The Brosnaissance

Thought I posted this thread yesterday but something went amiss...

Anyway, have you reappraised the Brosnan tenure now that his successor has come and gone?

Dalton seemed to get a reappraisal somewhere in between the "Yo Momma" and CGI ice surfing scenes given the contrast between his down-to-earth portrayal vs cartoon antics of DAD. Do you see Brosnan in a different light now that we've had a Bond so grim he was killed off?

For me... unequivocally yes. Brosnan's tenure seems like a distant golden age of bombastic fun. Do I still think DAD went too far? Yes. However, taken as a whole, I'd rather do a Brosnan marathon over a Craig one any day of the week.

Generally speaking, I rate the Craig era higher than the Brosnan. I love GE, and I dote on the first half or so of TND, but from there it was all downhill. As for the Craigs, I'm not terribly fond of QoS and NTtD, but hold the other three in high regard.

I have had a reappraisal of half of the Brosnan films, namely TND (minus the last half hour), and DAD. Still do not care for the others. It has nothing to do with Craig, though. I enjoy all his films, and unlike PK, especially QOS and NTTD.

He never quite matched his debut, but that said GE is at least a series highpoint.

I've rewatched DAD all the way through once in the last few years (first time I did it in one sitting), but I've still never gotten all the way through TND at one time (those were the first Eon films I ever missed seeing theatrically, although I don't feel I missed much.)

I think my problem is that Broz needs a really good director, and except maybe for Campbell, he didn't have that with his four (Apted is a good director generally but not for that.) Now if he'd had John Boorman for TWINE instead of TAILOR OF PANAMA ... well, I still consider TAILOR to be his best Bond performance.

I think his mildness in speech is something that always bothers me, though I like it when he changes up and bites off lines, like snarling at Tanner in TWINE. I think it gives me Roger Moore flashbacks, but to be fair, Broz brought more of an edge than Rog ever did, except for 'eat the heroin' in THE WILD GEESE.

I don't think I would reappraise the films in any significant way, or his work in them. Then again, I've never varied in my devotion to Dalton in the role, or Connery. And I've never ever had the faintest appreciation for Craig in the role, though he used to be a fair character actor.

Lazenby is maybe the only Bond who I evolved a new opinion on, going from largely unfavorable to guardedly favorable with many caveats. That could just be my appreciation for the movie coloring things, though. Every time I see it in higher-rez, my opinion goes up (the one time I saw it in a theater, the print was awful, so I dom't have a golden memory of it from the cinema like I do with the Ted Moore-shot films and most of the others.)

Interesting point you make about the tone of voice, flashes of anger and the like. Someone (possibly Terence Young, although my memory's fuzzy) said of Connery that what women liked about him was 'the sophisticated veneer with the hint of truck driver beneath'.

So that's what I've been doing wrong.

I've got the veneer of a trucker concealing a sophisticated core.

How much did your veneers cost? (sorry, I've been trying to extend my bad-joke humor range beyond Bond joking about never minding his P.'s and Q.s -- the former being Paymaster Troop, a Fleming character I have worked into my work-in-progress Bond script.)

More on topic, I'm really beginning to think that when they screentest a Bond, they need to do a real variety of Connery scenes, not just the standard ones. I'm thinking what might be most important is how in FRWL he orders green figs with yoghurt, or when he explains that the bed in the hotel is too small.

There's a nostril-flaring malevolence to Connery -- sadly absent in NSNA, though I remember a bit in the WARHEAD script where I can imagine him doing it, when he confronts the twin girl and says she should be written off like his destroyed garage -- that I don't think anybody else has come close to touching on in the role. As much as I love Dalton's Bond, when he sends the DEA traitor Killifer down to play with the sharks, it is just a straightforward vengeance/reckoning 'tude, well-played but not unique. Then again, Dalton is playing Bond mostly sans veneer in LTK except when assuming the role of disgraced agent pitching himself to Sanchez

trevanian wrote:

More on topic, I'm really beginning to think that when they screentest a Bond, they need to do a real variety of Connery scenes, not just the standard ones. I'm thinking what might be most important is how in FRWL he orders green figs with yoghurt, or when he explains that the bed in the hotel is too small.

Not a bad thought.

Maybe Craig would've fallen through the screentest process.

"Breakfast order? Do I look like i give a damn."

Craig was never able to do the fussy snobbishness of Fleming's Bond given he played 007 like a street hoodlum most of the time.

CJB wrote:

trevanian wrote:

More on topic, I'm really beginning to think that when they screentest a Bond, they need to do a real variety of Connery scenes, not just the standard ones. I'm thinking what might be most important is how in FRWL he orders green figs with yoghurt, or when he explains that the bed in the hotel is too small.

Not a bad thought.

Maybe Craig would've fallen through the screentest process.

"Breakfast order? Do I look like i give a damn."

Craig was never able to do the fussy snobbishness of Fleming's Bond given he played 007 like a street hoodlum most of the time.

Truthfully, that aspect of Bond has never been given its cinematic due to my satisfaction. Fleming's Bond is borderline obsessed with things like bloody soaps and eggs, for cryin' out loud. The films only lightly touch upon this unique aspect of Bond. Granted, it wouldn't be easy to pull off without making Bond look like a prissy cissy, but those screenwriters are being very handsomely compensated.

If I remember right, Bond is almost a little sheepish when admitting to Vesper about his pernicketiness in the novel. I could imagine Dalton doing that and adding the eye twinkle, and I can almost imagine Laze doing it too. I can ABSOLUTELY imagine Clive Owen doing it ... though now that he has done something to his face, surgery or something, nothing's the same any more.

Dalton flexes a bit of that in TLD when he talks down to Saunders about the cello, but I'm not sure it works, probably for the prissy sissy aspect you cite.

I'd add the 'Lord no, I want to meet them socially' from DR NO as well. The first time I really got into that film (and it took about three or four tries, i'm ashamed to admit, it wasn't till I was in my late teens that the film worked for me), it was right then that I kind of sat up and started paying attention to everything Connery was doing (and sometimes overdoing ... I definitely got the idea that his characterization took from Fleming's GF in terms of a pushy assertiveness around underlings/lessers.)

The closest we probably got was Connery being (understandably) finicky about the temperature of champagne in a couple films.

One of those things that's easier to do in a novel as you've got more scope for 'slice of life' scenes. Also could easily become a caricatured trope if overdone ('James Bond is the spy who wears a tuxedo, drinks martinis, and is neurotic about scrambled eggs).

Still, one of the many things that makes the literary character three-dimensional and it's a shame they never touched on it sufficiently in the films.

To relate it back to the thread, I think Brosnan could've played this element well but the writers were disinterred in anything not involving automatic gunfire.

Connery's Bond also knew an indifferently-blended brandy and a quality sherry when he tasted them, and wasn't too keen on Siamese vodka (as we know from Goldfinger, DAF and YOLT).

The only example from Moore's tenure that springs immediately to mind is his dismissal of Kristatos' initial wine suggestion as 'too scented for my palate'.

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Connery's Bond also knew an indifferently-blended brandy and a quality sherry when he tasted them, and wasn't too keen on Siamese vodka (as we know from Goldfinger, DAF and YOLT).

The only example from Moore's tenure that springs immediately to mind is his dismissal of Kristatos' initial wine suggestion as 'too scented for my palate'.    

I forget which film--MR?--but he was shown a selection of ties and dimissed one as "too frantic."

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Connery's Bond also knew an indifferently-blended brandy and a quality sherry when he tasted them, and wasn't too keen on Siamese vodka (as we know from Goldfinger, DAF and YOLT).

The only example from Moore's tenure that springs immediately to mind is his dismissal of Kristatos' initial wine suggestion as 'too scented for my palate'.    

I've always believed that line was specifically there to say, 'pay attention -- this is the bad guy,' like a mild and refined callback to 'red wine with fish.' i remember telling my friends that while the movie was going on, but even afterward they disagreed, saying it was just conversation dialog and didn't mean anything.

Perilagu Khan wrote:

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Connery's Bond also knew an indifferently-blended brandy and a quality sherry when he tasted them, and wasn't too keen on Siamese vodka (as we know from Goldfinger, DAF and YOLT).

The only example from Moore's tenure that springs immediately to mind is his dismissal of Kristatos' initial wine suggestion as 'too scented for my palate'.    

I forget which film--MR?--but he was shown a selection of ties and dimissed one as "too frantic."

LALD, if memory serves. Connery letting Leiter know in DN that his suit is Savile Row and the 'Not mad about his tailor, are you?' from FRWL have also sprang to mind.

Never thought of that FYEO scene as a callback to FRWL trev, it's certainly possible. Dalton's 'the brand on the list was questionable Sir, so I took the liberty of choosing something else' in TLD is another example of Bond's fussiness/snobbery.

All that seemed to be pretty much abandoned when the era that this thread is about began. Guess it was decided that it wasn't gonna fly with 90s audiences.

trevanian wrote:

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Connery's Bond also knew an indifferently-blended brandy and a quality sherry when he tasted them, and wasn't too keen on Siamese vodka (as we know from Goldfinger, DAF and YOLT).

The only example from Moore's tenure that springs immediately to mind is his dismissal of Kristatos' initial wine suggestion as 'too scented for my palate'.    

I've always believed that line was specifically there to say, 'pay attention -- this is the bad guy,' like a mild and refined callback to 'red wine with fish.' i remember telling my friends that while the movie was going on, but even afterward they disagreed, saying it was just conversation dialog and didn't mean anything.

I actually think you may be right about that. In the Bondoverse bad taste does seem to equal a bad soul, or sole as the case may be...

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Perilagu Khan wrote:

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Connery's Bond also knew an indifferently-blended brandy and a quality sherry when he tasted them, and wasn't too keen on Siamese vodka (as we know from Goldfinger, DAF and YOLT).

The only example from Moore's tenure that springs immediately to mind is his dismissal of Kristatos' initial wine suggestion as 'too scented for my palate'.    

I forget which film--MR?--but he was shown a selection of ties and dimissed one as "too frantic."

LALD, if memory serves. Connery letting Leiter know in DN that his suit is Savile Row and the 'Not mad about his tailor, are you?' from FRWL have also sprang to mind.

Never thought of that FYEO scene as a callback to FRWL trev, it's certainly possible. Dalton's 'the brand on the list was questionable Sir, so I took the liberty of choosing something else' in TLD is another example of Bond's fussiness/snobbery.

All that seemed to be pretty much abandoned when the era that this thread is about began. Guess it was decided that it wasn't gonna fly with 90s audiences.

It certainly wasn't as prominent in the DC era. However, there was Bond complaining to Vesper that the tux she selected for him was tailored, there was his invention of the Vesper martini, and his rejection of Fields' hotel--"I'd rather stay in a morgue!"--in QoS.

The tux kerfuffle in CR seems to suggest Cregg-Bond had brought along some inferior, off-the-rack dinner suit and thought that'd be good enough to get by. Not very fitting - pardon the pun - for a character that should prefer the finer things.

Stuff like that is why I can't then buy him fussing over the quality of hotels and whatnot.

Also he's too good for a mediocre hotel but lives in a crack den flat with a fold-out chair as the sole piece of furniture...

CJB wrote:

The tux kerfuffle in CR seems to suggest Cregg-Bond had brought along some inferior, off-the-rack dinner suit and thought that'd be good enough to get by. Not very fitting - pardon the pun - for a character that should prefer the finer things.

Stuff like that is why I can't then buy him fussing over the quality of hotels and whatnot.

Also he's too good for a mediocre hotel but lives in a crack den flat with a fold-out chair as the sole piece of furniture...

Well the alleged justification in CR is that he is still becoming Bond -- how many folks suddenly develop such affectations in their late 30s? (no don't tell me I don't wanna know.) Now if you want to try to justify how he develops these tastes in the span of a few weeks, well, your guess will be better than mine, because I can only assume he had taste beaten into him by LeChiffre's big knotted rope.

As for the crack den ... kinda reminded me of how when they finally showed Bruce Willis' apt in MOONLIGHTING, it was virtually empty, like he was a cypher (LeChiffre!) Years later, when I finally saw THE THIEF WHO CAME TO DINNER, I thought maybe the TV people had gotten the idea from the way Polly Platt did O'Neal's digs, which look basically uninhabited.

It's nice when character is reflected and/or enhanced via design, but that hasn't really happened with film Bond at all (unless he is supposed to have the tackiest taste imaginable, going by L&LD anyway.)

Always thought Bond's LALD pad looked rather big and extravagant for a bachelor, let alone one on a Universal Exports salary.

CJB wrote:

Always thought Bond's LALD pad looked rather big and extravagant for a bachelor, let alone one on a Universal Exports salary.

What I wouldn't give for one of those big, screw-in closets...

Perilagu Khan wrote:

CJB wrote:

Always thought Bond's LALD pad looked rather big and extravagant for a bachelor, let alone one on a Universal Exports salary.

What I wouldn't give for one of those big, screw-in closets...

"If you like women, cheap bedding is a false economy."
Bond, in Pearson's Bio of 007

(at least I think that is what it is from)

Incidentally I love this thread. It is kind of all over the place, but that type of thing has its own charm, though I vow to try to get back more onto PB next time I post in it.

Perhaps I can bring it back for you trev, since I missed the boat when the thread was created.

CJB wrote:

Anyway, have you reappraised the Brosnan tenure now that his successor has come and gone?

Brosnan’s 90s trilogy has always rated highly for me so on one hand there was never any need for a reappraisal. Though regarding DAD, there was a specific moment after Spectre was released when I watched that and DAD back to back, prompting this thread.

The biggest takeaway was my re-evaluation of DAD, which is that despite the sometimes naff dialogue, poor effects (which seem to haven’t improved in Craig’s era, with the QOS freefall/gallery scenes, demolitions of MI6 and the Mexican building to name a few) and ventures into sci-fi territory, much of Bond’s character seems in tact and the world in which he navigates is every bit as colourful as one expects from a Bond film. Craig’s era, for most part, has zapped the joy out of Bond’s world and perhaps to reflect the Western world we live in today, there’s a distinct identity crisis that results in self-censorship, diluting Bond’s character to something he’s not (i.e. continuously bringing Bond to the centre of the villain’s schemes on a personal level, or his emasculation both in terms of his dynamic with women as well as his effectiveness in his job).

Moving forward, now that Craig’s era is considered as its own self-contained timeline, I’m hoping Eon’s experimental phase (continuing arc, sexlessness, identity politics, Bond dying, rewritten backstories, maudlin tone, etc.) has been flushed out of their system so to return to what made the series soar for so long, which is its balanced sense of danger, sex and fun wrapped up in episodic adventures.

Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang wrote:

Moving forward, now that Craig’s era is considered as its own self-contained timeline, I’m hoping Eon’s experimental phase (continuing arc, sexlessness, identity politics, Bond dying, rewritten backstories, maudlin tone, etc.) has been flushed out of their system so to return to what made the series soar for so long, which is its balanced sense of danger, sex and fun wrapped up in episodic adventures.

I'm not so optimistic. Not while Karen Kauliflower is at the helm.