Sean Connery in Memoriam

Cinema lost another giant this year as the legendary Highlander Sean Connery himself passed away aged 90 in the Bahamas. Now, he might have had some very regressive personal ideas that have been repeated ad nauseum by leftists. But one can't claim that he wasn't a mesmerizing screen star, and also (his constant Scottish accent and lisping s's notwithstanding), quite a great actor as well. This post takes a look at some of his best performances.

From Russia with Love (UK, 1963)
Dir. Terence Young

There are many ways of approaching the Bond series, but it is also interesting to watch the earliest entries where everything was not that set in stone. While Dr. No already had a version of the basic formula, the first sequel in the series took a different path, having a more real world espionage-based and dark sequel. As it is one of the more serious entries in the franchise, I find it also surprisingly underrated.

It's still a Bond film, so there's plenty of ludicrousness. The entire film begins with a scene where Bond is seemingly killed, but it turns out it's just some guy wearing a rubber mask (for some reason) in Red Grant's (Robert Shaw) training exercise. Grant's dark reflection of Bond is one of the reasons people remember this film so fondly, but it has some other good characterizations as well, from the double-agent Tatiana Romanova (Daniela Bianchi) to the actual main villain Rosa Klebb (Lotte Lenya), who never even meets Bond face-to-face. 

But Red Grant does, in perhaps the best fight scene of the entire series.

 

Before Daniel Craig came along, Connery was the only actor who managed to get a sense of danger out of the Bond movies. He is constantly in over his head, but his cocky nature and luck also make him come out on top of any situation. Bond is probably the worst secret agent possible, but it just adds to the allure of the character. Espionage is well below his radar after women and boozing.

★★★★

Marnie (USA, 1964)
Dir. Alfred Hitchcock

 

Late-era Hitchcock films aren't also quite as well-known, and it may seem even surprising that Connery starred in a Hitch movie. Marnie is a exploration of trauma and lies and their effects on a relationship. It also has a Psycho-like table-turn, in which we at first follow Marnie (Tippi Hedren) as she cheats, swindles and steals money from each of her employers. When she gets caught by Connery's Mark Rutland, he takes it upon himself to get to the bottom of her personality flaws and functions.

 

As it was already the 60's, Hitch could have more graphic sex and violence than used to in his films. Connery is more of a hands-on actor than Jimmy Stewart or Cary Grant who had problems with their masculinity in Hitch's movies. The central character of Marnie, however, is way too half-baked, a damsel in distress with little agenda of her own. Hitchcock has interesting scenes play out her panic attacks, but is seems he could have grounded the end reveals a bit more with the role of Marnie's mother being almost nonexistant beforehand. I think the film showcases a little too clearly Hitchcock's problems with women, and as a result, it's a good try to have a multilayered psychological thriller, but times had already passed such a chauvinistic view of things. It's not among the best of it's director's standards.

★★★

The Offence (USA, 1973)
Dir. Sidney Lumet

 

Connery made four films in total with Lumet, and as directed by a veteran who leaned heavy on good scripts and getting the best out of his actors, he also made some of the best work in his career. Here he plays a British policeman driven evenly more desperate as a child-murderer's case lingers on.

 

I'd say the bleak outlook on a 20-year police procedure has probably been a major influence on Bong Joon-ho's Memories of Murder. Lumet, however directs this mostly like a stage play, with minimalist interrogation rooms and very dialogue-heavy scenes. Lumet is interested in a breaking psyche, and the growing desperation that brings a seemingly good police to do atrocious deeds. It covers similar themes than a lot of showier films which is probably why this small-scale movie has had such relatively light attention.

Connery's role, however, is yet another character that takes out his inner anger and frustrations on women, in this case his long-suffering wife. Well, he has violent tendencies towards suspects as well, so he's not entirely likable by any means, but still, one has to wonder why so many of his characters share this woman-beating tendencies.

★★★ 1/2

The Wind and the Lion (USA, 1975)
Dir. John Milius

Milius found a good historical epic with which to tell a story about one of his greatest heroes, Theodore Roosevelt. It wasn't his last Roosevelt film, and Ol' Teddy is restricted here to a quite brief supporting role, though he is the Wind in the title. The Lion, then is Connery's Raisuli, a Berber prince out for glory. At that point it wasn't considered problematic to have Scots portray Arabs. Rather, he is used here to be a world-class lover and a fighter, in the same vein as Rudolph Valentino. 

There's planty of action scenes equal to Milius's later Conan the Barbarian, and a Stockholm sydromish romance with Candace Bergen's reporter, who finds that there's more to the Berber lifestyle than meets the eye at first. Meanwhile, Teddy (Brian Keith) faces pressures on his foreign policy back home, but meets them with his personal philosophies, which isn't nearly as interesting. The seperate stories don't quite click together and the ending is quite underwhelming. nevertheless, it is an enjoyable film to watch since Connery's and Milius's approaches to tell manly men tales are tangentially similar.

★★★

The Rock (USA, 1996)
Dir. Michael Bay

Finally, among the last really entertaining romps Connery made, and also the movie was more or less to blame for many of Connery's late-era woes. The Rock's stunt casting sees him play pretty much a James Bond type that has been kept in a prison cell for 30 years. He's a quippy man of action, but at the same time a mentor too. That the aged Connery happend to fit into a thoroughly modern action movie so well gave the wrong imprsiion to other filmmakers who attempted similar approaches, the bottom of the barrel being 2003's LXG which made Connery quit acting altogether.

 

You can find plenty to blame in Michael Bay's approach. Connery seems to enjoy to play a character that sees things to be as black-and-white as they were in the 1960's, which extends also on his sex politics. He also seemingly kills or maims a lot of innocent people in a very tacked-on car chase, that's nevertheless a great showcase of Bay's strengths as an action director. By contrast, Nicolas Cage's weirdo, modern action man and Ed Harris's noble main baddie are more nuanced characters, but Connery holds his own against these two great performances. Bay has only regressive things to say, but that's only if you try to search anything meaningful in his cavalcade of outrageous plot turns and huge explosions. As a 90's romp, it's still great fun, and perhaps should have been Connery's actual retirement film so he could have gone out on top.

★★★★

Christopher Lee in Memoriam

On June 7th, the world lost one of the greatest living screen legends and a personal favorite actor of mine, Sir Christopher Lee. Much as everyone would´ve expected him to turn 100, he left this realm at the ripe age of 93. He certainly had a long and amazing life, and no one could deny his love for the craft, since he was working until the end. And a good thing too, because his recognizable baritone could liven up the most dire of blockbusters. He´s one of my all-time favorite actors precisely because there´s no thrash film so rotten that he wouldn´t improve it just by with his immense charisma and serious speech patterns.

I am a bit late with this post, but I couldn´t have a better reason to get this blog running once again than to start out by reminiscing some of Sir Christopher´s work. This isn´t necessarily a listing of his greatest roles (might I direct you to this post about The Wicker Man for that), but these are some of his most iconic performances, with some curiosities thrown in for good measure.

Horror of Dracula (1958) 
Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966)
Dir. Terence Fisher

Of course, the role that made him famous, and a cornerstone in his career was the defining portrayal of Count Dracula in numerous Hammer Studios´ films, starting with this one. As it is, it´s surprising to see just how little we see of the old count in Horror of Dracula, and even in the following film, Dracula: Prince of Darkness. But Lee is such a perfect embodiment for otherworldly evil, as well as a sexy outsider, that he leaves an immediate impact.

As Hammer films tend to have, this one also has top-notch sets, music and a foggy athmosphere you could cut with a knife. The cast is very good, but the acting is still very theatrical. Later on, Hammer directors eased out on acting-direction, but sadly this coincided with the scripts getting worse and worse. At this point they were still eager to try their claws with classic horror stories and giving them an unmistakably English twist.

In The Horror of Dracula, the most notable problem is the same one as in Stoker´s book (from which the film otherwise takes notable liberties). While the opening scenes of Jonathan Harker traveling to castle Dracula and realizing that the man he thought to do real-estate business is in fact an undead monster, are exciting, feverish and threatening. But once the action settles on patriarchal Victorians trying to solve the case of women enjoying sex, the film jars to a halt. Never mind that the obsessive, cold and violent Van Helsing as portrayed by Peter Cushing is one of the best portrayals of that character.

Lee hated the role of Dracula so much, that he refused to say any of his lines in the first sequel, PoD. That film was made to keep the struggling hammer Films afloat, so Lee had to grudgingly accept. The resulting pantomime performance emphasizes the character´s otherwordliness, and the surrealism feels much more like the live-action reprisal of Nosferatu than Werner Herzog´s actual remake could ever manage.

Dracula: ★★★ 1/2
Prince of Darkness: ★★★ 1/2

The Hound of Baskervilles (1959)
Dir. Terence Fisher

Lee played in many different versions of Arthur Conan Doyle´s Sherlock Holmes stories, managing to play Holmes twice and his brother Mycroft once (in Billy Wilder´s The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. I have a lot of fondness for that role). Curiously, he was never cast as Professor Moriarty, but perhaps that would´ve been way too obvious. This Hammer Films version of perhaps the most famous Holmes story deserves merit because it takes the opposite direction, casting Lee as Sir Henry Baskerville, with his best friend Peter Cushing as The Great Detective.

Lee´s Sir Henry is something of a buffoon, a very self-important aristocrat that is introduced complaining about his missing shoes and mistaking Holmes as a servant. Lee´s no-nonsense charisma and a sort of anger seethe through a man who´s deadly afraid, but can´t manage but to try to keep up appearances. A scene with a killer tarantula for instance reveals the cracks in his facade, making him totally freeze up in fright.

It´s always a pleasure to see Cushing and Lee play off each other (which makes it such a shame they have so little interaction in Dracula films or, for instance Curse of Frankenstein). They are a pair for the ages, usually having one of them be the straight man, voice of reason, and the other the passionate character, fringing on the edges of madness. It´s evident that the pair got on off-screen as well.

★★★

The Bloody Judge (1970)
Dir. Jesús Franco

If Lee´s career in the 1950´s and early 60´s was emphasized by the films he made with Terence Fisher and Hammer Films, in the late 1960´s and early 70´s his most frequent working partner was the Spanish schlockmeister Jesús Franco. In many ways, Franco had a way of continuing on with some of the work Hammer started, such as taking on their Fu Manchu films with a couple of movies of the Diabolical Doctor of his own. It seems Lee had a fondness for Franco, since he could even convince him to play The Lord of the Vampires once more for 1970´s Count Dracula. Lee has gone on record to praise that film, probably because it gave him dialogue straight from Bram Stoker´s novel, a feat which none of the Hammer movies could manage to do.

Another of Franco´s films that pleased Lee was this historical thriller about the 17th century Lord Chief of Justice Jeffries, who was known for public executions. One must say that Franco was riding on the wave of the wave of British horror of the day, releasing this film between such films with similar subject matter as The Witchfinder General and Blood on Satan´s Claw. Cynical looks at the bloody and unfair history of England were all the rage then.

However, like Franco´s films tend to be, this one is thin on story and oddly uneven. Scenes of torture and nude women were inserted to the finished film in order to gain notoriety. Thus also Lee´s performance disappears from the film from time to time. As Jeffries, he does tremendous work, with his burning gaze and reasoning that he is serving the kingdom by killing people he sees as threats. Lee could make Franco´s films a lot better than they had any right to be, and this one is certainly watchable, if nothing to really write home about.

★★★

The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)
Dir. Guy Hamilton

Of course, the work Lee did in the 70´s weren´t all zero-budget horror films. He was a particularly apt choice for a Bond villain, playing the assassin Scaramanga. He happened to be a distant cousin of 007 creator Ian Fleming, and actually was his first choice to play the agent way back when. While Lee could´ve pulled off both Bond´s ruthless side as well as the more gentlemanny traits with ease, in the films we´ve got, he wouldn´t really have worked.

This particular film is from the most silly period of Roger Moore´s agent, featuring things like Nick-Nack the killer midget, comic relief Southern Sherriff J.W. Pepper and a Funhouse assissation arena. Bond films play for the tastes of that day with some kung fu action thrown in the mix. Yet Lee´s Scaramanga still feels like a genuine threat, never mind that you couldn´t really kill anyone with golden bullets (I´m not sure about the gun, though. It would be very heavy and soft, though).

The character of Scaramanga would prove to be one of the first of Bond´s "dark reflections" (of course Robert Shaw in From Russia With Love being the first). As such, it´s a pity they couldn´t mine some more substance out of that dynamic, resorting to quips about superfluous nipples and bikini girls instead. But this has been a well from which the Bond producers have returned to with every iteration of the character since.

★★★

Mask of Murder (1988)
Dir. Arne Mattson

Now, a lot of Finnish media tended to tell about how much Christopher Lee loved Finland. he came here to fight as a volunteer in the Winter War, after all. Also, as he loved J.R.R. Tolkien´s works, he also appreciated the Finnish language. But he never did act in a Finnish movie. This is something the Swedes got and we didn´t. For Lee had a sizable role in the Swedish thriller maestro Arne Mattson´s English-language film mask of murder, which saw the actor in a Swedish setting.

As far as plots go, this is not really something to write home about, and certainly not one of Mattson´s finest. The Swedish town of Uppsala is here representing a desolate Canadian village. Murders of women start to occur, and it´s at first up to Lee´s Chief Supt. Jonathan Richto solve them, but then he´s suddenly wiped off the game and the case left to his assistant Supt. Bob McLaine, played by Rod Taylor. They have their own skeletons in the closet, and the film has a very cynical outlook in the small town police force as a whole.

I´m going to admit it´s a pleasure mostly because of the setting of an obviously Swedish town, as well as it´s nice to see the nicely mustached Lee and Taylor thinking. The violence is surprisingly stark, owing to the slasher films of the day. Horror fans despise the film, perhaps because it delivers very little in the way of actual horror and that the end twist is easily guessable. But there´s surprisingly lot of Lee in the film, and he gives a fine, subdued performance so I´d say it´s worth checking out.

★★★

The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies (2014)
Dir. Peter Jackson

I have to mention this last, since it was the last time I saw Christopher Lee on the screen. On Jackson´s bloated prequel trilogy, there are very few things on screen that feel tangible, realistic or even emotionally resonant. Lee´s Saruman the White fighting Ringwraiths is of course horrendous as an idea for a Tolkien fan, but it´s also the only offering of fan service in the films that I actually enjoyed. That´s kick-ass, even if it is a stunt double most of the time, and a better fight scene than Lee got in either of the Star Wars prequels he appeared in.

Many people complained that Saruman´s trechery was telegraphed too plainly in the first Hobbit movie. I thought that Lee portrayed him as Tolkien suggested, arrogant and pompous, with a love for his own voice. Again, while the material he had may not have been up to standards, Lee made it his own, and with his extensive knowledge of literary sources, made it even more accurate. As such, he is the best part in that movie, too.

★★

So in conclusion, rest in piece, sir Christopher. I know you´ll be coming back, because that´s the way you work, but try to come back as a benevolent spirit, guiding us to reach to be as awesome as you were in life.

Review: Skyfall

Probably more than any other franchise, the James Bond series has a clear-cut, familiar formula which most of its movies follow. For a series that has run for 50 years, not very many films have dared to do something different. In the late 90's, early 00's at least, a director suggesting to do so was laughed out of the offices of Albert Broccoli's EON Productions. Thank heavens times have changed enough for us to get Daniel Craig's version of the character that goes a little deeper than to be just sheer escapism and male power fantasy.

Skyfall is very, very good. It's a worthy successor to 2006's Casino Royale. Whereas that film pondered how exactly did Bond become such a ruthless killing machine and a cold lover/sex-addict, this one writes the circle to the end and finds the reason behind several of basic elements of Bond. Casino Royale looked at Bond's tendency to get the bad end of relationships and his need to stay unattached to women. Quantum of Solace was how he in principle is a selfish character that being in the pressure points of world politics does help change the world (I think).

Skyfall has two main themes: the first is to ponder whether James Bond and his methods have ran out of their course in the modern world. The second theme is about his loyalty to authorities and higher-ups, and his troubled relationship with his foster-parent character M. These issues have been dealt with previously, most clearly in Goldeneye. But whereas the past Bond movies (particularly in Pierce Brosnan's era) just threw a bunch of ideas into a canvas and didn't mind what stuck and what not, in Sam Mendes's direction these themes are ambitiously and thoroughly followed from start to finish.

To get to the bottom of the main themes, Skyfall delves into Bond's past and present, find out the demons that worst haunt him, and hit him where it hurts. Craig's Bond goes to hell and back in this one - several times.

And his love for classic cars, which causes the film's best reaction shot.

While on a mission in Turkey with his fellow agent Eve (Naomie Harris), Bond attempts to track down a stolen file which contains the names of every NATO agent undercover in terrorist organizations around the world. While Bond is battling the thief on top of a train roof, Bond's chief of operations M (Dame Judi Dench) orders Eve to snipe the villain. But this bullet misfires and hits Bond, while the thief escapes. Our hero goes missing, presumed dead.

M has to answer for the loss of the top secret file to the British government and her job is at stake. At the same time a mysterious mastermind behind the whole plot targets the whole MI6 organization and M herself in a terrorist attack. Bond must return from hiding and stop the madman before it's too late. He finds out that the culprit is a disgruntled ex-agent Silva (Javier Bardem) who has a bone to pick with M. Bond must go to great lengths to protect his mother figure, who may be the only person he truly cares for.

Is M worthy of 007's loyalty? Or 007 of M allowing his flaws to slip through the radar?

I thought the making of M to a mother-figure to Bond (which, granted, puts Bond's rebelliousness to a whole new light) went to a bit of an overkill in the last movie. But here, although dealt with it even deeper, it service the story and is a clear focus point. His relationship to M is truly the right place to dig to find new sides to reveal about everyone's favorite agent. As I've said before, Judi Dench and Daniel Craig just have a great chemistry, bickering away like an old married couple or buddy cops. It's also nice to have M get a lot more screen time, and early to halfway through the movie she is almost more of a protagonist of the film than Bond is.

But the Bond universe gets expanded with also the introduction of the new Q (Ben Whishaw). He is shown to be the antithesis of Bond, a modern young hacker that can do a lot more espionage with his set of skills than Bond with his. These rivaling agents learn to cooperate towards the end and both of them are seen to not be invincible or flawless. Whishaw's cold approach to his character makes his dry humor and snappy bickering work even better.

Javier Bardem as the main villain of the story seems to get a lot of praise all around. His Silva does have some interesting homosexual tendencies, almost a North Korean style sadism, and manages to be totally ruthless and a bit cheeky at the same time. He is pretty great, although his always-one-step-ahead, years-in-planning terrorist mastermind type starts to feel a bit outdated the more time has passed since 9/11. As Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace were heavily influenced by the Jason Bourne series, this one has a clear Dark Knight vibe to it.

The greatest collaborator of the movie just has to be cinematographer Roger Deakins. The man who has shot most of the Coen Brothers' films just does tremendous work, and just makes one wonder why on earth don't more multi-million dollar blockbusters hire the best Directors of Photography available? I mean, look at how horrible a film like The Expendables 2 looks! Deakins on the other hand never misses on an action, and his stunning photography keeps things interesting (and beautiful) even when there isn't an explosion or a fist fight on sight. He also deserves praise for simply the most beautiful exploding helicopter scene I've ever witnessed in my life. I literally dropped my jaw.

Director Sam Mendes has done a film heavy with plot and themes, but delivers on the action too. Particularly great is an assassination scene in a Shanghai glass skyscraper, where Bond hides by turning the reflection of glass doors opposite his opponent. Mendes has also brought back the hands-on brutality in the brawls, and when people get punched, it really packs a wallop. And when things explode, hoo-boy, do you feel that too! The stunning finale, that goes to some quite unexpected paths, is one of the most effective ones in Bond history.

I'm starting to ramble on like a fan boy, but today, the day after seeing this, I feel like this just might be the best Bond film ever made. It feels like it one-ups even the heights of Casino Royale, and has the sort of escapism inherent in films like Goldfinger and The Spy Who Loved Me. For those who think Bond has grown too serious, there's a scene in a casino, where Bond and his opponent drop into an open cage of Komodo dragons. Bond manages to leap out by getting a leg up from the back of a giant lizard while his opponent is devoured alive. Happy 50th birthday, Mr. Bond! You sure made it a memorable one!

★★★★ (while reflecting on other Bond films, ★★★★★)

SKYFALL
UK/USA, 2012
Language: English
Director: Sam Mendes

Screenplay: Neal Purvis, Roger Wade
Cinamatography: Roger Deakins
Starring: Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris