I just watched it right now, and for the maybe 20th time. I have a scheme! To blank out my mind of preconcieved ideas and thoughts of negativity from scratch before I start the start button, now when I watch the underdog Bond movies. Two days ago it was A VIEW TO A KILL.
THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN is unique to me. I would call it The Ultimate Psychedelic Comic Book Bond. The Imagery resembles the comics of the early 70´s, with swirls, free form images, twisted angles and lines, exotic looking surroundings, broken rules of conventional ways to portrait everything "realistic". I am somewhat a comic book collector and artist myself, so I have the love of comics and its history. The style came from that the comic artists from USA, England, Spain etc was beginning to smoke grass as they drew. It was very common during this period for those who worked with music, art design, comics did it. It may repell some people here, but I tell you thats how it started to change.
So, I find Man With THe Golden Gun very fascinating. At least the first 2 thirds of the movie is impressing, fast paced, without giving you a chance to think about the film - you are taken from one scene to another. The locations are slightly surreal, like the mushroom like cliffs at Phuket, the multi sign landscape of the Hong Kong Night City, yeah, even the HQ inside the twisted Wreck where everybody walks around in the most awkward angles till you get dizzy. Scaramangas funhouse w mirrors and weird things are truly a "wonderful lowbudget" comic into film piece.
It belongs to the group of Fantasy Bonds which in a way began with Dr No, but got its outstanding style in Goldfinger, followed by YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE and DIAMONDS ARE FOR EVER. They all are different from eachother too, of course, as the comedy barometer peaks or goes down occasionally from film to film. For all of those who see these fantasyfilms as worse or lower than the realistic Bonds are not being truly honest if they claim to be right in sort of way. Because the combination of secret agents, sex and that pinch of sci fi was Flemings, and maybe other similar authors special thing in the 50´s. And the Fantasy Bond started already, as I see it , in Dr NO!
According to the "Behind the Scenes of THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN" documentary, the whole filmteam with actors were stuck on that island with no chance to phone in and call for new material, or whatever. They really were stuck there without a phone for a long time, and had a certain time to shoot the grand finale, with 5 actors and some explosives! What can they do? When you know all this, it becomes easier to understand the film.
But if you dont have that humour and imagination that came out of the 60s and 70´s, then you probably never will experience the uniqueness in these Fantasy films. incl GOLDEN GUN. I too wished, that the final duel was more an ordeal of a fight to the death, with sweat, near death situations, and rock climbing and all, AND something else than a deserted laboratory blowing up. But as the first 80 min are brilliant and full of atmosphere and imagination, they are utterly great to us who think that that is important in any piece of art!
Thanks!
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