Is it just me, or is the a haunted, disturbing quality to DAF?
Doctor Who
Posts: 62MI6 Agent
Underneath the camp and humor, I feel there’s a haunted, unsettling edge that plays subtlety throughout the films. Not the traditional Bond film in terms of tension, but there is a macabre sort of menace to the film that I just can’t put my finger on.
Does anyone agree or get what I mean?
Comments
I love this film and have probably thought about it more than most. I see the main theme or subtext as "pairs" - two sets of two henchpeople (Wint and Kidd, Bambi and Thumper), two sets of diamonds (one real, one false), two Peter Franks (again one real, one false), etc.
Apart from the early scenes involving the body of Franks and the cremation, which I see as dark humour, I don't see what the "haunted, unsettling edge" you see is.
I think it might just be you. The first 70 minutes are a fun romp but many moons ago I judged the final 50 minutes as “Carry On Bond”. I still enjoy it immensely though, it’s far better than the angst-ridden recent films.
The only thing unsettling about DAF is how disappointing it was after OHMSS. It's so camp you could have replaced Bond with Napolean Solo/MattHelm/Derek Flint and no one would have noticed the difference.
This remains my favourite Bond film despite its flaws. @Doctor Who: there are three main respects in which I agree with you about DAF's macabre tone. First, there's a funereal undercurrent to the humour, with quirky characters like Mrs Whistler and Shady Tree getting bumped off, the use of Franks' corpse to smuggle diamonds and Bond's near-cremation (a sensibility perhaps reflecting Cubby Broccoli's erstwhile job as a casket maker); second, there's sporadic, sudden nasty violence in the film, counterpointing the camp elements in an unsettling way (it's important to see DAF uncensored); and third, there's a haunting, melancholy flavour to much of John Barry's score, rubbing against the razzamatazz with beautifully disquieting, ingenious reworkings of musical motifs from the title song.
Yes, this exactly.
I was just browsing through threads and this one caught my eye. I also think that DAF has some kind of disturbed quality to it as if the campy elements have some kind of sorrow element somehow like a clown trying to be funny whilst at the same time feeling depressed. I never thought it was deliberate but I always thought it might be related to the events of OHMSS. Bond trying to find his way in life whilst not feeling the same way as before. Glad to see I am not the only one who thought of this about DAF.
Wint and Kidd are probably the only haunted and disturbing element to the film because they're decently written, intriguing and truly scary characters. Everyone else and the rest of the film? Nah. It's a camp, low care comedy.
"Better make that two."
Diamonds Are Forever? 😅 I don't know, maybe because of Connery's black tux with a rose on the lapel that looked like a funeral suit? And that cremation scene? But otherwise, I don't feel any.
Maybe Connery's out of age look and his bored performance that's almost felt dead 😅 (pun intended), but I guess this might be it, Connery trying to play jokes, but not that much interested, because he's just obviously there for money, so his performance comes off as a bit deadpan 😁.
But all in all it's comedy and funny, it's almost silly and ridiculous that paved the way for the campy Moore Bond films.
I don't know, maybe it's just you, for me, the film was a nonsense comedy.
It felt like a theatre comedy with drag, silliness, and jokes that felt more belonged to the Shakespearean comedy than in a Bond film.
^ some of the folks on this forum who remember when the film was released said at the time the world was a very bleak place and DAF was a lot of fun. It's just aged (probably) the worst of all Bond films.
"Better make that two."
The world was a very bleak place in 1971?
I don't believe it, that time, I mean 1971? The world was really fun at the time, campiness, 70's disco, glamour, too many colorful clothings, and all (look at The Persuaders and a lot of family sitcoms back in the day, it represented all of what's in the early 70's), so I don't believe it.
70's even started the era of campy Bond films as evident in the Roger Moore Era Bond films.
It's just that Diamonds Are Forever was made out of frustration: low budget (because 95% of the money went to Connery and his trust), dealing with Lazenby's exit and Connery's return, making James Bond (as usual, relevant), and also dealing with how to film the novel (and I don't know why they've deviated from the book either), and probably too many shortcomings, and as a result, it came off as bad, cheap, poor Shakespearean comedy.
It's largely Barrys score, as Shady's superb post points out. There is nothing like it in any other Bond film. One aspect of Kill Bill Vol 2 comes close I think, when The Bride is shot in black and white, I think it's Vol 2 anyway, the score is like Barry though maybe it was pilfered from some other composer and film.
But 1971 was an odd year as it was leaving the glam innocent 60s behind, Jane Fonda is a good example of that plus her Barefoot in the Park companion Robert Redford, two all-American couples who seemed part of the counterculture a bit with films like Klute, They Shoot Horses Don't They and Butch Cassidy which is a darker film than I recall on re-watching lately.
Diamonds didn't know whether to be dark and grainy to fit with films of that era - The French Connection or The Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3, it tries it both ways, to have its cake and eat it, to hedge its bets. Of course, with Roger Moore in the next film we can see which way it went.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
mi6 hq said:
The world was a very bleak place in 1971?
I don't believe it, that time, I mean 1971? The world was really fun at the time, campiness, 70's disco, glamour, too many colorful clothings, and all (look at The Persuaders and a lot of family sitcoms back in the day, it represented all of what's in the early 70's), so I don't believe it.
70's even started the era of campy Bond films as evident in the Roger Moore Era Bond films.
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I was only 5 years old, but my understanding of 1971 was it was a time of Vietnam and Nixon, civil unrest, race riots, assassinations of popular heroes and disillusionment amongst the youth culture. The rock music of the era was very bleak, compared to the idealism of four years earlier, eg Sticky Fingers or Theres a Riot Goin On.
some of the popular culture you mention was escapism. some of the sitcoms of the era were escapism, but the most popular sitcoms were All in the Family and MASH. Bond films were escapism, just as they had been from the very beginning. Other spy films of the era were Three Days of the Condor or the Parallax View or The Conversation, grim claustrophic paranoid stuff. Other films in general were the product of the New Hollywood, some of the best films ever made but incredibly grim. Yet successful because they were reflective of a downer mood in the population. The escapism of the Bond films was in fact an anomaly within cinema which would not really become mainstream again until Star Wars was a success six years later.
but I think the three Hamilton Bondfilms were not pure joyful escapism like the two Gilbert films would be. There was a more cynical tone to the comedic elements in those three early 70s films.