![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
OK, third post today, to make up for months of silence. This concerns Casino Royale which I saw with son while someone else cooked our TG dinner. And I must say I liked it very, very much. The reviews said Craig is best Bond since Connery, and I agree. Hot, ripped, cool, pretty, smart. He reminds me of Steve McQueen.
I've read and watched Bond movies intermittently since the sixties, but kind of gave up after A View to a Kill--seemed unrelated to Bond as I knew it, finally. But seeing this one made me think about the context--not so much Cold War politics as cinema/literature. The early Bond novels and films were sort of on their own. Not so many spy novels had been written then (well, Greene, but I think in those days the lit/pop divide was much stronger), and certainly not many with the high-tech fun that Fleming and the movies loved. And Bond then was high-gloss, in a time that was still aware of its own roughness, loving his polish.
But now: so many spy movies. So much Bourne, Alias, Follett, etc., etc. The Bond that was is just one among many. So I see the influence of Highsmith and Greene, the looking inward, as being inevitable. With all the CG available in films like Spiderman, there's really nowhere to go with that. So part of the movie is a totally celebration of the human body (the initial chase), and part a turning inward. Had to be.
I've read and watched Bond movies intermittently since the sixties, but kind of gave up after A View to a Kill--seemed unrelated to Bond as I knew it, finally. But seeing this one made me think about the context--not so much Cold War politics as cinema/literature. The early Bond novels and films were sort of on their own. Not so many spy novels had been written then (well, Greene, but I think in those days the lit/pop divide was much stronger), and certainly not many with the high-tech fun that Fleming and the movies loved. And Bond then was high-gloss, in a time that was still aware of its own roughness, loving his polish.
But now: so many spy movies. So much Bourne, Alias, Follett, etc., etc. The Bond that was is just one among many. So I see the influence of Highsmith and Greene, the looking inward, as being inevitable. With all the CG available in films like Spiderman, there's really nowhere to go with that. So part of the movie is a totally celebration of the human body (the initial chase), and part a turning inward. Had to be.