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 at Burbanked.
11 Comments
Great article.
I really tend to struggle with this new style of directing action, not just in Bond movies but in general. Obviously Michael Bay is one such filmmaker who’s shaky cam results in an almost incomprehensible image (add to this fact in Transformers all the robots looked the same, so I honestly had no idea what was happening), but even people like Christopher Nolan have adopted this aesthetic.
Batman Begins was a wonderful film, but it took about three watches to really get what was happening during the action set pieces. I tend to think that it is down to lack of confidence as a director – just put the camera everywhere and edit it all in and you’ll be ok (I think Batman Begins was Nolan’s first action movie too). What you end up with, I think, is a visceral response, but not an emotional one. And you absolutely need both.
Interesting you mention Bourne, because I think Doug Liman’s direction in Identity was much more assured than Paul Greengrass’ sequels. I remember several great set ups in Identity (the fight in the field with Clive Owen, the car chase) where as all the stuff in the sequels, with its fast cuts and wobbly camera, tends to blend into one. Plus they were characters who we cared about and Liman had the sense to allow us to experience their reactions from a human perspective.
I realize, and fear, that this just makes me sound old fashioned and out of touch. These films are widely considered to be great action movies so it must be me and not the films. I guess I just don’t get it.
Thanks, Tom –
I agree with you that Liman’s work in the first BOURNE movie was quite a bit more comprehensible than that of the sequels. What’s more, from ULTIMATUM to SUPREMACY there was a significant increase in the quantity of this technique, and I find SUPREMACY to be nearly unwatchable because of it.
The shaky cam also has the effect of stripping action scenes of their lasting effect. I can remember – and play back in my mind – specific fights from BOURNE IDENTITY. I can’t do that with SUPREMACY because they all kind of feel the same in my memory.
Nolan is certainly guilty of this as well, although for some reason it hasn’t bothered me as much. Maybe I’m too willing to give him a pass or maybe the BATMAN films have in general established a shadowy, hard-to-glimpse quality that befits the character’s movements.
I can take some of this technique, and if the characters and non-action parts of the movie are still compelling, I’ll be a lot more tolerant. Michael Bay’s work traditionally does not fall under those circumstances.
Yeah, it’s certainly a thin line when it comes to action sequences. I remember one complaint I had about the first Lord of the Rings film was how the camera seemed to be all over the place. The cave troll scene springs to mind.
Meanwhile, you had that great fight sequence towards the end of The Phantom Menace, between Dath Maul, Obi Wan and whatever the hell Neeson’s character was called. Lucas might have made, (in my opinion), a crap film, but there was certainly a confident touch to his action set pieces. You can notice in that final fight scene how he holds shots a little longer, given the audience the chance to follow the progression with ease.
I agree with above posters regarding the first Bourne. Again, it was about establishing a scene and keeping the action clear and concise. Come the 3rd Bourne film, it seemed to me that the shaky-cam had broken free of of his action-scene only constraints, and was wobbling throughout. Sure, he was going for a more hands on guerilla approach, putting us in there amongst the action, but the end result was somewhat headache inducing, (though by no means as bad as Cloverfield).
As I said, it’s a thin line. You can’t have action sequences too stagnant, while likewise going too far with the shaky-cam makes it come across as too gimmicky. If you ask me some of my favourite sequences from recent years, I’d have to say stuff like Open Range, (that final shoot-out was beautifully crafted), and 3:10 to Yuma really stick in my mind.
Oh, as for Peter Weir directing a Bond film? I’d never have thought of that. Great choice in my opinion.
Roars brings up a good example with PHANTOM MENACE. That final fight really sticks in the mind primarily because the static shots allow the actions to stick in the mind. There is also some terrific editing in that sequence as well. However, it has less to do with Lucas’ brilliant directing than it does with the fact that he’s lazy. He repeatedly said that he prefers to simply set up a wide shot and let the actors do their thing.
As for BOURNE, the fights and action scenes FEEL brutal, but I think they have some great sound effects that intensify them. Outside of the hand-to-hand fight in ULTIMATUM – a brutal fight – I can barely remember any of the other scenes because, as Alan points out, they all seem very similar.
But this problem goes way beyond BOURNE, however. Think about how the fights in TRANSFORMERS were edited together. Those were effects-driven fights (no shaky-cam), yet they were created purposely imitating the shaky-cam aesthetic. And it was horrible to watch, in my opinion.
I agree with the TRANSFORMERS point – craptacular final fight – and think that the key is the editing. Shaky hand-cams can be quite effective, but if they’re not edited together to create a coherent sequence, then you’re left with a confusing mess. In Michael Bay’s case, where everything was CGI yet still choppily cut, it’s just worrying.
Nolan’s team for the BATMAN reboots have got some real class – and apparently the editor for both also worked on MASTER AND COMMANDER (small world) – but the director himself needs to be confident enough to hold together the first/second units effectively. Faced with his first action flick, Marc Forster tries to emulate Greengrass’s more competent approach, and just goes overboard because he doesn’t have the confidence or experience to know better.
I’m surprisingly convinced by the suggestion of Peter Weir, but wish Martin Campbell would return. Or how about someone like Ridley Scott…?
It’s a good point about PHANTOM MENACE that also extends to the pod race scene. These are well-shot and edited, and whether that’s due to Lucas’ laziness, the musical score, the CGI or whatever – it’s well done there.
I still think the effectiveness in shaky-cam technique has a lot to do with the rest of the movie. If you care about the characters, care about their objectives and emotions, then badly-staged action scenes become a bit more forgivable. You take the movie as a whole and come out feeling okay.
Bay’s incapable of that. His characterizations and between-action-scene narratives don’t stand up to any kind of scrutiny. So when it comes time for his incomprehensible action scenes, I just give up entirely.
Oh God … someone mentioned Bay … now Alan will never shut up LOL
Bottom line- I don’t want to be reminded that Im watching a movie. I want to be absorbed into the story and shaky cam and quick cuts is way too distacting. Say what you want about Wolfgang Peterson’s Poseidon but he filmed that movie in an old school style were the camera was held way back and the action scenes had great scope. You had a great scence of what was going on.( Im not defending the script) I love when you can see every thing playout in a wide screen shot. Extreme close ups and quick editing is just BAD filmmaking in my opinion. Worst of all it reminds you that your watching a movie!
Chuck
I, like most people who have commented so far, am troubled by the ’shaky-cam’ revolution and the frequency with which it is used in blockbusters that have the money and the pull to ensure that the quality of filmmaking is much better. However, I think that to lumber the majority of the blame on the director of these films is a bit lazy. I am no longer convinced that, given the scale and budget of the average summer blockbuster, the director has anywhere near the level of control that some people assume.
I suppose it all boils down to the age old argument over auteurism, but it’s fairly obvious that someone like Marc Forster was never going to have final cut over QOS. EON have long held the opinion that no director can be ‘bigger than Bond’ so the liklihood was always that they were going to choose a director that they could, to an extent, control. The whole ’shaky-cam’ thing is becoming more and more intwined with the overall aesthetic of the action film, as the writer acknowledges with the step-up of it’s inclusion from The Bourne Supremacy to Ultimatum. It is becoming a defining characteristic, a talking point and, above all else, a trend. Off the heels of Casino Royale, EON were desperate to make a popular, exciting and relevant Bond film so I don’t think it’s any surprise that they have adopted the current style.
I think ultimately the decision was made by EON and was simply channeled down through the production team right to the bottom. The director, editor, director of photography, 2nd and 3rd units, everyone will have been aware of the film’s style – to give Forster the credit for the decision is to assume that he had a much bigger role than he did in the production of the film, I’m sure.
Agreed that the director isn’t the sole person to blame for Quantum’s shaky-cam cock-up, but he is one of the main culprits – he was, naturally, highly involved with the editing (he’s said so in several interviews).
Yes, he was under pressure from EON to produce the fast-moving adrenaline rush they wanted, as is the trend at present, but he is responsible for steering the whole project through to a certain goal, working with the DoP and 2nd units during production to ensure that the overall aesthetic has some continuity.
Quick editing and extreme close-ups are very effective when done properly, but when an unexperienced director (in terms of action) has to manage all of this and pull it off successfully, it’s too tall an order. He doesn’t deserve the credit for the decision, but he does deserve some of the blame for the end result.
Of course the traditional role of the director is to steer the project through to a certain goal (well put) but I don’t think that the traditional role applies here. Even though Forster was involved in the editing process I don’t think that he would have chosen to shoot the film this way.
Forster is undoubtedly responsible on some level, but I’m adamant that EON should bear the brunt of the blame – they are far more controlling than most production companies; Bond is their only asset and they make sure that no one will stray from their mandate.
I suppose however that the figure of the director agrees to take on the ultimate weight of responsibility when he / she agrees to take the project. In a film such as this it’s got nothing to do with having the highest amount of influence over the film, it’s simply that the figure of the director is the only real member of the crew (aside from the cast) that is paraded in front of the public on the red carpet.