No argument re bringing in another good writer for Bond 25 but Tarantino has written some good screenplays that were adapted and directed by others ("True Romance" and "Crimson Tide" are examples). It would not be a stretch IMO to say that Tarantino could write some great scenes between Craig/Bond and Waltz/Bloefeld.
Tarentino claims Bond kills the girl at the end of the novel. I'm not sure which version of CR he read, but Bond defenitely didn't kill her. Still though, Tarentino probably could have made a good movie out of it, but it's something we'll ultimately never know. It's fun to finally read his initial thoughts about it though!
Also this completely reminds me of the review Haphazardstuff did on Casino Royale. He did a really indepth version and discussed Tarentino in it too. He even made a brilliant short montage of what a Tarentino Casino Royale with Brosnan would have been like )
I do feel that Tarantino is too dialogue heavy these days, too self-indulgent, esp going by reviews of Hateful 8. I feel that ship has sailed but of course there are so many great Bondian moments from his movies, in particular the masterful opening if Inglorious, and also the dialogue that leads to a spy's exposure in the German cellar, with Fassbender and the guy who went onto star in Rush.
Uber geek that Tarantino is, I'm surprised that he got it wrong about Vesper's death, saying that Bond kills her in the book, and also that he was thinking 60s not 50s... these aren't minor details. If the project had had his full attention, I'd have liked to have seen him do it all the same, as a standalone period piece... but then if that had happened we wouldn't have got what we actually have, i.e. Campbell's CR as a springboard for the whole new in-franchise era that's become the great success that it has!
Actually, this is only an impression a reader may get from the interview. Tarantino does NOT say that Bond kills Vesper in the book, but specifically states that he would have Bond kill her... Makes sense, this is not a director you would expect to follow the literary material blindly...
Okay, perhaps the transcript of the interview is ambiguous or misleading re. what Tarantino meant. If Quentin Tarantino's James Bond had seen the light of day, he might well have killed Vesper upon discovering her treachery. Ian Fleming's James Bond doesn't; he moves from angst to a hardening of the heart over her suicide once he knows the truth. It's interesting that Tarantino says he would have been happy inheriting Pierce Brosnan in the role. Maybe he was taken with the scene in TWINE where Brosnan's Bond shoots dead Elektra King - although the precise context of that situation leaves Bond with no choice but to shoot. As for the talkiness of Tarantino's screenplays, I wouldn't have seen that as a problem. True, Fleming's Bond himself is taciturn, but in the novel Le Chiffre and Mathis each have a significant talkative exchange with Bond, dialogue which it might have been fun to see Tarantino interpret. Also, the way in which Fleming tracks Bond's consciousness in the novel/s might have lent itself to a hardboiled voiceover in the movie, with interior monologues on the part of Bond.
As a side note, I'd say that Christoph Walz enjoyed better written, more compelling roles in Tarantino's movies than he gets in SP. It's fair to say that the impact of Walz's performance as Obenhauser depends as much on the baggage he's bringing, in a good way, from Tarantino as it does on the Bond franchise's own Blofeld legacy.
Critics and material I don't need. I haven't changed my act in 53 years.
...they had fabulous material and the perfect vehicle for a re-boot by finally securing the rights to Fleming's first Bond novel, which would not be a challenge to adapt for a contemporary Bond film. With some help from Paul Haggis, even Purvis and Wade couldn't "**** it up".
From what I've read, Purvis and Wade turned in a very good adaptation that was closer to the novel than Haggis's polished script. Similarly, their unused version of Quantum of Solace sounds like it would have been better than what Haggis left behind.
LoeffelholzThe United States, With LovePosts: 8,988Quartermasters
...they had fabulous material and the perfect vehicle for a re-boot by finally securing the rights to Fleming's first Bond novel, which would not be a challenge to adapt for a contemporary Bond film. With some help from Paul Haggis, even Purvis and Wade couldn't "**** it up".
From what I've read, Purvis and Wade turned in a very good adaptation that was closer to the novel than Haggis's polished script. Similarly, their unused version of Quantum of Solace sounds like it would have been better than what Haggis left behind.
P&W live on in better repute, it appears, in anecdote than they do in actual filmed work.
Check out my Amazon author page!Mark Loeffelholz
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
RE: Dialogue. Most of it today is awful. Gone are the days of "You are just a stupid policeman . . . whose time has run out." and "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!"
I try to imagine what postmodern tripe Tarantino would come up. It goes like this in my head:
LeChiffre (played by the ever mumbling and reptilian Michael Madsen): You know what this is, Jim? I can call you Jim, right? It's a Stradivarius, the more common nomenclature being a Strad. The greatest f--cking violin in the world. A work of f--cking art. Made of the finest spruce and maple. Oiled in delicate coats of amber and honey. Precious. A Strad is quite simply the motherf--king-est musical instrument in the world. It's the Superman of violins. The Chuck Berry of strings.
Bond: You don't say.
LeChiffre: I do say, Jim, I do. (Drinks loudly from a Big Kahuna shake.) Now, this particular Strad is called Napoleon's Waterloo. You know why?
Bond: He tripped over it and broke his Bonaparte?
LeChiffre (Smiling but not quite amused): No. Very f--king funny, by the way. No, it's because Stradivarius, by then old and with more fame and money than he ever could dream of, decided it would be his last violin. It took him years to make it. He selected the best of the best woods. He took the intestines of the finest sheep he could find for the strings. He slavishly carved and polished it, working day and night. It was to be his greatest triumph. And then, upon completing it in 1737, putting those last fastidious touches on it, Stradivari keeled over and died. Know why?
Bond: Heart attack?
LeChiffre: No, Jim. They said it was love that killed him. He loved the this object of his pride and ambition too much, and it consumed him. It was his Waterloo. Love will do that to you, if you're not careful. (Smashes the violin against a table, shattering it into pieces.) And that's why love is always, always a b--ch, Jim, and you just got to be prepared to let it go.
Bond: Vespa?
LeChiffre (Finishing his shake loudly): F--king Vespa.
That's an hilarious parody. ) But I can imagine Tarantino doing justice to Le Chiffre's actual taunting in the book, the villain's infantilising 'bucket-and-spade' rebuke... QT wouldn't shy away from filming monologues like that; and, to be fair, he's shown by now that he can work with a range of idioms/voices.
Critics and material I don't need. I haven't changed my act in 53 years.
That's an hilarious parody. ) But I can imagine Tarantino doing justice to Le Chiffre's actual taunting in the book, the villain's infantilising 'bucket-and-spade' rebuke... QT wouldn't shy away from filming monologues like that; and, to be fair, he's shown by now that he can work with a range of idioms/voices.
ummm...not convinced. Gassy man has got him right.
No one trusts Tarantino with Bond. It would be a Tarantino film featuring the cliches of Bond
1. For Your Eyes Only 2. The Living Daylights 3 From Russia with Love 4. Casino Royale 5. OHMSS 6. Skyfall
Quite a few recent Bond films featured "clichés of Bond". Only to be expected with the 50th anniversary. So if we had those clichés - except shown in a masterful way - would anyone complain?
why set a period Casino Royale in the 1960s rather than the 1950s as originally written?
because thats the period of the classic Connery films, the definitive 007, of which everything else is an attempted revival
filmgeek Tarantino no doubt sees Bond primarily in terms of those 1960s Connery films, even above the Fleming books (which, as has been noted, he may not be all that familiar with)
he may want to replicate the look and feel of those first four Connerys, the same way he likes to replicate Leone or blaxploitation or any of his other favoured inspirations
I know I certainly would rather have seen that, than what we finally got... a completely persuasive period piece that fits seemlessly prior to 1962s Dr No, both in look and tone, how cool would that have been?
I know my feeling of the Craig film, when it came out, was that the book has been adapted a third time and we still dont have an adaptation that fits in with the film series, as it was so radically different from all that had come before
could Tarantino have pulled it off? maybe it would have been just another typical Tarantino film, but I'm not so cynical as yall ... certainly the dialog and the mexican standoff scenes would have been good, and starting with Kill Bill he proved he actually can be an action film director ... for those nonfans who think he's just got too many selfindulgent habits, have you seen Jackie Brown? probably the straightest, least egotistical of his films (thus the least discussed), he can tone it down if he wants to
why set a period Casino Royale in the 1960s rather than the 1950s as originally written?
because thats the period of the classic Connery films, the definitive 007, of which everything else is an attempted revival
filmgeek Tarantino no doubt sees Bond primarily in terms of those 1960s Connery films, even above the Fleming books (which, as has been noted, he may not be all that familiar with)
he may want to replicate the look and feel of those first four Connerys, the same way he likes to replicate Leone or blaxploitation or any of his other favoured inspirations
I know I certainly would rather have seen that, than what we finally got... a completely persuasive period piece that fits seemlessly prior to 1962s Dr No, both in look and tone, how cool would that have been?
I know my feeling of the Craig film, when it came out, was that the book has been adapted a third time and we still dont have an adaptation that fits in with the film series, as it was so radically different from all that had come before
could Tarantino have pulled it off? maybe it would have been just another typical Tarantino film, but I'm not so cynical as yall ... certainly the dialog and the mexican standoff scenes would have been good, and starting with Kill Bill he proved he actually can be an action film director ... for those nonfans who think he's just got too many selfindulgent habits, have you seen Jackie Brown? probably the straightest, least egotistical of his films (thus the least discussed), he can tone it down if he wants to
Jackie Brown, in my opinion, is his best film, mostly because he tones down all the schtick he usually does.
That said, his interest is really in the 70s, and not the 60s. Even then, he feels the need to be postmodern (using "Cat People" for a key scene in the WW2-set Inglorious Basterds, for example). I don't think he could do a Bond film without devolving into his usual antics.
And I'm not sure how a 50-year-old Pierce Brosnan would have been convincing as the fledgling agent Bond is anyway. Anything Tarantino would have done would have been retconned to fit his vision and not terribly faithful to the book.
One last point: A novel is often structured differently than a film, and should be. Casino Royale, in particular, is tougher because it's in many ways a character study, which does not lend itself well to film.
superadoRegent's Park West (CaliforniaPosts: 2,652MI6 Agent
Jackie Brown, in my opinion, is his best film, mostly because he tones down all the schtick he usually does.
I agree. Though Jackie Brown is not my favorite, it stands out from the rest as an excellent film that keeps out much of his Tarantino-isms, which shows that he's capable of delivering a worthy adaptation of someone else's work (Elmore Leonard). Obviously this restraint is due to it being (his only) adaptation.
To speak on the era he mentioned, the 60's and the use of a 50-something Brosnan, I can't really fill in the blanks of his reasoning for saying those things, but when EON announced it had acquired the rights to CR, I suggested here how it wouldn't be that difficult to tweak the plot from a Bond-begins story to a penultimate stage-of-life setting like how YOLT was supposed to be like because it could have been a retrospective look at how his career started. Interestingly enough, SF and SP have been slanted towards that, allowing us to see the genesis of Bond up to the near obsolescence of his career in the span of 4 movies! As to making CR a period film, for me it could have been or not, though at the point where the series is now, I can see the possibilities of experimentation that includes visits to past decades.
"...the purposeful slant of his striding figure looked dangerous, as if he was making quickly for something bad that was happening further down the street." -SMERSH on 007 dossier photo, Ch. 6 FRWL.....
yeh the desire to use Brosnan I dont get, Brosnan was already kind of not-so-young looking by that point, and he's much more bland and mainstream than the type of edgy character actors Tarantino usually likes
actually most interesting thing about that article, was there was a 1960s roadshow style presentation of the new movie, with programmes and intermission, and I missed it! that would have been an experience, to see a film properly like an earlier generation did...
...thinking about his talent with the "mexican standoff" (eg the beercellar scene from Inglorious Basturds), where would he have fit this sort of thing into Casino Royale? well, how bout the card game itself! the Craig film, for all the time it dwelt in the casino, didnt actually show us much of the card game, instead it kept cutting to something more visually exciting, Bond gets poisoned, Bond fights some africans, Bond orders a martini, "didnt I tell you to enter behind me", everything except the actual card game
course Fleming made the game itself very gripping, every card dealt, for several chapters straight, thats part of the thrill of the book is how he as a writer did that ... I bet Tarantino could have got more tension out of the actual card game than the young Brocollis did, without resorting to non-card related interruptions, , show the audience the hands dealt, and build that "mexican standoff" tension he's so good at
superadoRegent's Park West (CaliforniaPosts: 2,652MI6 Agent
yeh the desire to use Brosnan I dont get, Brosnan was already kind of not-so-young looking by that point, and he's much more bland and mainstream than the type of edgy character actors Tarantino usually likes
actually most interesting thing about that article, was there was a 1960s roadshow style presentation of the new movie, with programmes and intermission, and I missed it! that would have been an experience, to see a film properly like an earlier generation did...
Don't know about bland, but as it's been said in the thread Tarantino seems to give honor to older, once hot, the then-medium-hot personalities and B-listers, like how Kurt Russell is now and in Death Proof, Travolta in Pulp Fiction (whose career had taken a huge dive in the 80's, David Carradine and Sonny Chiba in the Kill Bill movies and most notably in recent times, Jennifer Jason Leigh in Hateful Eight. It was out of the norm for Tarantino to cast A-listers like Jamie Foxx, Brad Pitt and Leonardo De Caprio, though he did cast one of my favorite actors, De Niro, in such a subdued supporting role in Jackie Brown.
IMO, in Brosnan Tarantino saw the typecasted, classic, larger-than-life Brit secret agent, just as he leveraged the Kung Fu vibe built into David Carradine's persona. But based on what's been mentioned here and the different articles on this topic I think the driving factor for Tarantino's consideration for Brosnan was because it was Brosnan who pitched him the idea and that they actually discussed it at length. I just watched No Escape and even in that movie, Brosnan was purposely used to evoke a Bond vibe in within the confines of his small, supporting role and even while grizzled and gray I think he indeed still has it.
certainly the dialog and the mexican standoff scenes would have been good, and starting with Kill Bill he proved he actually can be an action film director
Yes, I agree. I think Tarantino is great at playing off tension with his characters and maybe he can get too self-indulgent with the dialogue (the reason why I like watching his movies, where you can practically hear him speaking through Uma Thurman, lol), but CR is rich with dialogue and Tarantino's penchant for limiting scenes to where a lot of this dialogue is taking place...it can be argued that this was the essence of the CR novel.
"...the purposeful slant of his striding figure looked dangerous, as if he was making quickly for something bad that was happening further down the street." -SMERSH on 007 dossier photo, Ch. 6 FRWL.....
QT is good at giving underused actors their big chance isn't he, bland or not? As Superado says, but also Willis, again, got a career shot in the arm in PF and then there is Robert Forster in Jackie Brown.
Again, IMO QT has written some very good scripts. Good scripts in the hands of well cast, good actors usually yield excellent performances.
My big problem with him is the use of British actors. Tim Roth in his latest film is a good example. He deals in cliches. My big problem with him is that he deals in "Americanisms"
The Bonds, as we know, are intenational
1. For Your Eyes Only 2. The Living Daylights 3 From Russia with Love 4. Casino Royale 5. OHMSS 6. Skyfall
Again, IMO QT has written some very good scripts. Good scripts in the hands of well cast, good actors usually yield excellent performances.
My big problem with him is the use of British actors. Tim Roth in his latest film is a good example. He deals in cliches. My big problem with him is that he deals in "Americanisms"
The Bonds, as we know, are intenational
I don't know if Tim Roth's character in "Hateful 8" was so much a cliche but a character posing as a "cliche" who turns out to be something much different. More broadly drawn and cliche IMO would be Michael Fassbender as Lt. Hicox and Mike Myers (who is not British) as Gen Fenech in "Inglorious Basterds".... but within the context of that film (basically a fantasy ending of the War in Europe)
it fits. On the other hand, Waltz as the Nazi villain is written and performed so well as to equal or even surpass the best, most iconic classic Bond villains. The idea of Tarantino writing for Waltz as Blofeld is tanatalizing. But your point is well taken: does Tarantino have the "feel" or frame of reference to write for British or international characters without falling into B movie cliche bordering on parody?
Damn shame John Milius has fallen into such poor health....he could have written a killer Bond script, especially with Craig's Bond.
Milius' "Farewell To The King" is one of my favorite films....very underated...has a real epic "David Lean" feel and look. The score by Basil Polidouris is excellent and if I didn't know otherwise would have guessed it was written by John Barry.
Jackie Brown, in my opinion, is his best film, mostly because he tones down all the schtick he usually does.
I agree. Though Jackie Brown is not my favorite, it stands out from the rest as an excellent film that keeps out much of his Tarantino-isms, which shows that he's capable of delivering a worthy adaptation of someone else's work (Elmore Leonard). Obviously this restraint is due to it being (his only) adaptation.
To speak on the era he mentioned, the 60's and the use of a 50-something Brosnan, I can't really fill in the blanks of his reasoning for saying those things, but when EON announced it had acquired the rights to CR, I suggested here how it wouldn't be that difficult to tweak the plot from a Bond-begins story to a penultimate stage-of-life setting like how YOLT was supposed to be like because it could have been a retrospective look at how his career started. Interestingly enough, SF and SP have been slanted towards that, allowing us to see the genesis of Bond up to the near obsolescence of his career in the span of 4 movies! As to making CR a period film, for me it could have been or not, though at the point where the series is now, I can see the possibilities of experimentation that includes visits to past decades.
I found this thread interesting. I'd forgotten about Tarantino's quest to make CR. I always just assumed it was another of his pipedreams, up there with the always-promised "Vega Brothers" movie, or his planned "Man From UNCLE" movie, which I believe was going to be based on the second tie-in novel ("The Doomsday Affair") and would've starred George Clooney as Solo and Tarantino himself as Illya K(!).
I researched his proposed CR, and as usual there's a lot of info he spread out there, some of it conflicting. But in a nutshell:
1. If I'm reading the various comments correctly, Tarantino only wanted Pierce Brosnan if the movie was set in the present.
2. Failing this, the movie was going to be set in the past -- and I saw one comment somewhere where Tarantino said, if so, he could do the movie without Brosnan.
3. If in the past, the movie was going to be in black and white.
4. The movie was going to be narrated, presumably by Bond.
5. If set in the past, the movie would take place after OHMSS (yet it was going to be in b&w??), with Bond, heartbroken after Tracy, meeting "Vespa" at Casino Royale.
6. "Vespa" was going to be played by Uma Thurman.
7. The movie was going to tone down on the rampant action scenes and focus more on character and dialog. (Translation: another Tarantino film of talking heads in close up.)
8. The movie would end with Bond killing "Vespa" and then calling up M and saying "The bitch is dead." "Just like in the novel." (!)
I think it would've at least been interesting to see, and I probably would've liked it more than the '06 CR we did get.
Uma Thurman as a Bond girl woulda been excellent, we could always use more Uma in our universe.
if this film was meant to take place after OHMSS, there'd be a complex meta-joke in casting Uma as the next woman Bond meets following Tracy wouldn't there?
Uma Thurman played Emma Peel in the dreadful mid90s Avengers movie, with Sean Connery himself as the villain, and future M Ralph Fiennes as John Steed. Making her one of the few Avengers leads to have not been in a Bond-film.
And to insert the 90s-remake fakePeel retroactively into history immediately following the realPeel's iconic turn as a Bond-girl ... Bond would have to look at her and say "I swear you remind me of somebody but I can't think who...". No wonder he falls for the bitch!
Never really sure about this or how viable it was. QT wanted to do a Bond, even a MGM one, and said he was miffed at not being asked by the producers and word got back somehow that he was too good, they didn't want to set the bar too high. That makes sense, they were more into journeymen directors who were largely not quite right for Bond back then and who would not insist on a cut of the profits, and I imagine QT would want a slice and not just be paid a fixed rate.
Brosnan sort of went behind the producers' back to meet with QT I understand which made sense at the time seeing as they were so bereft of ideas, but on another level was a mistake because as he was quite ready to admit, he was just a 'hired hand'. Soon he became a 'fired hand' but you can see his point of view, he'd done some Bonds that weren't too great and without the leadership you try to step in and make it work, only to find you've gone above your station.
goodness golly, I would never have guessed. articles I found say he'd like to do a remake of the classic City on the Edge of Forever or some similar time travel story. May be interesting to see him wrap one of his fractured chronologies round a time travel plot.
Anyways, if he can direct Star Trek, of all the un-Tarantino-like things, James Bond oughta be a cinch for him.
Tarantino appeared on an episode of the Charlie Rose talk show to promote JACKIE BROWN and talked a little about his plans for CASINO ROYALE. It was quickly apparent that he didn't understand the material, even claiming that the novel ends with Bond killing Vesper in a fit of rage.
Also, I'm struggling to remember even one movie where Thurman had chemistry with her co-star. Maybe Travolta in PULP FICTION? I just can't see her generating any sparks with Brosnan.
hell yeh she had chemistry with Travolta.
That whole sequence was about the sexual tension of taking the boss's girlfriend out on a date. Would not have worked if they had no chemistry. And they were very funny together.
Can't think of other examples though. I just looked up her filmography on Wikipedia, and she has done lots of movies, most of which I've never heard of. Two excellent Tarantino films, probably the worst Batman film ever, that dreadful Avengers remake, a bit part in a Terry Gilliam film when she was very young, that's all I've seen ... but even in those two lousy films she herself is always very entertaining. I think Brosnan would have been the weak link in that pairing.
Maybe in the interview where Tarantino says Bond kills Vesper in a fit of rage he meant his script, not Fleming's novel? is this interview online? it would be helpful to further discussion if we could all see it.
Maybe in the interview where Tarantino says Bond kills Vesper in a fit of rage he meant his script, not Fleming's novel? is this interview online? it would be helpful to further discussion if we could all see it.
Comments
Also this completely reminds me of the review Haphazardstuff did on Casino Royale. He did a really indepth version and discussed Tarentino in it too. He even made a brilliant short montage of what a Tarentino Casino Royale with Brosnan would have been like
(Take a look at the middle video at 27:40 for his Tarentino Casino Royale scene )
http://haphazardstuff.com/CasinoRoyale2006
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Okay, perhaps the transcript of the interview is ambiguous or misleading re. what Tarantino meant. If Quentin Tarantino's James Bond had seen the light of day, he might well have killed Vesper upon discovering her treachery. Ian Fleming's James Bond doesn't; he moves from angst to a hardening of the heart over her suicide once he knows the truth. It's interesting that Tarantino says he would have been happy inheriting Pierce Brosnan in the role. Maybe he was taken with the scene in TWINE where Brosnan's Bond shoots dead Elektra King - although the precise context of that situation leaves Bond with no choice but to shoot. As for the talkiness of Tarantino's screenplays, I wouldn't have seen that as a problem. True, Fleming's Bond himself is taciturn, but in the novel Le Chiffre and Mathis each have a significant talkative exchange with Bond, dialogue which it might have been fun to see Tarantino interpret. Also, the way in which Fleming tracks Bond's consciousness in the novel/s might have lent itself to a hardboiled voiceover in the movie, with interior monologues on the part of Bond.
As a side note, I'd say that Christoph Walz enjoyed better written, more compelling roles in Tarantino's movies than he gets in SP. It's fair to say that the impact of Walz's performance as Obenhauser depends as much on the baggage he's bringing, in a good way, from Tarantino as it does on the Bond franchise's own Blofeld legacy.
From what I've read, Purvis and Wade turned in a very good adaptation that was closer to the novel than Haggis's polished script. Similarly, their unused version of Quantum of Solace sounds like it would have been better than what Haggis left behind.
P&W live on in better repute, it appears, in anecdote than they do in actual filmed work.
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
RE: Dialogue. Most of it today is awful. Gone are the days of "You are just a stupid policeman . . . whose time has run out." and "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!"
I try to imagine what postmodern tripe Tarantino would come up. It goes like this in my head:
LeChiffre (played by the ever mumbling and reptilian Michael Madsen): You know what this is, Jim? I can call you Jim, right? It's a Stradivarius, the more common nomenclature being a Strad. The greatest f--cking violin in the world. A work of f--cking art. Made of the finest spruce and maple. Oiled in delicate coats of amber and honey. Precious. A Strad is quite simply the motherf--king-est musical instrument in the world. It's the Superman of violins. The Chuck Berry of strings.
Bond: You don't say.
LeChiffre: I do say, Jim, I do. (Drinks loudly from a Big Kahuna shake.) Now, this particular Strad is called Napoleon's Waterloo. You know why?
Bond: He tripped over it and broke his Bonaparte?
LeChiffre (Smiling but not quite amused): No. Very f--king funny, by the way. No, it's because Stradivarius, by then old and with more fame and money than he ever could dream of, decided it would be his last violin. It took him years to make it. He selected the best of the best woods. He took the intestines of the finest sheep he could find for the strings. He slavishly carved and polished it, working day and night. It was to be his greatest triumph. And then, upon completing it in 1737, putting those last fastidious touches on it, Stradivari keeled over and died. Know why?
Bond: Heart attack?
LeChiffre: No, Jim. They said it was love that killed him. He loved the this object of his pride and ambition too much, and it consumed him. It was his Waterloo. Love will do that to you, if you're not careful. (Smashes the violin against a table, shattering it into pieces.) And that's why love is always, always a b--ch, Jim, and you just got to be prepared to let it go.
Bond: Vespa?
LeChiffre (Finishing his shake loudly): F--king Vespa.
ummm...not convinced. Gassy man has got him right.
No one trusts Tarantino with Bond. It would be a Tarantino film featuring the cliches of Bond
because thats the period of the classic Connery films, the definitive 007, of which everything else is an attempted revival
filmgeek Tarantino no doubt sees Bond primarily in terms of those 1960s Connery films, even above the Fleming books (which, as has been noted, he may not be all that familiar with)
he may want to replicate the look and feel of those first four Connerys, the same way he likes to replicate Leone or blaxploitation or any of his other favoured inspirations
I know I certainly would rather have seen that, than what we finally got... a completely persuasive period piece that fits seemlessly prior to 1962s Dr No, both in look and tone, how cool would that have been?
I know my feeling of the Craig film, when it came out, was that the book has been adapted a third time and we still dont have an adaptation that fits in with the film series, as it was so radically different from all that had come before
could Tarantino have pulled it off? maybe it would have been just another typical Tarantino film, but I'm not so cynical as yall ... certainly the dialog and the mexican standoff scenes would have been good, and starting with Kill Bill he proved he actually can be an action film director ... for those nonfans who think he's just got too many selfindulgent habits, have you seen Jackie Brown? probably the straightest, least egotistical of his films (thus the least discussed), he can tone it down if he wants to
That said, his interest is really in the 70s, and not the 60s. Even then, he feels the need to be postmodern (using "Cat People" for a key scene in the WW2-set Inglorious Basterds, for example). I don't think he could do a Bond film without devolving into his usual antics.
And I'm not sure how a 50-year-old Pierce Brosnan would have been convincing as the fledgling agent Bond is anyway. Anything Tarantino would have done would have been retconned to fit his vision and not terribly faithful to the book.
One last point: A novel is often structured differently than a film, and should be. Casino Royale, in particular, is tougher because it's in many ways a character study, which does not lend itself well to film.
I agree. Though Jackie Brown is not my favorite, it stands out from the rest as an excellent film that keeps out much of his Tarantino-isms, which shows that he's capable of delivering a worthy adaptation of someone else's work (Elmore Leonard). Obviously this restraint is due to it being (his only) adaptation.
To speak on the era he mentioned, the 60's and the use of a 50-something Brosnan, I can't really fill in the blanks of his reasoning for saying those things, but when EON announced it had acquired the rights to CR, I suggested here how it wouldn't be that difficult to tweak the plot from a Bond-begins story to a penultimate stage-of-life setting like how YOLT was supposed to be like because it could have been a retrospective look at how his career started. Interestingly enough, SF and SP have been slanted towards that, allowing us to see the genesis of Bond up to the near obsolescence of his career in the span of 4 movies! As to making CR a period film, for me it could have been or not, though at the point where the series is now, I can see the possibilities of experimentation that includes visits to past decades.
actually most interesting thing about that article, was there was a 1960s roadshow style presentation of the new movie, with programmes and intermission, and I missed it! that would have been an experience, to see a film properly like an earlier generation did...
...thinking about his talent with the "mexican standoff" (eg the beercellar scene from Inglorious Basturds), where would he have fit this sort of thing into Casino Royale? well, how bout the card game itself! the Craig film, for all the time it dwelt in the casino, didnt actually show us much of the card game, instead it kept cutting to something more visually exciting, Bond gets poisoned, Bond fights some africans, Bond orders a martini, "didnt I tell you to enter behind me", everything except the actual card game
course Fleming made the game itself very gripping, every card dealt, for several chapters straight, thats part of the thrill of the book is how he as a writer did that ... I bet Tarantino could have got more tension out of the actual card game than the young Brocollis did, without resorting to non-card related interruptions, , show the audience the hands dealt, and build that "mexican standoff" tension he's so good at
Don't know about bland, but as it's been said in the thread Tarantino seems to give honor to older, once hot, the then-medium-hot personalities and B-listers, like how Kurt Russell is now and in Death Proof, Travolta in Pulp Fiction (whose career had taken a huge dive in the 80's, David Carradine and Sonny Chiba in the Kill Bill movies and most notably in recent times, Jennifer Jason Leigh in Hateful Eight. It was out of the norm for Tarantino to cast A-listers like Jamie Foxx, Brad Pitt and Leonardo De Caprio, though he did cast one of my favorite actors, De Niro, in such a subdued supporting role in Jackie Brown.
IMO, in Brosnan Tarantino saw the typecasted, classic, larger-than-life Brit secret agent, just as he leveraged the Kung Fu vibe built into David Carradine's persona. But based on what's been mentioned here and the different articles on this topic I think the driving factor for Tarantino's consideration for Brosnan was because it was Brosnan who pitched him the idea and that they actually discussed it at length. I just watched No Escape and even in that movie, Brosnan was purposely used to evoke a Bond vibe in within the confines of his small, supporting role and even while grizzled and gray I think he indeed still has it.
Yes, I agree. I think Tarantino is great at playing off tension with his characters and maybe he can get too self-indulgent with the dialogue (the reason why I like watching his movies, where you can practically hear him speaking through Uma Thurman, lol), but CR is rich with dialogue and Tarantino's penchant for limiting scenes to where a lot of this dialogue is taking place...it can be argued that this was the essence of the CR novel.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
My big problem with him is the use of British actors. Tim Roth in his latest film is a good example. He deals in cliches. My big problem with him is that he deals in "Americanisms"
The Bonds, as we know, are intenational
I don't know if Tim Roth's character in "Hateful 8" was so much a cliche but a character posing as a "cliche" who turns out to be something much different. More broadly drawn and cliche IMO would be Michael Fassbender as Lt. Hicox and Mike Myers (who is not British) as Gen Fenech in "Inglorious Basterds".... but within the context of that film (basically a fantasy ending of the War in Europe)
it fits. On the other hand, Waltz as the Nazi villain is written and performed so well as to equal or even surpass the best, most iconic classic Bond villains. The idea of Tarantino writing for Waltz as Blofeld is tanatalizing. But your point is well taken: does Tarantino have the "feel" or frame of reference to write for British or international characters without falling into B movie cliche bordering on parody?
Damn shame John Milius has fallen into such poor health....he could have written a killer Bond script, especially with Craig's Bond.
Milius' "Farewell To The King" is one of my favorite films....very underated...has a real epic "David Lean" feel and look. The score by Basil Polidouris is excellent and if I didn't know otherwise would have guessed it was written by John Barry.
I researched his proposed CR, and as usual there's a lot of info he spread out there, some of it conflicting. But in a nutshell:
1. If I'm reading the various comments correctly, Tarantino only wanted Pierce Brosnan if the movie was set in the present.
2. Failing this, the movie was going to be set in the past -- and I saw one comment somewhere where Tarantino said, if so, he could do the movie without Brosnan.
3. If in the past, the movie was going to be in black and white.
4. The movie was going to be narrated, presumably by Bond.
5. If set in the past, the movie would take place after OHMSS (yet it was going to be in b&w??), with Bond, heartbroken after Tracy, meeting "Vespa" at Casino Royale.
6. "Vespa" was going to be played by Uma Thurman.
7. The movie was going to tone down on the rampant action scenes and focus more on character and dialog. (Translation: another Tarantino film of talking heads in close up.)
8. The movie would end with Bond killing "Vespa" and then calling up M and saying "The bitch is dead." "Just like in the novel." (!)
I think it would've at least been interesting to see, and I probably would've liked it more than the '06 CR we did get.
if this film was meant to take place after OHMSS, there'd be a complex meta-joke in casting Uma as the next woman Bond meets following Tracy wouldn't there?
Uma Thurman played Emma Peel in the dreadful mid90s Avengers movie, with Sean Connery himself as the villain, and future M Ralph Fiennes as John Steed. Making her one of the few Avengers leads to have not been in a Bond-film.
And to insert the 90s-remake fakePeel retroactively into history immediately following the realPeel's iconic turn as a Bond-girl ... Bond would have to look at her and say "I swear you remind me of somebody but I can't think who...". No wonder he falls for the bitch!
Brosnan sort of went behind the producers' back to meet with QT I understand which made sense at the time seeing as they were so bereft of ideas, but on another level was a mistake because as he was quite ready to admit, he was just a 'hired hand'. Soon he became a 'fired hand' but you can see his point of view, he'd done some Bonds that weren't too great and without the leadership you try to step in and make it work, only to find you've gone above your station.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Anyways, if he can direct Star Trek, of all the un-Tarantino-like things, James Bond oughta be a cinch for him.
Also, I'm struggling to remember even one movie where Thurman had chemistry with her co-star. Maybe Travolta in PULP FICTION? I just can't see her generating any sparks with Brosnan.
That whole sequence was about the sexual tension of taking the boss's girlfriend out on a date. Would not have worked if they had no chemistry. And they were very funny together.
Can't think of other examples though. I just looked up her filmography on Wikipedia, and she has done lots of movies, most of which I've never heard of. Two excellent Tarantino films, probably the worst Batman film ever, that dreadful Avengers remake, a bit part in a Terry Gilliam film when she was very young, that's all I've seen ... but even in those two lousy films she herself is always very entertaining. I think Brosnan would have been the weak link in that pairing.
Maybe in the interview where Tarantino says Bond kills Vesper in a fit of rage he meant his script, not Fleming's novel? is this interview online? it would be helpful to further discussion if we could all see it.
It's here:
https://www.learnoutloud.com/Free-Audio-Video/Arts-and-Entertainment/Film_-Music_-Radio_-TV_-and-Pop-Culture/A-Panel-Discussion-about-the-Best-Films-of-1997/43325
Tarantino's comments about CR begin around the 13:00 mark.
EDIT: He doesn't say anything about a "fit of rage," but he does claim the novel ends with Bond killing Vesper.