The cinematography of Die Another Day

[Guest Roger Adams]

Hey people, this is my first time posting here. From the looks of things, you guys seem to be a tight knit intelligent group here.

 

Anyways, I looked up bond movies on the search, and one said that DAD was 'uneven' in terms of its cinematography. I personally thought it was great. Then again I am not a professional.

[Tim Tyler]

Anyways, I looked up bond movies on the search, and one said that DAD was 'uneven' in terms of its cinematography. I personally thought it was great.

 

Roger, Welcome to the forum!

 

It's often best when asking a question in the forum that doesn't have a definitive 'yes' or 'no' answer, to explain your point of view in some detail. Otherwise the replies may seem argumentative. This is especially true when your question is basically "I like something. Why don't you like it?'

 

Please explain to us why you thought the cinematography of DAD was great.

 

Also, unless the old post you found is closed, you can reply directly to that message, even quote it directly, and you may get a reply directly from the person who posted the message you are referring to.

[David Mullen ASC]

I thought the cinematography was very polished, elegent, and flattering to the actors. I think one of the areas of debate is to whether it fits into the color noir look of the classic Bonds. But technically, I had no qualms about the movie -- I thought it looked great.

 

Probably my favorite Bonds for their noirish photographic quality are "Goldeneye", "Living Daylights", and "From Russia with Love." "Die Another Day" fits into more of that glamorous traveloque adventure look of the Roger Moore films like "The Spy Who Loved Me".

[David Mullen ASC]

I just don't see what's so wrong with the photography... I guess I don't have your eye!

 

That stuff ain't easy (giant sets, action, etc.) Perhaps the more I shoot, the more humble I get because it all looks prety daunting.

 

Overall, the whole films looks very slick to me, like a perfume or Rolex commercial. If I had any complaint, it's simply that nothing sticks out much about it. A few too many soft-lit shots.

[Guest Roger Adams]

Give me Meheux and Biddle's work on GoldenEye and The World Is Not Enough- now they've got clear, consistent pallettes, intelligent visual motifs, lighting themes, contrast and subtle incamera tricks. Then again, they also had good directors too who believed in the old fashioned formula.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Hm, thats funny cause most Bond fans I've spoken to dislike TWINE's cinematography. To answer the first question, I thought DAD had lovely cinematography, nice and colorful. I like the use of the 16mm lens when Bond is talking to M in the abandoned train station. I thought Tattersall's lighting was great too...he finally lit M's office in a way where it exuded warmth and didnt feel like a set like in the previous Brosnan Bonds.

 

From your comments though...you seem to dislike the manner in which the shots were processed via DI. You can't make an army barracks from England look like North Korea, cause thats just not what the land looks like, so they tweaked the image a bit.

[Ignacio Aguilar]

You can't make an army barracks from England look like North Korea, cause thats just not what the land looks like, so they tweaked the image a bit.

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Well, Stanley Kubrick (and Doug Milsome) shot Full Metal Jacket in England and it looked fine without DI.

[Saul Pincus]

Just be thankful this isn't a film editors forum, because my Tattersall Bond comments are KIND compared to what I have to say about what Christian Wagner has done to Bond....

 

The irony of your statement re: Wagner is that MGM loved his work so much, they've talked more than once about holding onto him for another Bond.

 

Don't get me started on the editorial style of the recent Bonds. Wasn't it Bond vet director/editor who said that there is only one place for a camera for every key action beat? He was talking about economy of style, not just resources.

 

Saul Pincus

Editor & Filmmaker.

Edited December 19, 2004 by Saul Pincus

[David Mullen ASC]

Well, of course I was oversimplifying when I said that Bonds are either color noir or color travelogues -- obviously most of them do both, but some do more of one than the other. This is driven by story needs and production design too -- "Goldeneye" has a lot more night scenes and that wintery Russian setting while "Die Another Day" seems to be primarily a daytime movie. And I didn't say that travelogue photography was necessarily flat -- it can be colorful and contrasty too, as the 60's Bonds were more prone to (partially due to more contrasty printing back then.)

 

The cold, desaturated fake skip-bleach look of the early North Korea scene in "Die Another Day" was not typical Bond photography just as the same trick used for the desert planet in "Star Trek Nemesis" was unusual for that series (but at least that was real skip-bleach). But I think it's OK to veer into new territory or styles for an old franchise lest it gets stale. I can forgive a more artistic idea like that than simply aping music video styles for action scenes.

 

To me there's a BIG difference between saying that "Die Another Day" was simply not the most interesting example of Bond photography and accusing Tattersal of near technical imcompetence. He did quite well with what he had to work with. I don't know how you light a ice palace hotel in the daytime to look much better than he did, plus have cars driving through it.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

It might have helped if the film hadn't generally been a trumped-up fireworks display of a toy advert.

 

Ahem.

 

Phil

[Ignacio Aguilar]

I still can't believe Ignacio and I had exactly the same thought!! What were the odds???

 

Being a Kubrick fan myself, it was the obvious example :D

 

I didn't like too Tattersall's cinematography on that film. The Cuban scenes were shot in Cadiz (Spain) and the Spanish light is very different from the Cuban, specially when you shoot in high noon, when the light is too harsh and boring if you're not careful. I prefer, with no doubts, Alec Mills' location photography on Licence to Kill. And I thought that the use of diffusion was very inconsistent through the film, as Fstop said. Ozzie Morris says in the commentary of The Man with the Golden Gun that when he replaced Ted Moore, Albert "Cubby" Broccoli told him not to use any kind of diffusion. I remember that Alan Hume shot portions of Octopussy with a net on the lens (it was a more glamorous film), but most of the time he used them only for close-ups on the Bond films he shot.

 

My favourite Bond photography probably is The Living Daylights together with GoldenEye, on which I loved the way Phil Meheux lit the Russian Council scene (with a cameo of Michael G. Wilson) with the light coming through the windows and a lot of contrast. I have to watch again The spy who loved me because I don't remember any single source lighting on that film (perhaps the scene in the hotel?).

 

I'm not British, but I don't like also the way the latest Bonds have been done. Lets hope they don't promote Christian Wagner as director as they did with Peter Hunt and John Glen in the past...

Edited December 19, 2004 by Ignacio Aguilar

[Guest Roger Adams]

I'm a big Bond fan too. Have all the movies on DVD, with the Bond Women doc and post regularly on commanderbond.net. I even have most of the soundtracks, with the ticket stub for Die Another Day in its score's booklet. BTW fstop, they were in Kentucky, not Texas. Note the Kentucky Fried Chicken. :P

 

But I do agree with David on this one, I dont feel that the cinematography for DAD was that bad...if they couldn't get the look they wanted in camera, then why not DI the scene to get a consistent color scheme? And also keep in mind that Tamahori was changing everything at the last minute...that whole car chase inside the palace was decided on AFTER the Ice Palace was nearly complete, and so they had to redesign it to accomodate cars, and the water tank. Also, the ending was supposed to take place in a huge indoor wave pool, instead of on the Antonov. And I for one thought that the Ice Palace was a nice return to sets like the Volcano lair in You Only Live Twice...didnt remind me one bit of B&R.

 

But, I absolutely agree with you on one thing...I hated Christian Wagner's editing. Cubby would have had him flogged in the streets.

[David Mullen ASC]

Arnold is such a fan of John Barry -- incorporating many Barry motifs -- that he's been a better choice for the background score than some of the others tried out in the past (seems the worst have been the French composers...) Can't say much for the songs though.

[Guest Roger Adams]

I like his scores, especially DAD. The best version to get would be the 2 disc bootleg from Ebay, which can usually be found for $30+. The original was decent, but got extremely repetitive with the electronics, and left out the really great cues. The bootleg, has every single cue and even 2 alternates! And for a bootleg...it has GREAT quality.

[Saul Pincus]

Arnold is such a fan of John Barry -- incorporating many Barry motifs -- that he's been a better choice for the background score than some of the others tried out in the past (seems the worst have been the French composers...) Can't say much for the songs though.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Arnold has been a fine, even wonderful addition to Bond (TND, and most of TWINE, IMHO). But has a tendency to use the rumble of full orchestra a bit much to underscore not-so-deserving moments ? thus competing with sound effects ? and nowhere is this more prevalent than in DAD. Barry's orchestral style was a much leaner, often allowing melody and minimal counterpoint to carry a moment alone.

 

That said, the entire approach to Bond in terms of sound is very, very different from the Barry days. Back then, sound effects would dominate until they could up the emotional ante no more, at which point music would kick in and all but key SFX would drop back. As I've intimated, it's a more confident approach to creating a soundtrack that's not in sync with the wall-of-sound approach in vogue in action films today. (Goldeneye was perhaps the last Bond that trusted Barry's approach.) Incidentally, this exactly what pissed off noted composer Jerry Goldsmith when he was alive, as he favored a lean approach too, preferring to have his music featured as little as possible so as to avoid creating mulch in place of artistry for an audience's ears. IMHO, Bond is about streamlined elegance, and you don't get that effect from mulch, which one reason is why today's Bond seems more and more like every other action film.

 

Saul.

[Ignacio Aguilar]

I'd love for that European romance to return to the series in the form of photography by Eduardo Serra on the next movie!

 

Serra would be a good choice and it won't surprise me if John Mathieson (or even Michael Seresin) photograph a Bond film in a near future.

Edited December 19, 2004 by Ignacio Aguilar

[David Mullen ASC]

In some ways, you want someone who straddles both a glossy color style mixed with film noir b&w elements -- Douglas Slocombe is a good example of that -- rather than someone too naturalistic. So far, Phil Meheux has proved good at that sort of thing. In America, Stephen Burum has done some good work in that vein, polished scope photography with a dash of old Hollywood classicism ("Something Wicked This Way Comes" and "Mission Impossible" have those qualities, as do "Rumblefish" and "The Outsiders.") Vilmos Zsigmond and Laslo Kovacs too. Jeff Kimball, Allen Daviau, some others.

 

But getting back to U.K. cinematographers, I think someone like Remi Adefarisan could do a fantastic job on a Bond film.