Why is Melina so concerned about the Monastery Guard's welfare?
Silhouette Man
The last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,689MI6 Agent
Why is Melina Havelock so concerned about the Monastery Guard's welfare in FYEO?
I've long wondered about this scene in For Your Eyes Only (1981) and I can't really seem to come up with a convincing answer as to why it was written in the way it was or what we the audience were meant to take away from it about Melina Havelock's character. The scene that I am referring to is when Melina silently shoots the St. Cyril's Monastery guard with her crossbow and Bond drags him inside the winch shed. He tries to keep him quiet until Melina and Columbo come up into the shed on the winch basket.
What I don't really get about this scene is why is the ever-vengeful Melina suddenly so concerned about the welfare of the Monastery guard that she has just shot? After all, she killed Gonzales. She later tries to kill Kristatos. The guard was in the employ of Kristatos, the man who paid Gonzales to have her mother and father killed, and she could have just as easily killed him with that crossbow. Despite this, she still fusses over him and tends to his wound until Columbo brings some logic back (and reminds us that this is a "take no prisoners" Bond film that we are watching) and knocks him out with a chop from his gun.
Perhaps I'm being a bit too hard on Melina here but this scene bugs me a bit and seems rather like a character inconsistency on the part of the writers Richard Maibaum and Michael G. Wilson. Was it just that he was only a guard working for Kristatos and thus not her real target - that he was just doing his job etc.?
So what do we think about this scene and what would you say was its purpose?
I've long wondered about this scene in For Your Eyes Only (1981) and I can't really seem to come up with a convincing answer as to why it was written in the way it was or what we the audience were meant to take away from it about Melina Havelock's character. The scene that I am referring to is when Melina silently shoots the St. Cyril's Monastery guard with her crossbow and Bond drags him inside the winch shed. He tries to keep him quiet until Melina and Columbo come up into the shed on the winch basket.
What I don't really get about this scene is why is the ever-vengeful Melina suddenly so concerned about the welfare of the Monastery guard that she has just shot? After all, she killed Gonzales. She later tries to kill Kristatos. The guard was in the employ of Kristatos, the man who paid Gonzales to have her mother and father killed, and she could have just as easily killed him with that crossbow. Despite this, she still fusses over him and tends to his wound until Columbo brings some logic back (and reminds us that this is a "take no prisoners" Bond film that we are watching) and knocks him out with a chop from his gun.
Perhaps I'm being a bit too hard on Melina here but this scene bugs me a bit and seems rather like a character inconsistency on the part of the writers Richard Maibaum and Michael G. Wilson. Was it just that he was only a guard working for Kristatos and thus not her real target - that he was just doing his job etc.?
So what do we think about this scene and what would you say was its purpose?
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
Comments
Individual ( not an agent, like Bond or criminal like Columbo ) still
Not accustomed to the casual violence of Bond's world ?
Dalton - the weak and weepy Bond!
Thats what I thought - that she was a caring individual. She wounds the guard. And in fact it becomes debatable whether she can finish off Kristatos.
"Be prepared to dig those two graves" shows some reluctance to do the deed
Well,one was Gonzales who she witnessed take out her parents? Who was the other?
She shoots someone to save Bond.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUcpcxZURA0
Dalton - the weak and weepy Bond!
But at the monastery she shoots to wound. The attack must be in total silence so instead of him blurting out, she removes the arrow.
Of course the easiest thing is to do what Colombo did - and take him out...
Nearly as fun as the "was that a real mine at the beginning" discussion...
Well I certainly hope that all of my discussions on AJB are fun. I try to make them interesting at the very least!
Agreed. I'd guess that Melina's fussing over the guard she'd wounded is included as a piece of business to make Columbo's subsequent shooing, apology and knock-out blow seem all the more funny; i.e. the whole gag takes precedence over any considerations of Melina's character consistency. I remember my thoughts about it when I first saw the movie in 1981. I thought, then, that this attention to the wounds of a villain's lackey was untypical of a Bond film and just another way in which FYEO was marking itself out as more 'down-to-earth' or naturalistic than some of the preceding Bonds. Spoiled by the more traditional 'SPECTRE-formula' of the earlier movies, I remember feeling a little disappointed by FYEO's final act in general... disappointed that it wasn't as dense in casualties/fatalities, or as explosive in its climax, as I'd come to expect of Bond finales.
The point is that it's a moment untypical of Bond movies up till then. No combatant in any previous Bond film would have bothered with such niceties when taking on the villain's personnel in the thick of a mission, so Melina seems peculiarly 'humanised' (though I'm reminded of the horrified Honey asking Bond, in DN, if it was really "necessary" for him to knife a wading, hapless guard; and I'm also reminded of Bond himself, in TB, letting a thug go, just to demonstrate that he throws the little fish back into the sea).
I also think it ties in with the whole "unchecked revenge" theme that runs through the movie and "paying that price". She's dead keen on revenge, but isn't fully aware of the consequences...
"Better make that two."
I imagine that Melina shot to kill, but since he was only wounded they decided to let him live. It would have been pretty badass if she shot him again and point blank range with the crossbow.
1. GE 2. MR 3. OP 4. TMWTGG 5. TSWLM 6. TND 7. TWINE 8.DN 9. GF 10. AVTAK
It's about Bond and Lisl.
After she is killed, Colombus is talking to Bond about Kristatos's double dealing ways, and says 'I would laugh were my heart not so heavy for my poor Lisl...'
But his 'poor Lisl' spent the previous night having her brains banged out by Bond! What was all that about? I mean, surely she was his kept woman rather than a platonic mate? Yet, he arranges to fit her up with Bond for a night of rumpy pumpy!
If that's how he treats his enemies or a bloke who may be out to kill him, what does he do for his friends? Book him a Killing Kittens night where he's the only bloke?
Or are we meant to infer he didn't know about the night of sex with Bond? Unlikely, as it's a pick up and anyway they find Bond the next morning with her at the bungalow. And what are the men doing coming out of the sea like that? I suppose they are spying on the house from the boat and see K's men move in It all may also seem a nod to the pts of OHMSS, referenced also in the FYEO pts.
After Colombus talks sorrowfully of Lisl, Bond responds with a non-sequitur. Is this meant to imply that he would rather not allude to the subject, what with him banging Lisl and being unaware of it? It has been mentioned that FYEO has a great many subtexts to the script that first time director John Glen failed to pick up on.
There are moments like this in the films that, after all these years, I find myself suddenly going 'Eh?'
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Good point about Glen perhaps not picking up on subtexts and subtleties.
Hitchcock's theory about what is now sometimes referred to as "Fridge Logic" http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FridgeLogic may be relevant here- it's not a point that strikes the viewer at first, only afterwards.
Thing is, did Columbo or is it Columbus intend for Lisl to bang Bond? If so that's an open relationship wouldn't you say? Of course, this is a week after TSWLM on telly, and the Operation Yewtree moment when a now ageing Bond is 'offered' a slave girl by his leery old mate from Cambridge. How old is she meant to be anyway?
FYEO does suffer from not having Moore getting a really good acting scene, like the Anya confrontation over her dead lover or the centrifuge scene, a shame as it's meant to be a more grounded movie. Other than that, and the general lack of chemistry with his women (Ms Brink is more his age group) I did enjoy the film this time round, and another fridge moment, where it turns to daylight after the car foot chase (possibly inspired by the foot chase in Fleming's Risico along the Venice lido where Death in Venice was set) appears rectified in the digital cleanup, so it's now appears to be night/early dawn.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I agree re the lack of chemistry between Moore and the younger women, but I thought the "dig two graves" scene was nicely handled by Ol'Rog and he was just fine all round.
More on subtext here: http://www.ajb007.co.uk/topic/44307/subtext-and-themes/
"Better make that two."
That would include that Columbo and Lisl would cooperate together against Loque by all means.
As for the 'no great acting scene for Moore' I just wanted to recall the very first scene when he visits Theresa's grave. Absolutely superbly done imo {[]
Dalton - the weak and weepy Bond!
"That's detente comrade, you don't have it, I don't have it." Brilliant delivery.
"Better make that two."
If Columbo is seen as an exotic character type in the 'rough-round-the-edges' tradition of Kerim Bey and Marc Ange Draco, he uses women as commodities at the same time as harbouring a genuine affection for them. In that context, Columbo's line about his sadness at losing Lisl, despite his knowledge that she's slept with Bond, isn't such a niggle.
I find the scene weird. I guess a crossbow is different to a firearm. If you leave the bolt in, it gives the man a potential weapon. They probably did more harm removing it and unplugging the wound. It would have simply been better if he toppled over and fell off the cliff. Incidentally, the soviet biathlon guy has a pretty weak ending too.
http://apbateman.com
Bit I have another query re FYEO. When Bond skis down the bobrun behind the bob sleigh, he appears to be following by a rope between him and the bob sleigh in front. Is that meant to be so, do the toboggan inhabitants toss the rope behind them? Or is that the way the stunt team are doing it, and we are not meant to notice?
Roger Moore 1927-2017
1. GE 2. MR 3. OP 4. TMWTGG 5. TSWLM 6. TND 7. TWINE 8.DN 9. GF 10. AVTAK