002. The Direction
The one criticism Id have about the Bond series it that a director rarely gets to put his own stamp on it- you know if a film is directed by David Lynch, but you dont know if a film is directed by John Glen. Martin Campbell gave us two solid entries and two fantastic introductions to different Bond actors, but they feel like Bond films, not Martin Campbell films. Arguably, you dont want a Bond film to feel like an auteurs work, you want it to be a spy flick with booze, boobs and bombs. With Marc Forster, the EON team hired the closest thing the series has had so far to an auteur, and that looks set to continue with Sam Mendes, and hopefully it will go on if they ever hire Christopher Nolan or Steven Spielberg. This felt like a Marc Forster film, and it was something different- the colour scheme, the same sort of themes we found in Finding Neverland or The Kite Runner or Monsters Ball. For me the best scene in the entire film is when there is no music, and Bond has to shoot his way out of the opera house after running into Greene and his lackeys. No other director could have done the staging of Carmen or that ensuing scene in such a unique way. Its actually one of my favourite scenes out of all the bond films, and that is down to Forster. I appreciate the Bond producers dont want to mess with the formula too much, but hiring Forster was a step in the right direction (and, based on the positive reaction to the recent footage of World War Z that contradicts the on-set horror stories and constant delays, hell prove to be a very interesting director for future tentpole films). It feels like a worthy addition to his CV, not a footnote (for example, how many people remember Tony Scott did Beverley Hills Cop II, or James Cameron did Piranha II: The Spawning?) You cant imagine any of the previous Bond directors, however good they or the films were, winning an Oscar or featuring in
Cahiers Du Cinema, or producing a hit on the festival circuit, for example.