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Reprinting the first three points from a flurry of emails between me and ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
columbina, just because:
So, having seen Casino Royale, finally, on the spiffy EXTREME WIDESCREEN DVD, I would like to make the following completely irrelevant observations:
First, what's up with the aspect ratio? I have never seen such a savagely letterboxed film in my entire life. Fully half the screen is lost to letterboxing, and it doesn't matter if you have a widescreen television or monitor; the black boxes don't go away. It's clearly a deliberate, artistic choice; it's just a weird one.
Second, Craig's Bond is far and away the quietest Bond I can remember having seen. Not a bad thing at all, actually. Works for the character.
Third, I wonder what the difference is between the theme song that Chris Cornell delivered to the producers and the one that got put on film. That's the first genuine Bond song I've heard in quite some time, with the lone exception of kd lang's "Surrender"at the end of Tomorrow Never Dies, and it can't possibly be the song he delivered. ("Genuine Bond Song" being defined as, something you can imagine Shirley Bassey -- or, in a pinch, Tina Turner -- singing without making you wonder in a bemused or appalled way, "What could she possibly have been THINKING?" I'm a traditionalist like that.) I mean, I like Chris Cornell now and again, but you wouldn't normally find floods of violins and brasses within a parsec of one of his songs. I remember Shirley Manson from Garbage being seriously annoyed at what the Broccolis had done to "The World is not enough", and I've heard the Garbage original version, which is comparatively quite spare ... but it's not a Bond song as written, and it was when the Broccolis were done with it. That's what makes me suspect that the song he delivered and the song we got were very different; if you pull the sweetening from that song, you get something much edgier and darker and less romantic-sounding. The Bondification would also explain why it pretty much crashed and died on the charts; he's not a big enough name that he could sell the song on his own, and it's so far from his normal style that his fans wouldn't have helped it along much, and frankly, even with the hard rock stylings breaking through, the Bondification just makes it too old. (Besides, a proper Bond song needs a Beltin' Babe, even one that's not Shirley Bassey. Guys doing Bond songs -- with the sole exception of Tom Jones -- is just wrong. And yes, I'm including a-ha and Duran Duran in that wrongness.) In any event, the song itself is copyrighted by both Chris Cornell and Danjaq (the Bond producers' company), so they must have done something to it.
Fourth, there was all this stuff in the press -- especially the gay press, bien sur -- about the "fetishizing" of Bond's body, about Craig's Bond being presented as if he was his own Bond girl -- but aside from the "Honey Ryder rising from the sea" shot in the blue swimsuit, I really don't see it. Mind, I do believe this is the first time that we've had a clearly and completely naked Bond in one of the movies, even if only in side view and shadow, but since Really Awful Things were happening at the time, I'm not sure that counts as "fetishizing." (At least, not the type of fetish of which the media was speaking.)
And now, let's talk story, just a little! Which means that here be spoilers! Lots of spoilers! Whoa, nellie, you ain't never seen so many spoilers!
And apologies to anyone looking at this through RSS, which ignores the lj-cut tag. If you haven't seen it, and plan to, then Stop Reading Now.
In other words, You Wuz All Warned.
Honestly, I really did like it, and all I have are quibbles. And I don't even know why I noticed the quibblish stuff, I really don't.
But ... Bond out in his car with the cartiac defibrillator thing. Why on earth would Vesper go to look for him out there? (And, as I said, purely a quibble: at the time, I just thought, "Huh? What's she doing out there? What made her decide to look for him there, or at all?" and then didn't think about it again during the film.)
That godawful torture scene that had probably every man who saw it crossing his legs and weeping in sympathy. So ... Vesper was behind that door doing a lot of screaming, right? The idea was for her pain to induce Bond to tell, one assumes. Only ... she came out of that pretty much entirely undamaged, as far as we could tell. Now, if Le Chiffre didn't know that Vesper also worked for the people running him -- and it makes the most sense that he didn't, I think, otherwise leaving her in the road earlier was a seriously unwarranted risk, because that meant she had to be another agent, and she might also have known the key codes -- then he'd really have done whatever was producing the screams. If he knew that Vesper was working for one of his clients, then he'd have left her alone, and she'd have been unbruised -- in fact, he'd probably have left her out of the equation altogether, because, again, the risks were too great. In short, either you have a rather battered and bruised Vesper, or you should have a highly suspicious Bond, and we didn't really get either one. (And, yes, she could have been battered and bruised from having obviously been dumped onto asphalt from a car at speed -- and again, an enormous risk there for Le Chiffre -- and he could have been deceived by those bruises into thinking they were from a beating, but we didn't get that, either.)
And then there's this:
That was the one thing that completely baffled me during the movie when M explained it all. Vesper did all this for her boyfriend? Then what the hell was she doing canoodling with Bond if she was willing to go to such self-destructive extremes? She certainly didn't need to; she got the codes from Bond back at the hospital, and was owed those codes in her role as treasury agent. If she was willing to go through all that for her boyfriend, then why would she put his gift away and get involved with someone else before she knew he was safe? Did she know he was going to be a big giant villain terrorist or whatever it is that he's going to be? Seriously, what? And why would she have waited as long as she clearly did to get her boyfriend away from them? Vesper's motivation in all this is the one seriously weak point; I can understand blackmailing her over the safety of someone dear to her, but either don't explain what they were blackmailing her over (which would have been immensely frustrating to the audience and really a bad choice), or make it something that hangs together. Kidnapping her allegedly dead parents, something like that. (Then Goran could be her vengeful brother. Which, you know, would actually work, aside from the Thunderballishness of it all. The same sort of dark, lean looks, the same sort of unspecifically European [to Americans] accents... And I do kinda sorta have problems with Goran as an Algerian, but I couldn't tell you why. Except, you know, the whole "But he's Croatian!" thing.)
As far as Vesper herself goes, she does feel a little bit like a step back for Bond girls, in some ways; not all the way back to the era of round-heeled bimboes, but maybe back to, say, Holly Goodhead. She's clearly competent within her own sphere, but she doesn't seem to have the same sort of toughness that we've seen recently. While at one level she shouldn't be -- she's a bank analyst, for heaven's sake! -- but then, the same thing could be said of Natalya Simyonova, the computer programmer in Goldeneye, and she was plenty tough. That said, Vesper was tough enough to run this rather peculiar deception past Bond and all of the British secret service, so appearances might be somewhat deceptive. She's also the only Bond girl in recent memory who doesn't get rescued by Bond, albeit not for lack of trying (repeatedly). True, she does get rescued from the torture room by the mysterious Mr White we see Bond confronting at the end ... but then, so does Bond himself. And the one real chance he has at rescuing her, she doesn't let him take.
It is going to be interesting to see where they go with the next Bond girl. (Abbie Cornish notwithstanding.) If Bond 22 follows Casino Royale so closely that Vesper's Algerian Boyfriend will be a character, then very technically, there really shouldn't be a Bond girl, unless, as Vesper says, he's completely got his armor on again. (Which, of course, he will.)
So, that last line to M in the phone call: "The bitch is dead now." I know -- I know -- that's a near-quote of something. I just don't know what. (I mean, yes, the line's in the original book, but the book is quoting something there.) Shakespeare? Jonson? I think the actual line is, "And besides, the bitch is dead," but I'm not sure. Where is that line from?
columbina, just because:So, having seen Casino Royale, finally, on the spiffy EXTREME WIDESCREEN DVD, I would like to make the following completely irrelevant observations:
First, what's up with the aspect ratio? I have never seen such a savagely letterboxed film in my entire life. Fully half the screen is lost to letterboxing, and it doesn't matter if you have a widescreen television or monitor; the black boxes don't go away. It's clearly a deliberate, artistic choice; it's just a weird one.
Second, Craig's Bond is far and away the quietest Bond I can remember having seen. Not a bad thing at all, actually. Works for the character.
Third, I wonder what the difference is between the theme song that Chris Cornell delivered to the producers and the one that got put on film. That's the first genuine Bond song I've heard in quite some time, with the lone exception of kd lang's "Surrender"at the end of Tomorrow Never Dies, and it can't possibly be the song he delivered. ("Genuine Bond Song" being defined as, something you can imagine Shirley Bassey -- or, in a pinch, Tina Turner -- singing without making you wonder in a bemused or appalled way, "What could she possibly have been THINKING?" I'm a traditionalist like that.) I mean, I like Chris Cornell now and again, but you wouldn't normally find floods of violins and brasses within a parsec of one of his songs. I remember Shirley Manson from Garbage being seriously annoyed at what the Broccolis had done to "The World is not enough", and I've heard the Garbage original version, which is comparatively quite spare ... but it's not a Bond song as written, and it was when the Broccolis were done with it. That's what makes me suspect that the song he delivered and the song we got were very different; if you pull the sweetening from that song, you get something much edgier and darker and less romantic-sounding. The Bondification would also explain why it pretty much crashed and died on the charts; he's not a big enough name that he could sell the song on his own, and it's so far from his normal style that his fans wouldn't have helped it along much, and frankly, even with the hard rock stylings breaking through, the Bondification just makes it too old. (Besides, a proper Bond song needs a Beltin' Babe, even one that's not Shirley Bassey. Guys doing Bond songs -- with the sole exception of Tom Jones -- is just wrong. And yes, I'm including a-ha and Duran Duran in that wrongness.) In any event, the song itself is copyrighted by both Chris Cornell and Danjaq (the Bond producers' company), so they must have done something to it.
Fourth, there was all this stuff in the press -- especially the gay press, bien sur -- about the "fetishizing" of Bond's body, about Craig's Bond being presented as if he was his own Bond girl -- but aside from the "Honey Ryder rising from the sea" shot in the blue swimsuit, I really don't see it. Mind, I do believe this is the first time that we've had a clearly and completely naked Bond in one of the movies, even if only in side view and shadow, but since Really Awful Things were happening at the time, I'm not sure that counts as "fetishizing." (At least, not the type of fetish of which the media was speaking.)
And now, let's talk story, just a little! Which means that here be spoilers! Lots of spoilers! Whoa, nellie, you ain't never seen so many spoilers!
And apologies to anyone looking at this through RSS, which ignores the lj-cut tag. If you haven't seen it, and plan to, then Stop Reading Now.
In other words, You Wuz All Warned.
Honestly, I really did like it, and all I have are quibbles. And I don't even know why I noticed the quibblish stuff, I really don't.
But ... Bond out in his car with the cartiac defibrillator thing. Why on earth would Vesper go to look for him out there? (And, as I said, purely a quibble: at the time, I just thought, "Huh? What's she doing out there? What made her decide to look for him there, or at all?" and then didn't think about it again during the film.)
That godawful torture scene that had probably every man who saw it crossing his legs and weeping in sympathy. So ... Vesper was behind that door doing a lot of screaming, right? The idea was for her pain to induce Bond to tell, one assumes. Only ... she came out of that pretty much entirely undamaged, as far as we could tell. Now, if Le Chiffre didn't know that Vesper also worked for the people running him -- and it makes the most sense that he didn't, I think, otherwise leaving her in the road earlier was a seriously unwarranted risk, because that meant she had to be another agent, and she might also have known the key codes -- then he'd really have done whatever was producing the screams. If he knew that Vesper was working for one of his clients, then he'd have left her alone, and she'd have been unbruised -- in fact, he'd probably have left her out of the equation altogether, because, again, the risks were too great. In short, either you have a rather battered and bruised Vesper, or you should have a highly suspicious Bond, and we didn't really get either one. (And, yes, she could have been battered and bruised from having obviously been dumped onto asphalt from a car at speed -- and again, an enormous risk there for Le Chiffre -- and he could have been deceived by those bruises into thinking they were from a beating, but we didn't get that, either.)
And then there's this:
Bond Buzz: Is Abbie Cornish Meeting With Bond 22 Producers? - Cinematical:...A major villain role in Bond 22 -- Vesper's Algerian boyfriend -- is also reportedly being cast, and Croatian actor Goran Visnjic, most known for his role as a doctor on the television show ER, has been talked about as an ideal choice for the role....
That was the one thing that completely baffled me during the movie when M explained it all. Vesper did all this for her boyfriend? Then what the hell was she doing canoodling with Bond if she was willing to go to such self-destructive extremes? She certainly didn't need to; she got the codes from Bond back at the hospital, and was owed those codes in her role as treasury agent. If she was willing to go through all that for her boyfriend, then why would she put his gift away and get involved with someone else before she knew he was safe? Did she know he was going to be a big giant villain terrorist or whatever it is that he's going to be? Seriously, what? And why would she have waited as long as she clearly did to get her boyfriend away from them? Vesper's motivation in all this is the one seriously weak point; I can understand blackmailing her over the safety of someone dear to her, but either don't explain what they were blackmailing her over (which would have been immensely frustrating to the audience and really a bad choice), or make it something that hangs together. Kidnapping her allegedly dead parents, something like that. (Then Goran could be her vengeful brother. Which, you know, would actually work, aside from the Thunderballishness of it all. The same sort of dark, lean looks, the same sort of unspecifically European [to Americans] accents... And I do kinda sorta have problems with Goran as an Algerian, but I couldn't tell you why. Except, you know, the whole "But he's Croatian!" thing.)
As far as Vesper herself goes, she does feel a little bit like a step back for Bond girls, in some ways; not all the way back to the era of round-heeled bimboes, but maybe back to, say, Holly Goodhead. She's clearly competent within her own sphere, but she doesn't seem to have the same sort of toughness that we've seen recently. While at one level she shouldn't be -- she's a bank analyst, for heaven's sake! -- but then, the same thing could be said of Natalya Simyonova, the computer programmer in Goldeneye, and she was plenty tough. That said, Vesper was tough enough to run this rather peculiar deception past Bond and all of the British secret service, so appearances might be somewhat deceptive. She's also the only Bond girl in recent memory who doesn't get rescued by Bond, albeit not for lack of trying (repeatedly). True, she does get rescued from the torture room by the mysterious Mr White we see Bond confronting at the end ... but then, so does Bond himself. And the one real chance he has at rescuing her, she doesn't let him take.
It is going to be interesting to see where they go with the next Bond girl. (Abbie Cornish notwithstanding.) If Bond 22 follows Casino Royale so closely that Vesper's Algerian Boyfriend will be a character, then very technically, there really shouldn't be a Bond girl, unless, as Vesper says, he's completely got his armor on again. (Which, of course, he will.)
So, that last line to M in the phone call: "The bitch is dead now." I know -- I know -- that's a near-quote of something. I just don't know what. (I mean, yes, the line's in the original book, but the book is quoting something there.) Shakespeare? Jonson? I think the actual line is, "And besides, the bitch is dead," but I'm not sure. Where is that line from?
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