNktY&feature=related
and some ppl say IF even sounds like PB lol.
I always thought his Bond was the most superficial of all. Playing it exactly how the public would want it. I just could not view Fleming's Bond as that bland.
I suppose one drawback about his films was that they were too gadget-heavy. If they had stripped those down and made him more reliant on his wits (more like the IF stories) THAT would have been interesting. I personally think PB could have pulled off a slightly darker, more serious Bond adventure. As it was I thought in terms of his image, his sparkle and his emotion he was pretty much the perfect Bond
Yes he could have been given better scripts but I much rather have seen them go to Timothy Dalton and right now Daniel Craig needs them even more.
I think PB had his moments in The World Is Not Enough, but the scene where he is tracing Elektra's face on the TV screen was a joke.
The World Is Not Enough is a very odd combination. On one hand the emotion is as ham fisted as your average network TV soap opera and on another it's a relentless end of explosions and high-tech imagery.
I think we need to keep separate from our consideration the performance skills of Christopher Lee and the Bond actors and focus on the overall persona and perhaps how much (or little) each of the cinematic Bonds physically resembled Fleming's concept of his character. In addition, we should also suspend our own biases about our favorite or most despised Bond actors, or any other personality biases against Lee or anyone else giving an opinion that opposes our own.
Regardless of the amount of exageration coming from Lee, if that were the case, it seems you reject anything and everything that he had to say on the matter (based on what?), which likewise is just an opinion. What you're ensentially saying is that there is no truth at all in Lee's statement. As for me, on the other hand, there's really nothing about Lee's character that I'm aware of that would make me fundamentally doubt him. Is he a bad actor? I don't personally know, but that wouldn't have bearing on his recollections about his discussions with Fleming.
The different between Amis and Lee, is that Amis became a scholar of sorts of the Bond stories, after the fact, whereas Lee, a relative by marriage, but more a friend and confidant of Fleming, has the unique distinction of witnessing and in some measure, participating in Fleming's creative development of the James Bond character. During that time (2006) when Lee made these statements, I also remember him specifying then-known personalities (Henry Cotton the golfer was one, I believe), or at least Lee alluding to a person who in his mind was a tangible and visual gauge of Fleming's "Bond," with whom he can clearly compare against whichever Bond actor. That, is what best qualifies the veracity of Christopher Lee's opinion on the Bond character, unless of course Mr. Lee is himself an unabashed and occasional fibber like his cousin by marriage.
On the Bond character and the different interpretations of the 6 Bond actors, like Amis, I can only use educated guesses to evaluate how much or little each one came close. The narraration portrays a serious and feeling Bond like Dalton and Craig. But I still leave room for what was actually in Fleming's head, just as his commisioned artist's depiction of Bond didn't neatly match his written description of Bond's physical appearance. With that, I can only imagine that Brosnan, like Moore, portrayed Bond with the air of a public school boy from Fleming's own social circle. Unlike Moore, however, Brosnan physically fits the written description. Given those superficials, I believe this is why Christopher Lee considers Brosnan as coming closest to the Bond character as described to him by Fleming.
Thats one thing I think quite a few people overlook. For some reason I always thought Dalton was a shade TOO serious in his potrayal of Fleming's Bond (whereas Moore was far too light).
I got the impression from the books that whilst Bond was undoubtably a very tough, determined figure (the side that Dalton nailed), he was also someone who knew how to have a little fun when the time was right. He could (occasionally) be a little mischievious and cheekey - particularly when it came to women. For example in Dr No he sings along when he sees Honeychille coming out of the sea naked. Likewise in the Thunderball novel he suddenly grabs the doctor at the health clinic and kisses her - something that would be considered "a little bit rapey" nowadays. My point being that there was a cheeky aire of "public schoolboy" quality to him - he even used the word "chap" on a regular basis; something very Etonian.
Might I also add that Lee has gone on record as saying that in his view NO ONE has COMPLETELY personified Fleming's vision. However out of those that have PB was the closest. My gut feeling is that IF would have approved of Brosnan as 007 - even if he may not have always liked his movies. He had the right image, largely played the role straight and had that little bit of verve and charm aswell.
IMO Daniel Craig, whilst certainly doing a good job now, looks like an "over-grown stuntman" the most. I can certainly believe that Fleming would have chosen PB over DC based on image alone. I'm probably going to get shot down
(what's your opinion) On other actors who have played Bond:
Timothy Dalton has Shakespearean training, but he underestimated the role. The character has to be graceful and move well and have a certain measure of charm as well as be dangerous. Pierce Brosnan’s a good actor. He’s added some new elements to it.
Thats coming from Connery, the man many people regard as the best Bond and (more importantly) the only actor out of the 6 to have talked with Fleming himself on the subject.
Heres a link to the whole interview:
http://www.totalfilm.com/features/the-icon-sean-connery
I think thats a very good point. Even IF wasn't 100% sure on what the character should look like. I don't think he envisioned a really bulky character though - that's probably why he was initially sceptical of Connery and why - I don't think - he would have been wholly happy with Craig.
The second part is probably true. I just thought, even in the book, there was a SLIGHTLY cheeky side to the character even though he wasn't a joker. Just didn't really get that impression with Dalton thats all. Although, in terms of someone who was determined and serious when it came to his job, he was pretty much spot on.
Part of that might have had something to do with the more politically correct times however (the AID's paranoia). I suppose that meant you couldn't really show the more sexually charged side of Fleming's Bond.
I think that whole thing about AIDS was an invention of the critics and it has been overblown over the years. Besides, Bond didn't even wear a jimmy hat.
There are similar passages throughout the books. Bond's described as a 'tough-looking customer'... a description of a photo of him walking was that he appeared as if he were headed urgently toward some danger down the street. More than once, Fleming used the words 'rather cruel mouth' and 'eyes like thin slits' (when Bond's angry) to describe him.
I can't reconcile any of these descriptions with Pierce Brosnan. Perhaps he could've pulled it off if the scripts had been different, but the fact his, he didn't. Craig and Dalton, on the other hand, have shown us this rather dark character. I think somewhere between the two of them lies Fleming's Bond.
At no point in Fleming's novels did I ever get an impression that Bond was a suave woman-charmer. He was described as 'rather good-looking', and because these *are* escapist fantasy stories, he always got the girl - but it was almost always by being the white knight and saving the day, thus getting the girl as a reward, rather than charming the skirts off of her.
Pierce's Bond was cheery and flirty in comparison (as was Moore's).
Excellent points, SpectreBlofeld {[]
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
What I mean is, he'll change with the times.
Too bad EON dosen't know this.
Personally I think the IF Bond is probably somewhere between Connery and Dalton, although Pierce does have some elements in there aswell. I thought there was something quite troubled about his character. As I've said before I always thought the scenes in the graveyard and on the beach in Goldeneye were quite Fleming-esque and showed Bond's more vulnerable, weaker side. The thing is he never took this aspect of the character far enough.
Its probably easier to say there is no movie Bond that has completely reflected Fleming's character. In my Moonraker novel there is an intro that says:
"Forget Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan and whoever's impersonating 007 this year. You're about to meet the Real James Bond, a much more interesting and complex character than even Sean Connery could bring to life on the big screen"
In all honesty I never really thought of Connery as "complex". He rarely seemed troubled by what he was doing. However he does have that charasmatic, tough, sexually aggressive side of Fleming to him.
Interestingly, I just found this video of PB playing alongside Lee as Fogg in Around the World in 80 Days. Funnily enough the character of Fogg was played by Niven originally.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwCCwFEjY3k
I think Fleming's Bond was meant to be a charmer to a certain degree. That was the whole point, the character knew how to indulge in a way the general public could not. In the novels he would enjoy wining and dining women he liked. In Moonraker for instance he looked forward to taking Gala Brand out before he discovered she was engaged. However maybe that side of him was exaggerated in the movies