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Movies
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Books, Movies
Quiller Beats Bond
10.05.09 | Permalink | 9 CommentsIn the past year I’ve become a big fan of the Quiller novels of Adam Hall, a pseudonym of English novelist Elleston Trevor (most famous for The Flight of the Phoenix).
Quiller is unusual for a fictional spy. He’s extremely taciturn, with no personal relationships outside of work, and no real friends in it – only people he respects. Despite this, he frequently shows compassion to those wounded, physically or emotionally. When in the field he’s all business. He never engages in casual conversation, he probes for information. He seems to be an expert on just about every subject, especially martial arts, and has such a complete knowledge and mastery of his own physiology that he can, for example, make himself faint it required.
Now, none of that is really so unusual, but Quiller is also deeply neurotic. He loves living on the brink, but at the same time it wears away at his nerves so that he’s always at the breaking point. He frequently lies to himself or ignores his own better judgement to find the guts to continue. And there’s not a speck of humour to be found in these books, only grim irony.
Physically he’s left undefined but I always pictured him as slightly built but wiry, blonde, and generally nondescript.
Contrast that to Bond, the philandering clubman, always quick with a quip (moreso in the movies). Bond certainly sees to his business but, compared to the aescetic Quller, he certainly indulges his vices, with considerable relish.
While watching the cheesy early-80s Bond flick Octopussy the other day, it occurred to me that there’s a spy out there right now who matches up to my image of Quiller in just about every way: James Bond. The “rebooted” franchise, with its darker tone, its emphasis on skill instead of seduction, and, most of all, its Bond in Danial Craig, is just about exactly the way I’d pictured Quiller.
Go read the books, though, they’re really unique, and with the “Harry Palmer” novels of Len Deighton, really make up a sort of alternative universe of spies to the one we normally think of.
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Movies
Bob Le Flambeur
I bow to no one in my love for French director Jean-Pierre Melville, but I didn’t care much for Bob Le Flambeur (Bob the Gambler, or Bob the High Roller). While the techical aspects are not up to the standards of his later work (mostly due to the miniscule budget and improvised filmmaking), it’s the general feeling that I didn’t go for.
Melville’s later works are almost clinical in their detachment from the characters, observing them without making much of a judgement. But in this film, Bob is presented as a very sympathetic character, sort of the kindly uncle of the criminal class. He used to be a thief, a bank robber, but after a few years in Le Grand Chateau he went straight, and stayed that way for 20 years.
Now, after a run of bad luck, he’s flat broke and without prospects. Then he hears that the safe in the Deauville casino sometimes contains as much as 800 million francs…
Throughout the film we see his kindness to others. He’s friends with a policeman whose life he once saved by knocking aside a pistol just as the man behind it pulled the trigger. We see him hanging around a diner, and learn that he loaned the woman behind the counter the money to open it. We see his friendship with young Paolo, son of a former colleague.
And we see the way he picks up Anne, who’s well on her way to becoming a streetwalker, and installs her in his apartment. But not for himself – instead, he practically pushes her into Paolo’s arms, doing something for both of them.
For lack of a better word, the film is romantic, not in the sense that it’s a love story, but in the way it views Bob’s character. What’s most powerful in Melville’s later films is the blank-faced fatalism of his main characters. Do they feel things, sometimes powerfully? Yes, but they don’t let it show. Bob wears his heart on his sleeve, and honestly, it makes him a little less interesting.
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Movies
Burn Before Watching
So I just finished watching Burn After Reading, the Coen brothers’ follow-up to the epic No Country For Old Men. And I thought Country was depressing! In my current mood and situation, all I need is to listen to the new Chris Isaak album, and… Well. Let’s just say that in three days the neighbors would be calling the police, complaining of a strange smell.
My mood is not helped by the fact that I read most of the day instead of working, though I did get a little bit done. But I feel like a fat bastard of a slug. There’s always tomorrow, I suppose.
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Movies, Reviews
“Guns don’t kill people – but they sure help!”
Saw Shoot ‘Em Up last night. I had heard this described as possibly “the most ridiculous film ever conceived by Hollywood” and that’s not a criticism. As the film opens, Mr. Smith (Clive Owen) is sitting at a bus stop eating a carrot when a pregnant woman hurries past. Right behind her a tough guy in his car comes screeching to a halt, and proceeds to shout abuse as he chases her into a building.
Smith can’t let this pass, so he tags along and teaches the thug a lesson. Then, a half dozen heavily armed associates show up, and Smith is forced to shoot it out with them.
The story is framed as a cartoon (Smith munches on carrots; the bad guy even calls him a “wascally wabbit”), but it bears more resemblence to video games, specifically Max Payne, right down to Smith’s appearance. The absurdities don’t stop with the high body count or Smith’s virtuosity with firearms – for example, it only takes half an hour, maybe forty-five minutes, to locate someone on the run in New York City.
Taken by itself, the plot is actually fairly reasonable (as government conspiracy theories go). But do not let children or anyone with a weak disposition near this film. It’s rated R and for good reason. If you’re in the right mood it can be fun but it’s in the same league as, say, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.
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