James Bond movies and the shaky-cam action aesthetic - is this progress?

By Alan Lopuszynski / June 30, 2011

You'll find plenty of stories this week about who is the best Bond, the favorite Bond girl, villain, car or gadget. But I'd suggest that the films' directors - and their specific talents in staging action scenes - are what will truly sustain Bond films into the future, now that Daniel Craig has made the role his own. Action movies of the last handful of years have increasingly embraced the shaky-cam, hyper-edited aesthetic, and I find this to be a truly unpleasant development. I haven't seen Marc Forster's QUANTUM OF SOLACE yet, but some most reviews are already finding a common theme:

"Forster tries to make up for his lack of action-film experience with jittery fight scenes that are ultimately more confusing than exciting." (NY Daily News) "...the haphazard direction of Marc Forster, who demonstrates by negative example why Bond movies are best served by journeymen with something to prove rather than would-be A-listers slumming it." (Village Voice) "You do not make an action sequence more interesting by intercutting it with some unrelated event; you make an action sequence interesting by making it interesting...Forster doesn't have the skill - or the capacity - to recognize that activity is not action." (Cinematical) "Forster...shoots and edits his material in a fast and furious manner, so much so that fight scenes are confusing, disorientating and unpleasant on the eye." (Film Threat) And that last one is from a three star review! A commenter the other day on a related post at Jeff Wells' site claimed that the film's opening sequence might have easily been shot and edited by Michael Bay. No, that's not a compliment. These cinematography and editing complaints owe much to the suggestion that Bond movies are now emulating their younger, fresher Bourne counterparts. But if Bond movies are to continue, to thrive gracefully into their pushing-50, late-middle age, how will they distinguish themselves from these young upstarts? I think it's simple: future Bond directors need to be more seasoned, mature filmmakers who can better handle action choreography as well as character drama. But who would some likely candidates be? Martin Campbell has a terrific aesthetic for well-shot and edited action scenes. He's credited with twice bringing Bond back from the brink of obsolescence, and he's been able to do it by successfully managing that crucial balancing act between Bond's need to be suave with proper amounts of ass-kickery. Whether Campbell hasn't been asked back to future Bond films or if he doesn't want to do them is anyone's guess - but future 007 directors really need to have his kind of experience and sure hand when it comes to intelligent yet exciting action scenes. Phillip Noyce is a guy that comes to mind. Think about the precision of spatial relationships Noyce brought to the excellent alleyway ambush scene in CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER After two Tom Clancy adaptations, I would've thought Noyce was all done with spy movies, but he's doing a CIA film now and is also attached to an FBI story, so maybe a future Bond wouldn't be out of the question. What about Frank Darabont? His filmography may not scream "action movies", but he knows character and tension and his films have always been imbued with a confident sense of pace and rising action. Hell, I think Peter Weir could make a humdinger of a Bond film. He's an odd choice and perhaps a bit cerebral, but the battle scenes he staged in MASTER AND COMMANDER are epic in scale while at the same time completely solid in their coherence and ingenuity. Weir can achieve an extreme level of intimacy regardless of the kind of story he's telling, and I think - now that Bond actually seems to have some true inner conflict going on - it'd be really exciting to see a director like Weir take on a challenge like this. The instinct of Bond producers and studio heads is always going to be to find new, fresh directing talent for these movies. The logic is supposed to be that a younger filmmaker brings a perspective that will be a better match to a younger, broader audience, and they're probably cheaper to hire as well. But I think there's tremendous fault in this way of thinking. The Bond franchise - which has seen its share of triumphs and embarrassments - is a mature, established property. If the films continue to evolve away from quippy one-liners and invisible car-type scenarios, they really require the sure hand of more intelligent, seasoned filmmakers. Contributed by Alan Lopuszynski, a former Hollywood insider and current corporate drone who blogs atBurbanked.