(no subject)
Saw Quantum of Solace today. Need to go to sleep soon so I won't write a detailed review. Just a couple points. Overall, I enjoyed it. Happy to see all the action after the last Bond film. I am the only person I know who didn't like Casino Royale. If I wanted to watch a two-hour poker game, I could turn on ESPN 2 and not waste $20 at the movie theater.
I really liked how Marc Forster challenged the moral clarity of previous Bond films. One of the most compelling features of the spy genre is that it forces us to question right and wrong, means and ends, agents and actors. Forster managed to make his 007 film a little more Le Carree and a little less Fleming without sacrificing the signature megalomaniacal Bond villain. On the other hand, I think Forster sometimes tried a bit too hard to distinguish his film from the rest of the series. Is there really any harm in letting the audience hear the title character introduce himself as "Bond, James Bond"?
Lastly, I'm a bit concerned about the current trend in action choreography. In the nineties, everyone was parroting John Woo's slow-motion, freeze frame shooting style which maybe had its crowning moment in the first Matrix film. I think film editors in that era were instructed not to keep a scene if viewers weren't able to count the number of shell casings ejected by every gun in every shot. Now the pendulum has swung to the other extreme. Filmmakers all want to replicate the Bourne films where speed speed speed is the name of the game. Shots change at a frenetic pace while combatants trade blows at Mach 5. Blink and you might miss one of the bad guys getting kicked in the face three times, having his left arm broken and getting stabbed in the chest. (I was particularly annoyed at this sort of fight choreography in the live-action Transformers movie which featured enormous, metallic, machine-like cyborgs. Instead of loudly smashing into each other with a lumbering but massive and powerful momentum as big things are supposed to do, they moved like Jackie Chan on Aderol.) Such cinematography might in a sense be more cerebral. It challenges the viewer's attention while showcasing the protagonist's mental and physical quickness. But it doesn't do justice to the art of martial arts. Kung Fu movies are awesome because we get to see combatants display coordination, dexterity, and grace cultivated through extensive training and discipline. Watching jump cut fight scenes is like watching a dance without being able to discern the movements of the dancers. Both I and W. B. Yeats find this situation more than a little perturbing.
I really liked how Marc Forster challenged the moral clarity of previous Bond films. One of the most compelling features of the spy genre is that it forces us to question right and wrong, means and ends, agents and actors. Forster managed to make his 007 film a little more Le Carree and a little less Fleming without sacrificing the signature megalomaniacal Bond villain. On the other hand, I think Forster sometimes tried a bit too hard to distinguish his film from the rest of the series. Is there really any harm in letting the audience hear the title character introduce himself as "Bond, James Bond"?
Lastly, I'm a bit concerned about the current trend in action choreography. In the nineties, everyone was parroting John Woo's slow-motion, freeze frame shooting style which maybe had its crowning moment in the first Matrix film. I think film editors in that era were instructed not to keep a scene if viewers weren't able to count the number of shell casings ejected by every gun in every shot. Now the pendulum has swung to the other extreme. Filmmakers all want to replicate the Bourne films where speed speed speed is the name of the game. Shots change at a frenetic pace while combatants trade blows at Mach 5. Blink and you might miss one of the bad guys getting kicked in the face three times, having his left arm broken and getting stabbed in the chest. (I was particularly annoyed at this sort of fight choreography in the live-action Transformers movie which featured enormous, metallic, machine-like cyborgs. Instead of loudly smashing into each other with a lumbering but massive and powerful momentum as big things are supposed to do, they moved like Jackie Chan on Aderol.) Such cinematography might in a sense be more cerebral. It challenges the viewer's attention while showcasing the protagonist's mental and physical quickness. But it doesn't do justice to the art of martial arts. Kung Fu movies are awesome because we get to see combatants display coordination, dexterity, and grace cultivated through extensive training and discipline. Watching jump cut fight scenes is like watching a dance without being able to discern the movements of the dancers. Both I and W. B. Yeats find this situation more than a little perturbing.