The Controversial Mathis Death Scene in Quantum of Solace (2008)

This thread is about a very specific scene in Daniel Craig's second James Bond film Quantum of Solace. It relates to James Bond's treatment of Rene Mathis in the film in the scene where Mathis is shot dead by the Bolivian policemen. Please read the excerpt from an article I wrote on 'Cubby' Broccoli in 2009, where I deal with this very controversial scene in BOLD TEXT:

"Broccoli, Saltzman and the scriptwriters incorporated the more unpalatable elements of the Bond character in the first film Dr No, in the scene where Bond shoots Professor Dent once in the front and then once in the back with his silenced gun (“That’s a Smith and Wesson, and you’ve had your six”, says Bond[17]). Professor Dent had already emptied the chamber of his own gun into Bond’s mocked up bed, and director Terence Young’s “preferred version had the unfortunate Professor being shot a further four times”[18] beyond the two shots fired by Bond in the finished film. Bond’s first screen kill was “cut down from the original at the behest of the censor.”[19] Although neither this scene nor the minor villain character of Professor Dent appeared in the original Fleming novel, of which the film is otherwise a faithful adaptation, it shows that from the very start the Bond producers were willing to follow Fleming’s advice of not always showing Bond in a heroic or particularly popular light. James Bond was first and foremost a government-sanctioned assassin with a licence to kill the enemies of the state in the line of duty, but he was conversely also a hero. Another clear example of this juxtaposition between the heroic, likeable Bond and the unappealing, cold and ruthless killer may be found in the most recent James Bond film, Quantum of Solace (2008), a post-Cubby Broccoli production, where Bond’s ally and friend René Mathis is shot and fatally wounded by enemy police officers. After a very poignant scene where Mathis’ life ebbs away in the arms of Bond, Bond takes his friend’s lifeless body and roughly places it onto a dumpster at the side of the road. Camille, his female ally, asks, “Is this the way you treat your friends?”, to which Bond replies that Mathis was “not the sort to care”.[20] As Bond and Camille walk to their Land Rover and drive away, the director’s camera lens stays purposefully on the shot of Mathis spread-eagled atop the skip. The purpose of this approach appears to be to point out to the viewer, “What sort of a man is James Bond to do such a thing with his friend?” The silent lingering of the scene is one of the most powerful statements (and indictments) that the film makes of James Bond as a character, yet none of this should come as a surprise to the reader of Fleming’s novels, as Bond does sometimes do inexplicable, and seemingly uncaring and inhuman things in them. However, from a practical point of view, the viewer might also consider that Bond is too practical an agent in the field to allow the death of an ally and friend to alter his determination to see the job in hand through and it was perhaps neither the time nor the place to be distracted by a corpse or to be overly sentimental. Robert Harling, a friend and wartime colleague of Fleming revealed the possible source for Bond’s sometimes cold and unfeeling character in a television interview in 2002. Harling referred to how Muriel Wright, a wartime girlfriend of Fleming’s had been killed in an air raid and its subsequent effect on Fleming:

“I said to Dunstan [Curtis, of Fleming’s wartime 30 Assault Unit] that Fleming had gone off to identify her. I said he was so cut up. Dunstan said, ‘Well, you know that’s one of the troubles with Fleming. You have to get yourself killed before his emotions are involved.”[21]

In these examples from the Bond films, it is clear that the spirit of Fleming still lives on in the film series that Cubby Broccoli more than any other helped to initiate and sustain, even after the departure of his partner Harry Saltzman following The Man with the Golden Gun (1974). Broccoli recounted in his autobiography how Fleming continued his detailed description of the headquarters of the British Secret Service, and his recommendation that it be located “on the entire upper floor of a modern block of offices with shops below”:[22]

Now that you've read this excerpt, I'd really love to hear your views on the Mathis scene ansd what it tells us about Daniel Craig's interpreation of James Bond. Does it send out a good message etc.?

I've always meant to start a thread on this and I'd really love to hear your views on this very controversial scene from QoS., which can be viewed on You Tube here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5INLbmW-HVo

P.S. The full article can be read here:

http://thebondologistblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/albert-r-cubby-broccoli-and-blueprint.html

Way too much analysis has been spilled on Bond's gunning down of Dent. He was doing his job. It was neither cold nor ruthless. Bond wouldn't be much of an agent if he couldn't gun down a cold blooded killer like Dent, moments after Dent had attempted to not only kill him, but had also callously pumped several bullets into Bond's made-up bed, seemingly not caring that he might also be killing Miss Taro.
The killing of Dent is not inconsistent either with Bond's heroic nature as displayed in book after book by Fleming. The hero doesn't shirk his responsibilities. And just as the combat soldier's prime responsibility is to kill the enemy soldier, Bond as a shadow warrior, as opposed to being a peace officer or policeman, has responsibility to kill the enemy combatants that threaten the realm.
Bond is motivated first and foremost by duty. Fleming attempts to humanize Bond by having him fuss over having to kill in cold blood. This differentiates Bond from the amoral killers that he routinely encounters. But Bond never fails to act. He does what he needs to do, even if he doesn't like it. The corrupted-by-evil-killer, the villains, by contrast have no regard for human life. They don't engage Bond's moral dilemmas. They are essentially less human.

What grates IMO about the Craig films, is that the filmmakers in their bid to make nu-Bond an edgier, grittier, darker entity, only end up confusing the viewers. To wit, Craig-Bond's motives are not always clear. A couple of well discussed scenes in SF come to mind as well. Portraying Craig-Bond as dark and edgy Bond, is more important to Craig and his collaborators. This is a Bond we fans should maybe be a little more wary of. He's a little badder. Yawn.
Connery was bad enough thank you. So was Fleming's Bond, which is the same Bond as Connery's Bond, except with less of the big-screen movie-star persona. But they were much the same. In fact, I'd say Fleming's Bond was even glibber. He tossed plenty of acerbic wit at the humourless villains he faced. My favourite, "How's the agoraphobia, Goldfinger?" whilst strolling the broad expanses of the golf fairway.
Compare with DN. Was there anyone that wasnt' completely on board with the shooting of Dent, or at least clear on why Bond blew him away? If one understands the nature of the double-O agent and the license to kill, it isn't that tough.
The Mathis dumpster scene comes across as a lame attempt to make look Bond look edgy and dark - utilitarian even. It goes over like a lead balloon, because it's really just hamfisted melodrama. It's bad filmmaking. We can't blame Bond though because he's is a fictional character, although we can relate to him less.
The fault lies with the nu-Bond filmmakers, primarily Craig. Craig has the actor ego. He's got to do something different. He's not satisfied with Connery's Bond ( he needs to be deeper) or Fleming's Bond for that matter, because I don't think he really understands Fleming's Bond, whose motives were always clear and who operated with a very consistent moral code from story to story - the moral code being Fleming's own.

Craig Bond is based and modeled on Bond, but its a new Bond. It's not Fleming's Bond and its not the Bond of the original films either. Craig is driven to be better than Connery, is what it comes down to I think, so he must be different, and the cover that he uses, as Dalton did before him although less egregiously, is that they are truer to Fleming. It's a fanciful notion though. The truest depiction of Fleming's Bond, in terms of moral code and duty is what we got with the '60's films, and the 14 films that followed weren't very far off either. Even Dalts was essentially Fleming's Bond, except that IMO he overplayed efforts to make Bond look more vulnerable and human. Fleming achieved this task through internal dialogue. Dalts made the mistake of wearing it on his sleeve, but I quibble. Dalts wasn't that bad, but he would have benefitted performance-wise IMO, if he had internalized Bond's moral quandaries better, as Connery and Laz did before him. Shakespearean actors are probably not good fits to play Fleming's blunt instrument. They understandably like to dramatize.
Even in SF both Craig and Mendes, if you listen to their comments, try to use Fleming as cover, to explain their Bond's often dour persona. I don't know why they bother. Craig-Bond's behaviour is perfectly consistent with the story of betrayal and incompetence they weaved around M. Who'd want to work for that nut-job after the shit she pulled with "the take the bloody shot" recklessness. They are going beyond Fleming here into new territory. Fleming's Bond never had to deal with such insanity from his boss, yet they insist that they were inspired by Bond's so-called acetia, which Mendes doesn't actually understand (if you listen to him) in either the Fleming context, or it's deeper theological roots context, from which Fleming pulled it.
Bond was down in the dumps in YOLT for one reason only, because his wife had been blown away by the evil bastard Blofeld. That would knock anyone off their game, so M sent him to Japan on a diplomatic mission, where he got himself back into shape boozing and carousing with the likes of Dikko and Tiger, before Tiger unknowlingly handed him a Blofeld revenge-mission on a silver platter, with the added bonus of restoring the realm's good name with the post-war Japanese rulers.
The situation does not parallel Craig's post-bridge-plunge state of mind, at least not directly, so I wonder why Craig and Mendes feel the need to use Fleming to justify it. The story justified it all by itself.
The truth is that Craig is trying to re-invent Bond in his own superior-than-Connery image, but because Bond is already such a well established cultural icon thanks to Connery, Terrence Young, and the other early filmmakers, using Fleming as cover is a convenient way to justify the nu-Bond conceits, especially when most of the modern film audience, haven't read Fleming, and wouldn't know better anyway.

Harrumph!

Bond can be a cold blooded, heartless, ruthless bastard sometime.

Men constantly die around him.

So do Women, most of the time they are just innocent bystanders.

Like this one for example:

Honestly, SILHOUETTE MAN, I think you're reading far too much into this, trying to find meaning in insignificant details.

The problem with Mathis' death scene is that it is symbolic of the problems with the film: it's about 90% finished. People expressed outrage at Bond throwing Mathis' body in the dumpster and claiming that he would not have minded such undignified treatment, and that's fair enough, but the film does itself no favours by not bothering to explain Bond's behaviour. He clearly takes money from Mathis' wallet and throws it away, so he's obviously trying to set it up to look like a robbery gone wrong. He also knows that there is nothing more that he can do for Mathis, and that by leaving him behind, his body will at least get some proper treatment. But the film makes no attempt to explain this, even when doing so would help its cause - an angry outburst about the need to stage the crime scene and hopefully buy some time (kind of like his explaining to Vesper why he broke his cover straight away in CASINO ROYALE, only angrily this time) would show how the pressure of the situation is getting to Bond.

In fact, Mathis was pretty much wasted by the film. CASINO ROYALE sets him up as the one who betrayed Bond, and even though Vesper is ultimately revealed to be the guilty party, no evidence is presented to exonerate him. For all we know, both of them were in on it together. When we next see him, Mathis has been captured by MI6, interrogated - brutally - and released, having supposedly proven his innocence, but once again, no evidence is presented. Finally, he follows Bond to South America for absolutely no reason at all, beyond Bond admitting he was wrong. And once he's there, he make a huge mistake in trusting one of the first people Dominic Greene would have bought off to make the coup happen as planned. Mathis' role could have been filled by Felix Leiter, who doesn't trust Greene knows that Bond is onto something when he shows up in Haiti. Leiter could have gotten Bond to Bolivia with equal ease, set him loose on Greene Planet and waited to see what happened next. Not only does this make more sense story-wise, but Leiter would have survived the events of the film, and Mathis could be saved up for a future appearance. He could have been worked into the plot of SKYFALL quite nicely. But, no, Paul Haggis decided that audiences needed an emotional story arc, and that the loss of his friend and semi-mentor Mathis was exactly what the film needed.

j7wild wrote:

Quoting for the sake of Gemma.

The dumping of Mathis seemed like a half assed idea to try to show how cold hearted Bond can be, but there really was no reason to do it. It was just pointless. I feel like something got cut, maybe earlier Mathis talked about how the nature of their work makes them disposable, or at least something. I dunno.

I remember when I heard the mere fact that Bond would dump Mathis in the garbage, I assumed he might have done that to hide the body for some urgent reason or whatever silly idea.

FieldsMan wrote:

Quoting for the sake of Gemma.

There is no Bond Girls photo thread.

;)

Just watched the film last night. I know a lot of people here rank it dead last, but I think it is a middle of the pack Bond film. Considering the circumstances it was made under it's done decently.

The Mathis scene always irked me a bit for the reasons above. No explanation, no "it'll buy us some time" line. Even one tiny throw away line like that would have made it more understandable.

Although, I have to say most of Bond's allies in this film are poorly done and underused (also mentioned above). Mathis is just there to be there. Felix is kind of the same.

I've never had a problem with Bond's disposal of Mathis. If he'd dumped his friend in the rubbish when he was still dying and left him to die alone, that would have been callous. Holding the man until he died, and then taking the pragmatic view of disposing of the body to at least try to delay pursuit a little while didn't bother me in the slightest. I really don't understand the sentimentality over a dead body. Mathis has gone - deceased, gone to join the choir invisibule, bereft of life he rests in peace. And what's more, Bond knows that Mathis would do the same in his place.

C'mon, lads. Are you all really so soft-hearted? Bond did what he could when he could for his friend. And then when he couldn't do anything else, he moved on.

Moore wrote:

Just watched the film last night. I know a lot of people here rank it dead last, but I think it is a middle of the pack Bond film. Considering the circumstances it was made under it's done decently.

The Mathis scene always irked me a bit for the reasons above. No explanation, no "it'll buy us some time" line. Even one tiny throw away line like that would have made it more understandable.

Agreed.

Ravenstone wrote:

I've never had a problem with Bond's disposal of Mathis. If he'd dumped his friend in the rubbish when he was still dying and left him to die alone, that would have been callous. Holding the man until he died, and then taking the pragmatic view of disposing of the body to at least try to delay pursuit a little while didn't bother me in the slightest. I really don't understand the sentimentality over a dead body. Mathis has gone - deceased, gone to join the choir invisibule, bereft of life he rests in peace. And what's more, Bond knows that Mathis would do the same in his place.

C'mon, lads. Are you all really so soft-hearted? Bond did what he could when he could for his friend. And then when he couldn't do anything else, he moved on.

My problem with the sequence is that it is entirely out of character for Fleming's Bond. Ian's Bond was noteworthy for his fierce and even sentimental loyalty to his few close friends, and Felix Leiter was the closest of those friends. Bond would never have behaved toward a fallen comrade in a manner that could be construed as disrespectful, let alone desecrating. As an example, I note a handcuffed Bond tempting death by trudging to the burned body of Quarrel in order to pay his last respects and do all he could to sacralize the remains in Dr. No. The writers of the sequence in question obviously never read Dr. No or didn't care to be faithful to Fleming's creation. Then again there is much in QOS that flies in the face of Fleming. That, I suspect, is attributable to the malefeasance of Forster and the Haggfish.

I'm not so sure. Bond did pay his respects to Mathis. It is obvious Mathis' death upsets him. But disposing of the body is a hard necessity. Even if it only buys them ten minutes while he's found, it's ten valuable minutes.

Ravenstone wrote:

I'm not so sure. Bond did pay his respects to Mathis. It is obvious Mathis' death upsets him. But disposing of the body is a hard necessity. Even if it only buys them ten minutes while he's found, it's ten valuable minutes.

That's puting literality and realism far before character, and it was a mistake. Not one major enough to destroy the film, mind you, but significant enough to irritate those who know their Bond.

I thought the problem in the scene is that it's purpose is never explored in the film. Bond takes his money and tosses him in the dumpster and that's it. Then Camille says "Is that how you treat your friends?"

I think it would have worked better if he had responded something to the effect "It will buy us some time." Not really groundbreaking or adding much depth to the script, but it gives a reason. Instead they just trudge off and that's it, you never hear about Mathis again. It wouldn't have been so bad if later on they brought it up again or if he had been confronted about it by Camille and he explained himself and said "I had to do what I had to do," but as soon as the scene is over, that's it.

It would be like if Felix Leiter died in LTK when his leg was ripped off and Bond just tossed him in the garbage. It's something you can't imagine Bond doing to an old pal. Speaking of Leiter, I hope they bring him back. He was criminally underused in QoS and his appearance was kind of disappointing. I'd love to see Wright come back once more at some point and Felix given a little more substance.

Moore wrote:

I thought the problem in the scene is that it's purpose is never explored in the film. Bond takes his money and tosses him in the dumpster and that's it. Then Camille says "Is that how you treat your friends?"

This is the problem with the scene in a nutshell. We have no idea what he's doing.
The answer to Camille's query is yes, "but more to the point Camille, this his how I (Craig-Bond) show these Bond fan-boys-and-girls what a dark and edgy Bond I am. That pussy Connery never dumped his friends in a dumpster. I am the darkest, meanest edgiest Bond of all."
Camille rolls eyes, "you the man Dan" and to herself, "that "pussy" Connery would at least have noticed I'm a woman- maybe slapped my bum too. Sigh"
If Craig-Bond is going to dump an iconic Fleming character in a dumpster ... a character that he first worked with in the Casino Royale novel, and who later saved his sorry ass from sure death, after he got the worst of the fight with the toad Klebb at the end of Fleming's FRWL, at least maybe give us a clear reason as to why he is disposing of the body in such an undignified way. We don't need subtitles. We just need something that doesn't leave us scratching our heads, and throwing garbage at the movie screen. Is that too much to ask? Apparently so.

Well I'm not scratching my head and we know why he did it despite the supposed lack of explanation.

I prefer a film that leaves a bit of ambiguity to a character's actions than one that obsequiously serves it on a platter and force feeds it to us. We never actually are fully aware as to why people do certain things in life.

FieldsMan wrote:

Well I'm not scratching my head and we know why he did it despite the supposed lack of explanation.

Actually we don't, otherwise there wouldn't have been never-ending discussion on the matter from legions of Bond fans, lo these last 4-and-a-half-years, and to continue on into the future, by Bond fans that have yet to endure this dreary, smells-of-rotted-haggfish, dumpster-stew of a "Bond film." :pirat:
But we do get that Craig-Bond is dark and edgy and blah blah blah. Message received. Yawn.

tiffanywint wrote:

If Craig-Bond is going to dump an iconic Fleming character in a dumpster ... a character that he first worked with in the Casino Royale novel, and who later saved his sorry ass from sure death, after he got the worst of the fight with the toad Klebb at the end of Fleming's FRWL, at least maybe give us a clear reason as to why he is disposing of the body in such an undignified way.

But is this version of Mathis the same as the Fleming version? Dialogue in QOS implies that there is more than one Mathis, and that it is some kind of cover name. Maybe it was just done to try and kill off the idea that "James Bond" is a code name, but it does open up some interesting possibilities in the future.

Prisoner Monkeys wrote:

But is this version of Mathis the same as the Fleming version? Dialogue in QOS implies that there is more than one Mathis, and that it is some kind of cover name. Maybe it was just done to try and kill off the idea that "James Bond" is a code name, but it does open up some interesting possibilities in the future.

Hmm. Yes the dialogue of course makes the scene even more perplexing. What the scene needs I think is a proper re-write by Maibaum or Tom Mankiewicz.
ie Bond looks sadly at the body of his old friend, gently sets it aside, then quickly composes himself, fixes his steely gaze on a schocked Camille, then rises, only to give her a friendly bum-slap, immediately lightening her mood, and off they go into the night - Camille with an extra little spring in her step.

Mathis' death scene, like most things in QOS, was just way too much of a turn-off.

The film isn't exploring Bond's character so much as assassinating it. The director wanted to express his "the West is evil" politics and made Bond a target. He's not allowed to be a hero in his own film. The villain he fights is pathetic and inconsequential. The larger villain is made out to be his allies. He's got no feelings, he achieves no victories, he dumps his friends in the trash when they no longer suit him.

It's a fucking awful movie.

But yeah, Silouhette has a tendency to just overnanalyze the shit out of nothing to try and drum up discussion. Sometimes it works, sometimes it don't.

tiffanywint wrote:

What the scene needs I think is a proper re-write by Maibaum or Tom Mankiewicz.

What the scene needs is no Mathis.

Felix Leiter should have been assigned to keep an eye on the CIA's South American activities. He gets wind that Greggory Beam is up to something, and tags along. Realising that Beam has gotten into bed with the wrong person in the aftermath of the incident at Bregenz, he arranges for Bond to travel to South America covertly. Leiter stays close to Beam to give himself plausible deniability, but sets Bond loose in the hopes of stirring up a mess that will give Leiter the evidence he needs that Beam is crooked or incompetent (or both).

That would address both the issues with Mathis' death, and the lack of anything to for Leiter to do.

I'm more irritated by Bond walking around with "edgy" designer stubble in SKYFALL than I am by anything in QUANTUM OF SOLACE (and, believe me, I'm annoyed by a lot of things in SOLACE).

Yes, I know that Bond is supposed to be at a low ebb for the first half of SKYFALL - indeed, the stubble seems to exist purely as a convenient bit of visual shorthand to make precisely that point. But Fleming's Bond, no matter how low his spirits, wouldn't be seen dead like that. He'd never go unshaven in public, let alone return to work (to work!) with several days' growth.

So why does he shave in Macau? He has no obvious reason to do so. If he was happy to go about with stubble for the past few months, why not now? I suppose that the shaving is another bit of visual shorthand: Bond is beginning to snap out of it - he's back in business. And he even has to shave in a "Bondian" way, with a cutthroat razor wielded by a beautiful woman. I'm not sure that QUANTUM OF SOLACE is ever quite as heavyhanded.

Δ

Loomis wrote:

I'm more irritated by Bond walking around with "edgy" designer stubble in SKYFALL than I am by anything in QUANTUM OF SOLACE (and, believe me, I'm annoyed by a lot of things in SOLACE).

Yes, I know that Bond is supposed to be at a low ebb for the first half of SKYFALL - indeed, the stubble seems to exist purely as a convenient bit of visual shorthand to make precisely that point. But Fleming's Bond, no matter how low his spirits, wouldn't be seen dead like that.

Well, he was "dead". Besides, where's the law that states Fleming would have never let Bond be unshaven? Seems like a silly thing to nitpick compared to dumping a friend in the garbage.

Yeah, sorry but while I was also annoyed by the stubble, absolutely EVERYTHING about QOS is awful and more offensive on every level.