http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2012/11/20/what-the-fuck-james-bond Comments On: What the Fuck, James Bond? by Cienna Madrid en-us Copyright 2013 The Stranger. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, The Stranger readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact The Stranger. webmaster@thestranger.com (The Stranger Webmaster) Tue, 21 May 2013 00:00:01 -0700 Tue, 21 May 2013 23:15:00 -0700 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss
Such a low opinion of those characters makes me suspicious of your analysis of the scene. I haven't seen this latest bond flick, but think that the scene must have had a subtext other than what you have described.
Posted by Bond Quartermaster]]> Fri, 23 Nov 2012 20:10:56 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Minerva]]> Fri, 23 Nov 2012 09:54:57 -0800 The Stranger Posted by You_Gotta_Be_Kidding_Me]]> Wed, 21 Nov 2012 15:14:45 -0800 The Stranger
Yes, Bond is humoring the villain.

Silva's character was severely underwritten and thus her death is played almost like a awkward formality. There is always a disposable woman in a Bond movie, but we normally get to know her first, at least a little bit. Thus, Bond's line comes off as especially callous because it hasn't yet been demonstrated that he cares a wink about her so we can't tell if he's serious or not. He at least had a laugh with the woman in Casino Royale.
Posted by Bond Bonds]]> Wed, 21 Nov 2012 01:51:51 -0800 The Stranger
And I hated the heroic music when the copters appeared and Bond delivered the line about the radio as new technology. Bond might be an asshole, but you can't ask the audience to celebrate after we just watched an innocent woman get shot in the head.

The least they could've done was give us a scene later after they caught Silva, showing that Bond was at least a little affected by it.

But really, the scene as written is of a piece with the rest of the movie, which is all about dragging the character back from the interesting directions they were going in Casino Royale (and even Quantum of Solace), and reorienting him as the same unkillable, nationalistic, womanizing, wise cracking asshole he was for the previous 20-odd movies.

Where Craig's Bond has been a "blunt instrument," not suave at all really, but instead dependent on his physical gifts and his connection to Dench's M, the Bond moving forward depends more on his experience...brains over brawn. His childhood traumas and psychosexual relationship with M are resolved now. In Skyfall, they've cleaned him up, gotten him reasonably sober, polished him to a high shine and altogether reined in the uncouth, complicated new Bond in favor of the lighter, jovial man whore we all know and love (and were completely sick of).
Posted by schmacky]]> Wed, 21 Nov 2012 01:22:55 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Amanda]]> Wed, 21 Nov 2012 00:44:54 -0800 The Stranger Posted by daftgiraffe]]> Tue, 20 Nov 2012 20:32:40 -0800 The Stranger
It's "perfectly fine" that henchmen are shot up because they're bad guys and she was a victim of the bad guys. You may not agree with this as a moral rule, but there's kind of no entertainment value in an action movie if you can't accept that premise. Also, it was the line that bothered Cienna and seemed jarring, not the shooting itself.

For what it's worth, I see where people are coming from justifying the line, but I found it jarring as well.
Posted by alguna_rubia]]> Tue, 20 Nov 2012 19:54:51 -0800 The Stranger
ODD, I DIDN'T THINK THAT A BOND FILM, ESPECIALLY TODAY, WOULD ACTUALLY GO FORWARD WITH SUCH A LINE IF SHE WERE SHOT, BUT THEN...IT WOULD BE PERFECTLY FINE IF A WHOLE BUNCH OF HENCHMEN GOT CARELESSLY SHOT UP. DO WE REALLY NEED TO SEE ANYBODY GET SHOT UP ON FILM? WHAT MAKES HER LIFE ANY MORE VALUABLE OR LESS OBJECTIFIED THAN EVERY OTHER PERSON WHO DIES ON FILM FOR ENTERTAINMENT?

IS IT 'CAUSE A DUDE MADE IT?
Posted by starkjames]]> Tue, 20 Nov 2012 19:10:24 -0800 The Stranger
Spot-on. I particularly remember a similar scene early on in Casino Royale: Bond & M are at the card table waiting for the arrival of Le Chiffre. Bond orders a bottle of champagne, and when it arrives, he pulls a packet of Benzedrine powder out of his pocket, tears it open and proceeds to dissolve it into a glass of the bubbly, commenting apologetically on M's reproving grimace. During the course of the game he polishes off two bottles, leaving Le Chiffre with the impression he's lit to the gills, but just as he intended, the stimulant has countered most of the effects of the alcohol. Still, his casual abuse of both substances, simply for the sake of duping his opponent, points to a much darker issue.

And the fact that this scene still stands out so clearly in my mind after more than 20 years must be some indication of the impact it would have had on Fleming's readers 50 years ago.
Posted by COMTE]]> Tue, 20 Nov 2012 19:00:39 -0800 The Stranger
I thought that's why the ending of the first Daniel Craig movie was so powerful.
Posted by Dr_Awesome]]> Tue, 20 Nov 2012 18:44:22 -0800 The Stranger Posted by McGee]]> Tue, 20 Nov 2012 18:06:18 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Fnarf]]> Tue, 20 Nov 2012 17:54:50 -0800 The Stranger Posted by captain underpants]]> Tue, 20 Nov 2012 17:34:31 -0800 The Stranger Moonraker), has always had a 'tortured family history' in that he's an orphan, and has always been shown experiencing moral, emotional or physical failure (see The Living Daylights for but one example). As a fan, I'm just very glad to see the films finally getting it right. I thought the shower scene on the boat was another of those callback references, in terms of how it was shot - in an old-times James Bond movie it would have been some classic aesthetic misogyny, all focus on the female silhouette, but in Skyfall the moment Daniel Craig stepped into view it became all about his (sexualised, vulnerable) body, not hers. Minutes later, Silva is sexually assaulting him.
Posted by thene]]> Tue, 20 Nov 2012 17:16:09 -0800 The Stranger Posted by ScienceNerd]]> Tue, 20 Nov 2012 17:15:42 -0800 The Stranger " didn't effect Bond.."

A "Sean Connery Bond" would point out that it should be: "..didn't affect Bond.."


Posted by sgt_doom]]> Tue, 20 Nov 2012 16:59:49 -0800 The Stranger Posted by pussnboots]]> Tue, 20 Nov 2012 16:56:30 -0800 The Stranger
As @15 noted, it was a 50 year-old MaCallan; runs about $11,000 a bottle.

Has everyone forgotten that Bond had a gun pointed at his temple for a good portion of this scene? Yes, Silva is challenging him to a sadistic game of "William Tell", but it's not a fair contest since Bond has no choice but to shoot or be shot himself, and any obvious stalling on his part would simply have been rewarded with a bullet to the head. It was a great way to really start winding up the tension in the scene: the audience already knows the cavalry is on its way, but we don't know whether Bond can delay the inevitable long enough for them to arrive before the game is played out. Our expectation is that they should, because that's the way it would have happened in any old-school Bond movie, but Mendez has been fucking with our expectations throughout the entire film, and so, there is to be no saving of the damsel-in-distress for this 007.

Then we get the close-focus on the muzzle of the dueling pistol, exactly mirroring a previous shot in the underground MI6 bunker; only this time the gun is a little steadier, but not quite steady enough to pull off this stunt, and Bond KNOWS it; he knows that if he actually tries to shoot the glass, he's probably going to kill Severene instead. So, he pulls the shot a little wide, not enough to be obviously missing her, but leaving it in doubt as to whether or not he's convinced Silva that he was really trying. Not that it mattered in the end, because it quickly becomes clear that Silva had no intention of playing the game he set up; he was simply curious to see what Bond would do. His shockingly sudden, almost perfunctory execution (he barely even takes aim) makes it obvious that he intended Severine to die regardless, which emphasizes a clear distinction between the two: Bond may be a murdering psychopath, but he doesn't kill needlessly; Silva, not so much.

The tension in the scene is therefore two-fold: will Bond play for the stakes (i.e. the life of Severine), even knowing he'll probably lose? And does he anticipate Silva's response when he does? His quip is supposed to be disturbing in this context, particularly because of its echo of classic Bondian one-liners (the entire movie is full of these kinds of back-references). But, Craig doesn't just toss it off, as Connery, or Moore, or even Brosnan would have; instead he colors it with a slight hesitation that could be construed as an undertone of remorse, which, from the audience's perspective presents a chilling ambiguity: did he really have feelings for her? Is he just putting up a macho front? Is he THAT callous and unfeeling? Is he attempting to use the grim levity as a way of putting his captors off-guard? All of the above? The fact that there's no easy, cut-and-dried answer gives the character much more depth, regardless of what one thinks of him otherwise. Again, this is not the sort of Bond we're used to seeing, which is one of the things Mendez was so successful in achieving overall with this film.
Posted by COMTE]]> Tue, 20 Nov 2012 16:27:59 -0800 The Stranger Posted by tkc]]> Tue, 20 Nov 2012 15:58:03 -0800 The Stranger Posted by McGee]]> Tue, 20 Nov 2012 15:40:11 -0800 The Stranger Posted by jackseattle]]> Tue, 20 Nov 2012 15:27:11 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Sargon Bighorn]]> Tue, 20 Nov 2012 15:25:17 -0800 The Stranger
Posted by Akbar Fazil]]> Tue, 20 Nov 2012 15:22:51 -0800 The Stranger
But then again, Jame Bond : Spying :: Indiana Jones : Archaeology...
Posted by psbirch]]> Tue, 20 Nov 2012 15:10:19 -0800 The Stranger