What about Columbo? That seemed to play daily when I lived in Madrid and wondered if it was similar in Germany.
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I just watched this again night before last and I must say, I still love it. The two things I’m still not crazy about are the shakey-cam and rapid-fire editing of the Siena car chase (though I do like the rooftop chase and the brutally realistic knife fight scenes, both of which were shot and edited in a similar way) and the overlong boat chase. But everything else holds together for me.
I especially love the music. Yes, there’s the magnificent Tosca scene. But it’s not just that music. The soundtrack music, starting in Bregenz, is emotionally compelling for me, without being over the top. Its simplicity adds so much.
The Bond women stand out to me. At first I didn’t much care for Fields, but on subsequent viewings I have come to appreciate her as an integral character, even though she turns out to be a sacrificial lamb. And then there’s Camille, who I am pulling for from the get-go. She’s vulnerable and tough, in believable ways.
Speaking of women, I’m not sure if this question has occurred to me before: Did the servant Camille rescues from Medrano make it out? After all, she was barefoot, her hands were tied, and the Perla de la Dunas catches fire soon after she escapes the room. (Quantum Of Solace eerily predicted Epstein addresses the uncanny symmetry this plot line has with past and current events.)
One thing I noticed is how the final scene in Russia (the only time we see snow), where Bond tracks down Yusef, slows to a more conventional pacing. I have always thought Corinne’s whispered “thank you” was a lovely touch. When Bond meets M, tells her he never left, then walks away and tosses Vesper’s necklace in the snow, so many threads come together … but without us being told that.
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I’m not sure, but my initial reaction is I hope she didn’t. That’s not because I’m being bloodthirsty. But rather because it would show the brutal reality and consequence of these exploits. Nobody is safe. It would be consistent with Mitchell gunning down an innocent civilian earlier in the film during the Siena chase.
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The shaky cam in the opening is horrible but I think it adds to the plane sequence.
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I think it is very likely that Greengrass is to fault for the shaky cam.
Irony alert.
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Because of the Bourne films?
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They clearly were an influence during those years.
Yet, I believe QOS does use the shaky cam differently, more abstractly and - gasp - with more restraint. It deconstructs and reconstructs the action instead of blurring everything into a merely impressionistic experience.
Which also has value.
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If the QoS energy was recaptured and expanded upon with more depth I think the franchise would be in an exciting place.
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I wholeheartedly agree. Overall I genuinely like most of what we ended up with in the final film. It simply feels over-edited and truncated.
I might could even live with the weak villain if we had spent a little bit more time with him and better grasped his plan and depth of his evil. Simply existing and being repulsive isn’t enough of a motivator,
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Decided to rewatch this thanks to this thread (haven’t seen it end to end since probably 2019).
It’s interesting approaching it with more cinematically literate eyes. It definitely punches above its weight, especially thematically. Despite the lack of a decent script (and boy is this thing lacking in that department) it communicates a lot of depth in its choice of location, costuming and yes, even Forster’s beloved elements. Even starting the film with a chase through a marble quarry of all places, something probably lost on most viewers because of just how breakneck the editing is, demonstrates the Craig era’s ambitions. Bond, internally hollowed out by the death of Vesper, by the service, by a history of violence, is barely shielded as his Aston Martin is carved up with bullets. And yet, the byproduct of this mining of the body and soul isn’t ruin, but the creation of a David-like figure, ready to stare down the Quantum Goliath with little more than his wits and his Walther PPK. It’s all there, but needs must when the devil drives, and circumstances beyond everyone’s control led to a film that made the best of the few things they could control.
As others have also mentioned, plot wise this turned out to be eerily prescient. I also like the presentation of Bond’s violence often taking place in back alleyways, balcony’s and rooftops, out of sight of the bustling world around and beneath him, a constant war in the shadows that, by leaving Green abandoned in the desert with nowhere to hide, he brings into the light. It’s good stuff and could have been so much more if the circumstances had been different.
Unfortunately, at a shockingly lean hour and forty minutes, a lot of folks who watch it seem to side with the young woman who said quite loudly at the end of the opening night screening I attended back in 2008, “…Is that it?”
Shame.
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Orson Welles maintained that a film should never run more than 120 minutes.
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And he had a point. Quantum of Solace arguably achieves just as much as Spectre does in a fraction of the time. But I can also see how an event film like Bond that only rolls around once in a blue moon benefits from having some meat on its bones.
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I think the typical James Bond film run time of 120-130 minutes is just about right.
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I always liked QoS despite all its flaws. The shacky-cam is one thing, but the most disappointing is the script that prevents the movie to meet all its promises and ambitions. It could have been one of the very best of the series.
There is not very much Bond ingredients there, but everything what is there is actually well done. In contrary to Spectre where many ingredients are there but many of them are just poorly treated.
In QoS Bond’s character from my perspective is the quintessence of Craig-Bond as it was installed in Casino Royale. The drunk scene with Mathis is wonderful. Camille is a very modern character who does not fall in love with Bond and goes her way at the end. Fields is very likeable and the “sacrificial lamb”-thing is justified as it shows it is one more of Bond‘s dramatic mistakes (Craig makes you feel Bond is getting aware of his responsibilities).
Greene, Medrano and Elvis are just a set of identified bad guys like in TLD, that could have been great if the script had just given something to do to Elvis (something more than falling in the stairs… maybe he is the one who killed Fields?).
The photography is beautiful, and as you said, the music is Arnold at his very best. The “Crawl, end crawl” outro is magnificient.
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I really enjoyed QOS but i do agree it has a weaker script than many of its other componenets such as it’s score and cinematography but i guess i’ve always been more forgiving of that because i knew that the writers strike hit them hard and union rules meant only Craig could do changes (“A writer I am not” as he pointed out) so whilst, yes, some things are undercooked, you could see that if they had been allowed further drafts those could have been expanded upon.
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What I like is how Craig Bond is at his peak and the youthful intensity/unpredictability is more pronounced. A few moments that stand out:
“She’s seasick” - “She’s just dead” from TB.
Snapping off the door handle and stealing a tuxedo
Haines falling from the rooftop
He’s doing things with real detachment. A self confident loner focused on his goal. The use of vehicles and his constant movement helps too - cars, motorbikes, boats, planes and running across the Siena rooftops.
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I actually think the script is quite strong.
Shocker, I know. But compare it with other Bonds - if you did not know about the strike would you notice? The Bond-Camille story is one of the strongest relationship plots in the series. And the villain‘s scheme is timely and scary. The finale is perfect.
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And, much like Brosnan’s second entry, it’s both scary in its contemporary setting yet also way ahead of its time.
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Its terseness is a tell, but also probably an asset in the long run. There are some pretty clunky dialogue exchanges and some questionable plot maneuvers (which, I know, pick any other movie in the catalogue if you want more of that). But still, some questions came to mind during my viewing that I hadn’t considered before. Why send Fields to watch the gate at the airport if Bond is presumed to have killed a member of special branch? Shouldn’t a more formidable welcoming committee be keeping an eye out for his arrival? And why is Bond allowed to lay out all of those guys in the elevator and get rewarded with instant trust following the death of yet another woman who had fallen for his charm? It all works because it moves at a breakneck pace and it’s fun but the seams are definitely a bit more visible than they normally are, partially due, I think, to its otherwise grounded nature.
It’s all a wash in the end. The film is a very intense experience and moves at the speed of sound. And as Michael G. Wilson likes to say, the story is different from the plot, so in the long run and to that end it very much succeeds as a film, which is a testament to the talented folks who make these films (ouch, or I guess made. Man we had it good).
On the subject of Craig’s performance, it really is riveting, largely due to its unusually restrained ferocity. Bond seems to be exploding on the inside but only allows it out when he has to defend or pursue in earnest, which arguably gives him an edge in every combat situation he faces. His sense of humor is very understated, as well, though not entirely absent as others have insisted, and the film, like its protagonist, is relentlessly confident as it is. The whole enterprise moves at the pace of Bond’s mind. There isn’t another entry in a major blockbuster franchise that springs to mind that’s quite like it. I’m glad I revisited it.
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My read on it was that it works because Bond senses that it’s not entirely M’s decision to bring him in. At that point, we’ve seen her have the conversation with one of the ministers above her (“if we didn’t do business with villains there’d be nobody left to trade with”) and, given that Bond seems to be able to stick his nose into M’s business whenever he likes, I wouldn’t be surprised if he at least had some sense of this as well.
Couple that with the fact that he doubles back to speak to M after dispatching the guards and while being actively hunted by the rest puts the nagging doubts in M’s head to rest about whether or not she can trust him. If he weren’t trustworthy, he would have bolted into the night after escaping the elevator rather than risking his life and freedom to double back and speak to her again.
As much as a lot of people like to make QoS out to be the film where Bond is at his most absolutely rogue, I’d argue that it’s exactly the opposite. Everyone in Bond’s orbit thinks he’s gone rogue, because why wouldn’t he after Vesper’s death. But everything he does in the film is either out of self preservation or in the interest of the mission, while everyone is behind the scenes doubting every move he makes, looking for something that he’s done that they can point to and say that he’s still upset over Vesper or unable to make sound judgments. That’s why the “I never left” line at the end of the film works so well. It’s clear that Bond never left. Everyone else just assumed that he had because that’s what they’d probably do if they were put in a similar situation.
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