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Virgil37 · November 2014

chrisisall wrote:

AdamOmega wrote:

Maybe it's a generational thing? I don't deny that the earlier films harken back to the "glory days" of Bond, but I'm not convinced that movies like Thunderball, You Only Live Twice or Diamonds Are Forever are somehow qualitatively superior to, say, GoldenEye and Casino Royale. This feels like a supremely broad generalization.

Objectively I must agree, subjectively I think it's a Connery thing.
Here's an example: Is Man Of Steel a better movie than Superman III? The answer doesn't matter because Superman III has Christopher Reeve. :007)

Good point. Now, what if Chris Reeve in Superman III had grey hair and had gained weight? (he didn't, he looked fantastic).

chrisisall · November 2014

Barbel wrote:

With all due respect, I'm going to argue with you here. The Dr Kaufman scene in TND is one of the best scenes in latter-day Bond.

Actually, I'll have to agree here- even thought the scene was littered with bits of levity, the overall effect created by Brosnan's super-straight take was one of Bond stuck in a nightmare situation, and Stamper offered the way out. Bond taking that opportunity turned out to be Brosnan gold. -{

AdamOmega · November 2014

Barbel wrote:

Gassy Man wrote:

I showed the Dr. Kaufman scene from Tomorrow Never Dies and asked him to compare it to the Professor Dent scene in Dr. No. He said there was no comparison. The former scene played campily, with too much comedy mixed in and a lot of cutting back and forth that interrupted the flow of what the actors were doing. On the other hand, he found the Professor Dent scene to be much more powerful, both in the way the scene created its intimacy between the two characters and the way it relied mostly on the acting. He liked that there wasn't any campiness and that the tension in the scene came from both suspense and the animosity between characters.

With all due respect, I'm going to argue with you here. The Dr Kaufman scene in TND is one of the best scenes in latter-day Bond. Brosnan doesn't beat Connery (obviously, since it's an impossible task) but his performance is nuanced and delicate, and he covers a wider range of emotions than Connery had to in the corresponding scene. Dr Kaufman gets this one scene, while Prof Dent has several, yet leaves a lasting impression which makes him stand out a lot more than Dent. Anthony Dawson's performance is all on one level; Vincent Schiavelli does much with his short screen time.
Therefore acting-wise I'd say the two scenes were on a par. Terence Young bests Roger Spottiswoode in his direction, as you say, though I do not find the latter scene particularly campy or overly comedic.
As a side note, the 2m (6'6") Schiavelli spends most of the scene sitting down- perhaps this restricted Spottiswoode, since standing he'd have towered over Brosnan (or anyone else short of Richard Kiel).

Agreed. I'd never really considered how similar both scenes are, up until now. Of course the Dent confrontation was far more "shocking" for its time, but the Kaufman scene is really no less brutal, nor is it played for laughs (although Vincent Schiavelli does have somewhat of a camp presence in the scene, nicely counterbalanced by his apparent taste for sadism). I think it's by far one of the strongest sequences in Tomorrow Never Dies.

+1

chrisisall · November 2014

Gassy Man wrote:

too much comedy mixed in and a lot of cutting back and forth that interrupted the flow of what the actors were doing.

I felt the 'comedy' underscored the seriousness of Bond's situation, and recent personal loss. And the editing was fairly tame by 21st Century ADD standards.

James Bond Movies Peaked For You With (place movie(s) here)

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