007-James Bond
Who does this code and name remind you of?
Older friends may be Pierce Brosnan's first reaction
Younger friends may be Daniel Craig the first reaction
Probably some friends who don’t know how to adjust will be Zhou Xingchi first reaction--
Older 007 fans might mention Sean Connery and Roger Moore, two grandpas, and then take George Lazenbella out of Diss.
Tucked between Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan, Timothy Dalton, who connects the old and the new era, is rarely mentioned as a 007.
It also happens that this Ren 007 did what the first three did not do-pull the 007 movie back to the original novel.
007 born out of a novel
Nowadays, when people talk about 007 or James Bond, a gentleman agent with extraordinary skill comes to mind. He is suave and talented. He always drives the most dragged car, plays the most handsome gun, and kills the worst. People and the most beautiful girl.
The trailers of 007 movies almost always include part of the sex scenes to attract the audience. The candidate of the Bond girl in each movie is more anticipated than the villain. The title of Bond girl is not limited to the heroine, as long as the actress who has played a role in the 007 movie will more or less call herself a Bond girl and use it as a publicity.
This back lick in the trailer of "Quantum Crisis" is the only sex scene in the film
So is this agent who drives around the world like a stallion really the product of the original novel author Ian Fleming?
The original author Ian Fleming said in an interview with The New Yorker in 1962:
I needed an unromantic Anglo-Saxon male name, and James Bond was born. When I wrote my first novel "Casino Royale" in 1954, Bond in my heart was an extremely boring man; I hope he is a pure tool. At the time I was thinking of a name for this character, James Bond, which is really the most boring name I have ever heard.
Boring, boring, and not romantic.
Is this the big stallion we are familiar with?
But in Fleming's original work, Bond is cold, even a little cold.
Fleming's hand-painted portrait of Bond, with an M word bald and very British
Whether it's the portraits he painted or the illustrations used in the novels, it is difficult for this agent to give a romantic impression. So why has James Bond become the image we know now?
In June 1961, Fleming sold the right to adapt his novel and film to Harry Salzman. Salzman immediately partnered with Albert Brockley and began filming 007 movies.
Although Fleming's Bond actor candidate is the American singer Hawke Kamelk. But the first 007 movie "Dr. No" was filmed in 1962, when Hoki Kamelk was over sixty years old, obviously not suitable for this role.
Producers Harry Salzman and Albert Brockley were originally chosen by Hollywood star Gary Grant, who was then popular, but because Gary Grant was only willing to sign a contract, and the two producers wanted to make 007 The film series immediately dismissed the idea of choosing Gary Grant.
In order to better select the actors for Bond, the two producers and the original author Ian Fleming jointly organized a sea election contest called "Looking for James Bond".
The final winner of the competition was a 28-year-old model named Peter Anthony. Unfortunately, I did not find the image data of this model, and there is no way to know the shape and appearance of this model. According to Brockley's description, Peter Anthony is somewhat similar to Gregory Parker, who starred in "Roman Holiday" and "Million Pounds".
Although he won the audition, the model did not become the first 007 as he wished. According to Albert Brockley's explanation, Peter Anthony lacks acting performance and cannot resonate with Bond's role. After all, the model is not an actor, and it is inevitable that the acting skills are not in place.
After the audit failed, the two producers began to re-cast the roles. At this time, 30-year-old Scot Sean Connery entered their field of vision. According to Salzman’s memories, Sean Connery’s first impression on them was not good, because Sean Connery was wearing a sloppy shirt when he came to the audition. The sky is not afraid of the chic and domineering.
After the audition, Salzman and Brockley watched Connery getting in the car and leaving, and told each other on the spot that this was the best candidate for Bond.
However, the original author, Ian Fleming, did not recognize Sean Connery at first, only because his James Bond is an English from the upper class, while Sean Connery is a Scot from a working family.
But just as Robert Downey Jr. and Hugh Jackman reacted against Marvel comics, as the film became more and more influential, Fleming finally added a character of Scottish origin to Bond in the novel "The Queen's Secret Service".
Really fragrant--
According to some ancient uncles, the third 007 Roger Moore was also considered for the first Bond candidate, but he was eliminated because the producer thought he was too young and beautiful.
I personally think this news is not enough to believe, because although Roger Moore is the third 007, he is three years older than Sean Connery!
The movie has almost reshaped the role of James Bond, turning the inhumane and cold agent in the original book into a humorous and charming gentleman. It is said that Ian Fleming left such a comment after watching the movie:
It's terrible, it's terrible!
This shows that even the first 007 movie did not convey the spirit of the original work well. Lianmei has made drastic changes to 007's personnel settings, naturally for the purpose of a larger market.
Although film noir and tough-boy detectives developed by Orson Wells and Raymond Chandler became the climate in 1961, what the young and old in the United States still pursue and appreciate are visually strange and light-hearted stories.
Facts have proved that the producer's idea is correct.
"Dr. No" cut a box office record of nearly 60 million at a cost of one million, and the global audience was impressed by the charm of the British agent. United States immediately launched the sequel "Russian Love" in 1963, and doubled the investment cost to two million.
Nowadays we are familiar with most of the 007 movie routines. For example, in each movie, Q will provide Bond with several new props that will come in handy in the future. For example, the words "James Bond will return" will appear after the ending subtitles are scrolled. It started with "Russian Love".
Even including the famous title of 007.
No one knows the opening of 007: Through the barrel, we saw Bond walking slowly toward the middle of the screen, suddenly turning around and shooting at us, blood stained the entire screen, and then the story unfolded in the shot.
But these are all routines determined in the sequel "Russian Love". The film did not start immediately after Bond shot in "Dr. No", but entered a cartoon headline with the 007 theme song. The person who shot the opening shot was not Sean Connery, but the stand-in actor Bob Simmons.
"Russian Love" is my only 007 original novel. The title is literally translated as "Love from Russia"
Bond gradually moving towards absurdity
If Sean Connery's performance still partly coincides with the cold and boring agent's style of acting in the original, then his successor may be farther away from the original.
Starred in five 007 movies in a row, Sean Connery was retiring, and his successor was 28-year-old Australian George Lazenbe.
George Lazenbe bid farewell to the 007 series after only acting in one, which caused United American to spend a lot of money to invite Sean Connery to enter the palace in order to fill the gap. As for why George Lazenbe only appeared once, and how he was in his "Queen's Secret Service". This interesting topic is too complicated to expand, and I will talk about it later if I have a chance.
The third Bond is Roger Moore, who was said to be eliminated because of being too beautiful.
In the twelve years from 1973 to 1985, Roger Moore acted in seven 007 movies, the most among all Bond actors. His interpretation style is quite different from that of Sean Connery, which is somewhat influenced by the 007 film style from being more realistic to science fiction and even magic.
American popular culture, which had experienced the sexual liberation movement in the 1960s, gradually slipped into hedonism in the late 1970s.
We can see that Bond in Roger Moore’s era is the best and most beautiful among all Bonds: he is always looking for prey and molesting women. Many of his performances in movies are not like a professional. An agent of, and more like an extreme sports expert hired by the intelligence department.
In the era of Roger Moore, where there is no taboo, the comic color of 007 movies has reached an unprecedented height. It can even be said that certain dramas have entered the realm of farce like Chaplin or Albert and Castro.
There are frequent vulgar funny paragraphs, and there are no more elegant and elegant jokes like Sean Connery, but straight and explicit jokes.
For example, in "The Man with the Golden Gun", when Bond finishes saying "Bottoms up" (cheers), the next shot immediately cuts to a close-up of the strip girl's raised buttocks. (The English for buttocks is also Bottom)
Although I personally do not have a high opinion of the 007 in Roger Moore's era, it is undeniable that these 007 boxes performed well at the box office. Simply put, 007 in Roger Moore's era closely follows the pace of the times, and the audience can shoot whatever they want.
The black culture is on fire, well, let's let Bond fight the Dark Party.
Space science fiction is on fire, well, let's let 007 go to the sky and into the sea.
The tough guy's action is hot, well, let's let 007 go to the Golden Gate Bridge to fight hand-to-hand.
The so-called profitability is not long, relying solely on the character's personal charm and following the trend themes first, lack of film style, and handling the sequel like a speculator will eventually lose a fixed audience.
Moreover, Roger Moore himself is three years older than Sean Connery. By the time of the filming of his last 007 movie "Thunder Killing", Roger Moore was 57 years old, older than the mother of that movie Bond Girl.
This fact severely affected Roger Moore’s motivation to continue playing Bond. In an interview in 2007, he admitted:
I was too old at the time, almost 400 years old.
The first 007 Sean Connery also said in an interview in 1997:
Bond should be played by someone about thirty-five years old. I am too old, and Roger is also too old.
Looking back at the movie "Thunder Killing" now, it's hard to ignore Roger Moore's age.
The fifty-seven-year-old Roger Moore was unable to complete most of the stunts in the film, so the stuntman part was heinously obvious. Most of the scenes in the film, whether it is horse racing, bridge jumping, fighting, skiing, are difficult for Roger Moore, who is in his sixties.
The only action scene that can be played in person is probably the sex scene.
But the pain is that even in the sex scene, due to the huge age difference, the emotional scene between Roger Moore and the Bond girl Tanya Roberts is very tough and dry. In his autobiography, Roger Moore admitted that he felt that his chemical reaction with Tanya Roberts in the performance was almost zero. In addition, he also disliked Grace Jones, another Bond girl in the film.
Although the box office performance of "Thunder Killing" was not satisfactory, the elderly Roger Moore still won 150 million in the global box office, but the reputation of the movie itself is hard to be said to be ideal.
"The New Yorker" showed no mercy to the film's criticism:
The James Bond series has had its ups and downs, but there has never been a failure like "Death of Thunder". People go to see a Bond movie, looking forward to a movie with style, at least freshness and excitement. But this movie contributes only to the stupid crash scene. This film has some very creative ideas, but they are all mixed together, and the way of laying the groundwork is very irresponsible.
The overly exaggerated plot is mixed with the overly old 007, which makes the sense of violation and ridiculousness strong. In the 1980s, Hollywood entered the era of tough guy action movies. In front of the tough guys like Schwarzenegger, Stallone, and Bruce Willis, a pleated face of a protagonist agent became more and more out of date.
So far, the distance between 007 in the movie and the dull man in Ian Fleming's book has been pulled to an infinite distance
A wrong casting
Roger Moore, who played Bond for twelve years, chose to retire, and the troublesome casting problem was once again placed in front of producer Albert Brockley.
Through countless auditions, the final list for the Bond role is three people: New Zealander Sam Neal, Irishman Pierce Brosnan and Welshman Timothy Dalton.
Timothy Dalton
The first to be excluded was Sam Neal, which was the result of Albert Brockley's rejection of the crowd. Co-producer Michael Gibson and even Albert's daughter Barbara highly recognized Sam Neal, but Albert just couldn't believe Sam Neal's performance. (I think this decision is correct. How does Sam Neal's temperament look like the middle class)
What is not known is that Albert was not originally optimistic about Timothy Dalton, who would become the fourth Bond in the future, but the fifth-Pierce Brosnan. After three days of auditioning with makeup, the producer officially offered Pierce Brosnan an appointment. It seems that Brosnan has become a Bond.
What made Pierce Brosnan lose the chance of becoming the fourth 007 was the consequence of a series of chain reactions. The initiator was the American Broadcasting Corporation, or NBC for short.
Pierce Brosnan, who received the 007p film offer, had an appointment with NBC at the time, which was the TV series "Legend of Remington".
This shouldn't be a problem. Due to the deteriorating ratings, NBC has decided to cut "Legend of Steele". Knowing that the TV series would be cut off, Pierce Brosnan would audition for 007, and the producers decided to offer him a film appointment.
But when the media broke the news that Pierce Brosnan was about to take over as 007, many melon-eaters who listened to the wind and rain began to watch "Legend of Steele" in order to get a glimpse of the new 007. The ratings of "Legend of Steele" rose instead of falling. . Seeing the power of the 007 effect, NBC decided to renew the life of "Legend of Steele", so it renewed it for another season. This also activated the terms of the Pierce Brosnan contract, and Pierce Brosnan will have to continue filming the fifth season of "Steele's Legend."
NBC's behavior annoyed the 007 producer Albert Brockley, who immediately withdrew the offer to Pierce Brosnan. NBC once tried to reach an agreement with Albert so that Pierce Brosnan could film 007 while filming TV series. But Albert's attitude was very tough, and he categorically analized NBC:
James Bond will not be Remington Steele, and Remington Steele will not be James Bond.
After losing Pierce Brosnan, do you have to restart casting work again?
At this time, Albert's daughter put the option of Timothy Dalton on the table again. This is normal. Dalton himself is on the final list of the first casting.
But Albert, who has the final right to make the decision, is still not satisfied with Dalton. The reason is that although Dalton has been famous for a long time, he is well-known for his costume image and Shakespeare's drama, and he hasn't been well-known in the film and television circle.
Fortunately, Albert's wife strongly suggested that her husband must meet and talk with Dalton, which finally convinced Albert. (This kind of prejudice against stage actors is not an isolated case. The famous Hollywood story is that when Warner Company was filming "The Fair Lady", it thought that Julie Andrews, who was born in stage play, had a small name, and chose Audrey Hepburn instead. )
The responsibility for reviving the 007 series ultimately fell on the 40-year-old Timothy Dalton.
Paradoxically, if Albert chooses Timothy Dalton from the beginning, Dalton may not be able to become 007.
Because Dalton had no schedule, he was filming "Angels and Gods" with Brooke Shields at the time. On the contrary, it was NBC, Pierce Brosnan, and "Legend of Steele" that delayed the filming process. When Albert found Dalton again, he vacated the schedule and took over the filming of 007 without hesitation.
So the fate of a person, of course, depends on one's own struggle, but it also depends on the course of history.
Oh, as for the "Legend of Steele" that dragged Pierce Brosnan.
After discovering that Pierce Brosnan was not the new 007, people quickly lost interest in the show, and the ratings plummeted. After only six episodes were filmed in the fifth season, NBC had no choice but to cut "Legend of Steele" again.
The familiar and unfamiliar new James
The film "Life at Dawn" has shown a tendency to get rid of the influence of its predecessors from the very beginning of filming.
One of the most eye-catching changes is the replacement of the Lotus, which has been with Bond for ten years, back to the classic 007 model-the Aston Martin DB5.
The character who appeared in the first 007 movie "Dr. No"-Qian Banni has also changed. Qian Ban Ni is the secretary of Bond's direct officer M. She is responsible for sending Bonds tasks and flirting with Bond in every movie.
From 1963 to 1987, Louis Maxwell played this role from a girl to an old woman, and she inevitably showed the same old look like this longevity series. In "Life at Dawn", Qian Banni is played by the young actor Caroline Bliss, which symbolizes the rejuvenation of the crew to the series. Except for the quartermaster Q, all the old team from "Dr. No" retired.
The most important changes are naturally reflected in the story.
The plot of the 007 movie in Roger Moore's era is basically the same: a powerful business/technologist took advantage of the US-Soviet Cold War to find opportunities to provoke US-Soviet relations in order to achieve his ulterior motives.
Although the peak of the Cold War was in the 1960s and 1970s, there were signs of easing, but the 007 movies at that time never regarded the Cold War as the main contradiction of the story, but used the spy war as the background of Bond's adventure story. Over time, the audience developed aesthetic fatigue. After all, once the trick of using the Cold War as a blindfold is seen through, it will be boring to change it.
It's always difficult to attract a story that you can tell at a glance.
"Vitality at Dawn" was filmed in 1985, when the Cold War had come to an end, and America's lead was getting bigger and bigger.
The internal contradictions in the Soviet Union are full, and the Socialist Alliance has already been a precursor to its collapse. This has precisely increased the acceptance of American audiences towards the description of the Cold War in movies. The crisis in "Life at Dawn" is no longer a conspiracy of financial predators and technology giants, but revolves around a general who wants to defect from the Soviet Union. The general named 007 to be responsible for his escape from Czechoslovakia.
It seems that the dying enemy is the best enemy.
What changed along with the theme of the story was Bond's character.
The previous three 007s, whether it was Sean Connery, Roger Moore, or George Lazenbe, they were always well-dressed, personable, and not rushing to handle tasks. Even when performing the most dangerous tasks, they can still maintain a sense of humor, and sometimes they can tell a joke about dangerous situations. It can be said that eating a hot pot and singing a song will wipe out the captive!
But in Timothy Dalton's performance, Bond became more serious, as if it were even more Fleming's original. The film review website Rotten Tomatoes has an evaluation of "Life at Dawn":
The new successor Timothy Dalton played James Bond is more serious than his predecessor, which does make the story more colorful and exciting, but it also makes people feel that he lacks a sense of humor.
This is not a coincidence, but a deliberate result of Timothy Dalton.
Dalton has read the original novel, and he hopes that Bond can be closer to the original character, instead of repeating his predecessor.
The screenwriters not only recognized Dalton's ideas, but also because of the AIDS panic in European and American society at the time, Bond did not even have sex scenes in "Dawn of Life". This makes Timothy Dalton the only 007 who has no sex scenes.
The rivalry between Bond and the Bang girl Carla in "Life at Dawn" even makes people forget that this is a 007 movie, as if we are watching a love sketch like "Roman Holiday". Compared to Sean Connery and Roger Moore's one-step emotional drama, Dalton's Bond played a lot of pen and ink to win Kara's favor. No wonder people call Dalton the most literate 007.
This is not Bond's first taste of love.
As early as 1969, "The Queen's Emissary" brought Bond and the Bond girl into the marriage hall, but that was only the result of a tough script. "Life at Dawn" describes in detail the process of Bond and Carla's secret love, and how Carla falls into Bond's embrace step by step.
People, once moved, there will be fire
The Bond of this work is a moment of emotional anger that has not been reached by the previous few.
There is another aspect of "Life at Dawn" that makes people look different, that is, many parts of the film have been ruthlessly "borrowed" by "Uncharted 3".
In the second half of the movie, Bond came to Afghanistan, and then he defeated the Soviet army together with the Afghan Mujahideen Islamic League and paid tribute to a wave of Arab Lawrence.
In the last action scene, Cara drove a jeep to help Bond climb onto the plane, and then Bond fought desperately with the villain hanging outside the transport plane. The entire bridge segment was completely reproduced in Uncharted 3. (For detailed comparison, please refer to h ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpxSeOS1JcA)
Although the thrilling passages on the plane were completed by substitutes, the forty-year-old Dalton insisted on playing in person in most of the action scenes, including the roof action scenes filmed in Gibraltar, which was difficult for the old Roger Moore to do.
Looking back now, the political propaganda for 007 and the Afghan jihadists to jointly fight the Soviet Union is too strong, which makes the political color of "Dawn of Life" reach the highest in the series.
Before the screenwriters even dared not write the "Smiert Spionam" organization (meaning assassination of spies) in 007 movies. "Smiert Spionam" is the "SMERSH" organization in the original novel, and the organization written by Ian Fleming is clearly pointing to the Soviet Union. In order to avoid suspicion, the screenwriter changed "SMERSH" to a ghost party without Russian elements.
But in "Life at Dawn", "Smiert Spionam" was spoken grandiosely through the mouth of a Soviet general, and the text even appeared at the scene of the death of Bond colleagues.
Sure enough, the enemy who is dying is the best enemy.
Diablo reform of the collapse of the middle road
"Dawn of Life" has a global box office of 190 million. Dalton's new 007 seems to be the right choice, and the reform he represents to move closer to the original seems to have succeeded.
Two years later, in 1989, Dalton's second-and his last 007-"License to Kill" was produced. The film is more realistic and darker on the basis of "Life at Dawn". What is sad is that it has received mixed reviews from critics after it was released.
"Empire" magazine only gave two stars with quite harsh comments:
Dalton is really desperate... Timothy Dalton may have the look of Bond, but he lost the props, high-tech and cars passed down by Moore and Connery.
The film critic Norman Werner even listed "License to Kill" as the second-worst 007 movie in history after "Death by Thunder":
Timothy Dalton got a semi-finished product. This actor might have become the definitive version of 007, but he was very unlucky to catch up with the weakest period of the 007 series. You can see how serious a crisis of creative exhaustion this series suffered at the end of the Cold War.
Even the famous unreliable evaluation website IGN gave a bad review
The film is too dark and deviates from the conventional routine of the 007 series.
So before discussing whether "License to Kill" deviates from the conventional routines of the 007 series, we must first figure out what is the routine of 007?
Generally speaking, the process of classic 007 movies is like this:
Opening shot animation → Bond is performing a task that is related to the main line of the movie but not very relevant → Bond is recalled to Global Trading Company (ie MI6) → Takes the task from M and flirts with Qian Banni → Disguise identity contact The villain BOSS/Bong girl → Fight against the boss without tearing your face→ Be exposed by the BOSS / fall into the river (often accompanied by the betrayal or death of the No. 2 Bang girl) → Get the bong girl to rescue / develop the plot → formally sneak in or break Enter the BOSS domain → fall into the river again (often accompanied by the betrayal or death of the No. 2 Bond girl) → use a certain foreshadowing to successfully perform the task → mistakenly thought that victory was interrupted by the villain who slipped through the net → XXOO
"License to Kill" broke this routine. Bond did not take over the task from M in this film, but a purely personal act of revenge. Because of this, in this film, Bond was revoked by the M representative organization as a "killing license" symbolizing the power of agents. In fact, the other title of this movie is called "Vendetta Privata", which means "personal revenge".
Being changed is not only Bond’s motivation, but also the character’s behavior pattern.
This time, 007 no longer relied on the pre-prepared identity of the organization to be familiar with the BOSS, but used the performance of the name to enter the core circle of the villain drug lord Sanchez. Afterwards, Bond did not use high-tech props to defeat the enemy, but the suspicion formation made Sanchez doubt the loyalty of his men and defeated them from the inside.
The screenwriter of "License to Kill" Wilson frankly said that the reason why Bond used the divorce scheme in this way was inspired by two sources: First, Timothy Dalton himself tends to play James Bond darker. , Gloomy; second is Kurosawa's masterpiece "Intentional Stick".
Wilson said:
("Intentional Stick") Without using force with the villain, just sowing the seeds of anxiety, the protagonist can make the villain cocoon.
In fact, this more espionage technique is not the original creation of the screenwriter. The original author Ian Fleming has already written a similar plot in the novel "The Man with the Golden Gun". It's just that the 007 movies before "License to Kill" rarely consider the use of obscure plot development methods, and are more inclined to make big news.
The darkness of "License to Kill" is more directly and intuitively manifested in violence. This film is the only work in the 007 series that has been rated 15+ by the British film censorship agency BBFC. The American film rating agency MPAA expressed dissatisfaction with the film's excessive performance of violence and ordered the 36-second shot to be cut.
It takes courage to break the norm, but courage may not necessarily bring victory.
If the Bond in "Life at Dawn" is still a familiar stranger, then Bond in "License to Kill" is obviously another agent from the audience.
As mentioned above, the critical voices are similar. The film critic Rick Glown believes that the film turned James Bond into a reticent, strong, and thorough American agent, which made the film very non-bond.
Taciturn, strong and alert, this description is clearly James Bond in Ian Fleming's original novel.
A 007 that is most in line with the original work is evaluated as the least 007. This is really an innocent blame.
If Father Fleming is alive, no matter how low he is to "License to Kill", I think he will not be lower than his evaluation of "Dr. No" back then-"terrible, it is terrible."
Despite constant criticism, the global box office of "License to Kill" still exceeds 150 million. In 1990, Timothy Dalton's third 007 movie was on the agenda.
Regrettably, four years of legal disputes broke out between MGM and United American and Brockley over the rights to adapt the 007 film. The project delay caused by this caused Dalton to frustrate. He voluntarily terminated the contract, and we can no longer see his further interpretation of Bond.
Over time, after the rise and fall of the Pierce Brosnan era, and the repeated washing of the aesthetics of special agents by Mission: Impossible and the Bourbon Films, the voice of film critics for rehabilitating "License to Kill" has also risen.
Many people even think that the success of Daniel Craig's "Casino Royale" is more or less standing on the shoulders of two 007s by Timothy Dalton.
So, about the story of Pierce Brosnan's era, and what are the inheritances and similarities and differences between the "KGB" 007 created by Daniel Craig and Timothy Dalton.
That is another story.
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