Smidge predatory with the simpleton evaluator lady at the start? Possibly not the most comfortable exchange with Moneypenny? Appears to contemplate the Dench’s (admittedly corking) legs as she walks around her office. I write this whilst wholly accepting the halfhearted joke that in due course he will come across (as t’were) a woman yet more perverted and predatory than he.
Anyone wearing a cravat is a wrong’ un.
I can‘t wait until the Moore films are screened (the zooming in on the cleavage in OP - and weren’t Brosnan‘s glasses also a tribute/copy of the glasses Moore wore in AVTAK?) or Connery is having his Shrublands shower.
Damn, aren’t all Bonds predators? The term pervert seems misapplied, by the way. Unless I forget a scene in which Bond is fondling a sheep.
Baa-bara Bach. A Ewe to a Kill. Countess Lisl von “Schaf”. Etc.
They’re all at it. And if we accept as an agreed fact that the Brosnan Bond is some sort of watery casserole of all that came before, it’s not surprising that there’s a bit of yer actual perving going on.
Craig Bond and the Widow isn’t nice, either.
Well, he couldn‘t see that she was grieving.
I like to think Bond doesn’t need them and “sees” every woman he meets in her underwear, already. Also, I consider the specs a dry run for the invisible car in DAD; “Hey, it works when we pull stuff out of old comic books. Let’s go for broke!” If DAD were a water-themed entry maybe Bond would’ve been aided by an army of Sea Monkeys.
Possibly not the most comfortable exchange with Moneypenny?
I find all the Pierce/Samantha exchanges unpleasant because there seems to be a genuine animosity between them. I guess it’s supposed to be “playful banter” but it comes off a lot meaner, at best like bickering siblings and at worst suggesting Bond crossed the line at some point in the past and Moneypenny is still regretting not reporting him to human resources. When she finally dons those VR goggles to imagine a tryst with Bond it comes out of left field for me (and not only because it demonstrates yet again that the writers don’t know how technology works).
Anyone wearing a cravat is a wrong’ un.
True dat.
Well, they can of course change all that and mo(o)re, but I guess than it´s not Bond anymore but something like Columbo, Derrick etc…
That’s definitely there in their first meeting in GoldenEye.
Except that Moneypenny says that Bond’s “penalty” is to make good on his innuendos–i.e. she would like him to do what he’s been alluding to.
Granted the delivery is a little more pointed than it would seem outright flirtation should be. But I blame that on EON being overly sensitive in trying to update the “sexist, misogynist dinosaur” series to the ‘90s.
One of the things I like about SP is that the sex scenes are not predatory. Both times sex is a visceral response to a closely preceding event of trauma/violence/joint survival-of-aggression. Sex as an assertion of being.
I remember that the day after the attack on the World Trade Center, I was coming home to Brooklyn, and changing trains at Jay Street-Borough Hall. A guy and I caught each others’ eyes; said a few words; went to my place; and had sex. It was overwhelmingly in response to what we had both just lived through.
We did the de rigeur exchange of phone numbers, and if I recall, I did call him. No response, and we never met again. I came to realize that the encounter was a howl of defiance against what had occurred. Had it been a cruise in a bar or under typical circumstances, it might never have taken off.
But don’t you think that Bond comes on to Lucia as extremely aggressive? I suspect she really is not grieving but, of course, shaken by the realization she will be killed, waiting for it stoically, then being saved by a guy who is downright rude.
My take: she is not aroused, she is letting it happen, in a way she was about to let her assassination happen, and then she also lets Bond save her while being left like a used appliance.
Yes, we are supposed to believe that she is in the „Oh, James“-mold after being „taken care of“.
But the only way to have made that character interesting would have been if she had been Blofeld or at least Irma Bunt, just acting as if she were the weak woman.
SPECTRE leaves out one crucial element, either on the cutting room floor or during rewrites:
M orders 007 to find and kill that guy in Mexico ciudad - it’s important enough to do it from the grave; the intelligence on when and where Bond has to dig out for himself - and then go to his funeral.
The only way this makes any sense at all is if Lucia has been in contact with M before, either as M’s agent or to demand a 00 divorce in exchange for intelligence whatever it was Sciarra and his colleagues were up to.
What we see is Bond hitting on a widow, but that cannot be the whole story. Even a predator like Weinstein wouldn’t have risked the widow crying red murder. Nor would M have sent Bond to that funeral if that meant serving him Spectre on a platter. At some point that must have been an exfil op to pull Lucia out.
I would agree if the rest of the story was in any way thought out. But, given that everyone down at EON decided that building the big reveal of who has been behind the entire Craig era to date around a re-used plot “twist” from such storied cinematic fare as Austin Powers in Goldmember, I have to doubt just how well thought out the story was on this one.
It is definitely one of the most compromised Bond films, due to all the problems arising before and during production.
It is a miracle that it still somehow hangs together.
In all the aftermath of SPECTRE, many came to me with questions (not criticism per se) about it all.
My conclusion was simply this.
“It wasn’t a matter of too many chefs in the kitchen, but more of too many ingredients in the stew.”
It had enough for a full meal, but lost the flavor. You weren’t sure what you were supposed to taste.
Sorry for the culinary metaphors, but that’s my takeaway.
I also knew that this meal wasn’t done and pleased that all decided to move forward and go for some form of closure.
Just my two pence from the kitchen and pantry.
Yes, but then robots can be aggressive when executing their programming.
Robots are rarely programmed for manners.
Brilliant.
The power of mise en scene strikes again. The narrative is a mess, but going to a film for its narrative is like going to a museum, and focusing on the frames instead of the Miros, Chagalls, Titians, etc.
A lovely two pence it is.
Here is where I strongly disagree.
Narrative is the center of it all, mise en scene is the frame, in my opinion.
And sometimes the special frame helps even a lesser content look marvelous.
For narrative filmmaking. But films do not require narrative in order to be films, but they do require mise en scene. Without it, they are collections of potentially-related images.
Possibly, but a frame can only prettify. It cannot create aesthetic meaning or beauty in the way mise en scene does.
So…
Pervy’ in their discussion means someone trying to hard someone without riz’ hitting on women. The exchange with Moneypenny, they felt particularly pervy’, unlike the exchange in DAF, which they thought funny.
Their basic assessment was summed up like this…
Brosman — ewwwwe get away you creep
Connery - oh you bustard but… you’re hot so…
Moore - Hi Granddad it’s cute that you are still living your best life
Pervy not perverted
Pervy is Gen Z slang for creepy.