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Maybe it is an omen, Meeester Bond Pinewood Studios, the place where the latest 007 movie is being made, has been damaged so badly by fire that it may have to be demolished. Very sad. The place has been used to make James Bond and other films for many years. I wonder whether the ghost of Fleming was appalled at the choice of actor and sent down a thunderbolt?
For a whimsical look at Bond’s place in post-British film and publishing and this country’s history, this whimsical book by Simon Winder is great and rather informative about the Cold War era phase of British history, despite the odd error of detail.
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I doubt the ghost of Fleming is in the least appalled at the choice of actor. Fleming’s Bond is a world away from what we’ve come to know as Eon’s Bond. All of what we think of as Bond’s defining characteristics – his suavity, his absurd indestructibility, his icy professionalism – are barely recognisable in Fleming’s earlier books, particularly Casino Royale: Bond is vulnerable, unsure of himself and more than once lets himself be comrpomised by emotion. Craig is far more suited to playing Fleming’s Bond than he is to playing the Bond of cinematic cliché, but that’s what the production is aiming for: a return to Fleming’s Bond. (It’s not impossible, either, that Fleming allowed his last Bond books to be influenced by the then-budding film franchise’s interpretation of Bond.) And even if Fleming did disapprove of Craig, let us not forget that he initially dismissed Sean Connery as a “snorting lorry-driver”, so perhaps his (perforce putative) judgment needn’t be accorded much in the way of credence.
It is not all of Pinewood Studios which went up in flames, only the big soundstage building, used for various end of 007 film “storming of the villain’s hq scenes”, or in this case, part of Venice.
The filming had already finished, and the set was being dismantled.
Remember that this same buiding also burnt down back in 1984.
BBC report
Novus, brave defence sir. I was being slightly ironical. It is of course true that the films, at least after the first three or four, have relatively little to do with the actual books. (I quite enjoyed the Lazenby one, though). The stories are more complex, they are more interesting from a psychological point of view, and Bond is certainly not the indestructible dude in a tux. that he is in the movies. All fair points. But — and this is where I think the choice of Craig goes wrong — Bond is a tough guy but suave and confident with it. A hard-drinking, smoking, caviare guzzling, Bentley driving old Etonian with a background in the Royal Navy, at ease on skis and in a French casino. I don’t think Craig looks the part. He was fine in The Road to Perdition, for example (great film) but he is not quite right for Bond.
Seriously, if Daniel Craig reprises the real spirit of Ian Fleming’s creation, I’ll be cracking open the vodka.
Connery’s early films in my view are still the best.
Sorry, I’m still shocked by the fact that they chose Chris Cornell to do the opening song.
No, not a thunderbolt—he sent down a thunderball.
Do you really think, Johnathan, that Craig is all that bad?