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From Fleming with spanking
So yesterday ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ayawinner and I discovered this series “Fleming – The Man Who Would Be Bond” by BBC America with Dominic Cooper as the main character.
It’s Dominic Cooper in 40’ies clothing and uniforms and being Ian Fleming! Oh my God, this is everything I ever wanted! Sadly it’s only four episodes but who cares, it must be great, right?
We have Ian (Dominic Cooper aka Howard Stark) who is a wanna-be-writer and the worst ‘stockbroker in London’ blowing through his family’s fortune by drinking, flirting, hitting on women and getting hit by men and being an all-around failure to his mom and his brother Peter (Rupert Evans). He even introduces himself as “the lesser Fleming”, aka the daddy and brother-issues are rampant in like the first few minutes of the first episode. It’s glorious.
"Woe is me that nobody understands my poor, tortured artisté soul."
Oh well, since Britain is going to war and we are in desperate need of pretty people to work for the Naval Intelligence Service, Rear Admiral John Godfrey (Samuel West) swoops in and rescues our poor tortured teenage girl Ian – and really, I have no fucking clue what he is supposed to do for him other than decorating his office (and coming up with cunning plans to deceive the Germans, but really, the show makes this out to be such a non-job that we cannot be bothered to care).
This is the face of a man who has had it up to here with your bullshit, Fleming.
Godfrey and Ian are wonderful to watch, trading insults and insolence like flowers and chocolates. Ian can get away with a lot of dumbass comments and actions probably because Godfrey is so in love with him or rather because Godfrey knows that Ian is all talk and bravado without any actual meat to him – he goes out of his way to keep Ian from seeing any actual field action which is good because Ian can’t fire a gun for shit and his only skill is to talk his way out of every situation. This they play up really well, getting Cooper to speak “fluent German” (or you know, what British people think passes as fluent German) and French when appropriate and when he is allowed to do actual spy work, Ian really proves his worth.
Apart from Godfrey, we have Second Officer Monday (Anna Chancellor and dear God Britain really has twelve actors), his assistant and burdened with the terrible task of babysitting Ian – poor woman, seriously. She is actually very fond of him though (fucked by the writers I think, Ian is insufferable more often than not) and I really really wish the show was just about Godfrey, Monday and Ian doing spy stuff in Lisbon as during the intro of the second episode.
"I am getting paid good money to be nice to you, Fleming. Lots and lots of good money. So much money that they call me Moneypenny."
Sadly, it’s not, and that’s mainly because the writers apparently found it necessary to include so much romance in this show that it rivals a Mexican soap opera.
Ian fancies himself to be a bit of a ladies’ man and he actually flirts with everyone who can’t hide quick enough (which includes a German officer in Lisbon – shhhh, it actually happened, shh...).
One of his girlfriends is Muriel Wright (Annabelle Wallis, and yes that’s Ninon, Britain you need more actors), who works as a dispatch rider for the War Office. They share some steamy scenes but it is obvious that Ian wants nothing more than a quick romp in the sheets while Muriel starts to fall in love with him – naturally it ends badly (you really should not stand in front of windows during an air raid. Really).
Gosh, they are so cute.
This prompts Ian to seek solace in the arms of Ann O’Neill (Lara Pulver, aka Irene Adler, oh for fucks sake this is getting ridiculous), a high society lady whose husband is doing soldier stuff somewhere and whose lover is called Esmond Rothermere. According to all the ladies on the show Esmond is “good looking” (all of these people are blind).
They start an affair which is supposed to make us feel ... something, I guess but this is where the show falls utterly flat and gets downright boring. Ian and Ann have exactly one thing in common which is their love for spanking and soft bdsm-stuff and this is shown exactly as cringeworthy as you would imagine from BBC America (they even censor the word “fuck” with weird jump-cuts). I don’t know if this is some sort of Game of Thrones effect but there are some god awful sex scenes and especially the spanking starts out like a rape-scene and it’s utterly ... confusing and left a bad taste in my mouth. I understand that the height of depravity are doggy-style sex scenes because they are easy to film without actually showing anything but none of them are sexy in the least – they feel terribly contrived, the consent issues are piling up left and right and I really wouldn’t be so hard on this, if Ian wasn’t the main character and the audience wasn’t kinda supposed to root for him (and if the scenes weren’t downright misogynist in their appearance but there is only so much blow-doll-face on a good actress that I can stand).
Jesus Christ on a stick, the guy is like Jekyll and Hyde bouncing from playful idiot with a boyish grin to almost-rapist and chauvinistic asshole. The whole romance plot that takes up a good half of the last two episodes is unbearably hard to watch because it’s boring and the scenes don’t really add anything to the characters or the plot itself. They talk about their feelings somehow, but it’s always the same “Do marry me” – “No, I won’t”- dialogue over and over again and there is nothing that makes you invested in Ian and Ann’s relationship at all. They are not particularly fond of each other and them being ‘weird’ in bed is the only thing they have in common and even that is mainly just hinted at. (How the hell did Ian even figure out that Ann was into spanking? Does he have some sort of spidey-sense? Sweet, merciful Jesus, that one is a train wreck from start to finish).
He is so pretty to look at though.
But if you ignore all of that (which is hard, admittedly) then you are left with nice spy stories, engaging characters and incredibly pretty people in period clothing with great cinematography that pay homage to the Bond-films – and a great fictionalized look on how Bond’s creator got some of his ideas.
Bonus:
Wikipedia tells us:
Als verbindender Faktor der komplizierten Beziehung zu Anne gilt die gemeinsame Neigung zum Spanking.[3] Simon Winder, Autor und Herausgeber einer Neuauflage von Bond-Romanen nannte Fleming direkt und ohne Umschweife einen Sado-Masochisten. Die Neigung zeigt sich auch in den Romanen, die nahezu immer eine Folter-Szene mit Bond als Opfer beinhalten, was in den Filmen zumeist gekürzt wird.
This tells me my Casino Royale-OTP of Bond/Le Chiffre and my Skyfall-OTP of Bond/da Silva is canon. Yay! \o/
ayawinner and I discovered this series “Fleming – The Man Who Would Be Bond” by BBC America with Dominic Cooper as the main character.It’s Dominic Cooper in 40’ies clothing and uniforms and being Ian Fleming! Oh my God, this is everything I ever wanted! Sadly it’s only four episodes but who cares, it must be great, right?
We have Ian (Dominic Cooper aka Howard Stark) who is a wanna-be-writer and the worst ‘stockbroker in London’ blowing through his family’s fortune by drinking, flirting, hitting on women and getting hit by men and being an all-around failure to his mom and his brother Peter (Rupert Evans). He even introduces himself as “the lesser Fleming”, aka the daddy and brother-issues are rampant in like the first few minutes of the first episode. It’s glorious.
"Woe is me that nobody understands my poor, tortured artisté soul."
Oh well, since Britain is going to war and we are in desperate need of pretty people to work for the Naval Intelligence Service, Rear Admiral John Godfrey (Samuel West) swoops in and rescues our poor tortured teenage girl Ian – and really, I have no fucking clue what he is supposed to do for him other than decorating his office (and coming up with cunning plans to deceive the Germans, but really, the show makes this out to be such a non-job that we cannot be bothered to care).
This is the face of a man who has had it up to here with your bullshit, Fleming.
Godfrey and Ian are wonderful to watch, trading insults and insolence like flowers and chocolates. Ian can get away with a lot of dumbass comments and actions probably because Godfrey is so in love with him or rather because Godfrey knows that Ian is all talk and bravado without any actual meat to him – he goes out of his way to keep Ian from seeing any actual field action which is good because Ian can’t fire a gun for shit and his only skill is to talk his way out of every situation. This they play up really well, getting Cooper to speak “fluent German” (or you know, what British people think passes as fluent German) and French when appropriate and when he is allowed to do actual spy work, Ian really proves his worth.
Apart from Godfrey, we have Second Officer Monday (Anna Chancellor and dear God Britain really has twelve actors), his assistant and burdened with the terrible task of babysitting Ian – poor woman, seriously. She is actually very fond of him though (fucked by the writers I think, Ian is insufferable more often than not) and I really really wish the show was just about Godfrey, Monday and Ian doing spy stuff in Lisbon as during the intro of the second episode.
"I am getting paid good money to be nice to you, Fleming. Lots and lots of good money. So much money that they call me Moneypenny."
Sadly, it’s not, and that’s mainly because the writers apparently found it necessary to include so much romance in this show that it rivals a Mexican soap opera.
Ian fancies himself to be a bit of a ladies’ man and he actually flirts with everyone who can’t hide quick enough (which includes a German officer in Lisbon – shhhh, it actually happened, shh...).
One of his girlfriends is Muriel Wright (Annabelle Wallis, and yes that’s Ninon, Britain you need more actors), who works as a dispatch rider for the War Office. They share some steamy scenes but it is obvious that Ian wants nothing more than a quick romp in the sheets while Muriel starts to fall in love with him – naturally it ends badly (you really should not stand in front of windows during an air raid. Really).
Gosh, they are so cute.
This prompts Ian to seek solace in the arms of Ann O’Neill (Lara Pulver, aka Irene Adler, oh for fucks sake this is getting ridiculous), a high society lady whose husband is doing soldier stuff somewhere and whose lover is called Esmond Rothermere. According to all the ladies on the show Esmond is “good looking” (all of these people are blind).
They start an affair which is supposed to make us feel ... something, I guess but this is where the show falls utterly flat and gets downright boring. Ian and Ann have exactly one thing in common which is their love for spanking and soft bdsm-stuff and this is shown exactly as cringeworthy as you would imagine from BBC America (they even censor the word “fuck” with weird jump-cuts). I don’t know if this is some sort of Game of Thrones effect but there are some god awful sex scenes and especially the spanking starts out like a rape-scene and it’s utterly ... confusing and left a bad taste in my mouth. I understand that the height of depravity are doggy-style sex scenes because they are easy to film without actually showing anything but none of them are sexy in the least – they feel terribly contrived, the consent issues are piling up left and right and I really wouldn’t be so hard on this, if Ian wasn’t the main character and the audience wasn’t kinda supposed to root for him (and if the scenes weren’t downright misogynist in their appearance but there is only so much blow-doll-face on a good actress that I can stand).
Don't get fooled, their kisses cause air raids, not making this up.
Jesus Christ on a stick, the guy is like Jekyll and Hyde bouncing from playful idiot with a boyish grin to almost-rapist and chauvinistic asshole. The whole romance plot that takes up a good half of the last two episodes is unbearably hard to watch because it’s boring and the scenes don’t really add anything to the characters or the plot itself. They talk about their feelings somehow, but it’s always the same “Do marry me” – “No, I won’t”- dialogue over and over again and there is nothing that makes you invested in Ian and Ann’s relationship at all. They are not particularly fond of each other and them being ‘weird’ in bed is the only thing they have in common and even that is mainly just hinted at. (How the hell did Ian even figure out that Ann was into spanking? Does he have some sort of spidey-sense? Sweet, merciful Jesus, that one is a train wreck from start to finish).
He is so pretty to look at though.
But if you ignore all of that (which is hard, admittedly) then you are left with nice spy stories, engaging characters and incredibly pretty people in period clothing with great cinematography that pay homage to the Bond-films – and a great fictionalized look on how Bond’s creator got some of his ideas.
from here
Bonus:
Wikipedia tells us:
Als verbindender Faktor der komplizierten Beziehung zu Anne gilt die gemeinsame Neigung zum Spanking.[3] Simon Winder, Autor und Herausgeber einer Neuauflage von Bond-Romanen nannte Fleming direkt und ohne Umschweife einen Sado-Masochisten. Die Neigung zeigt sich auch in den Romanen, die nahezu immer eine Folter-Szene mit Bond als Opfer beinhalten, was in den Filmen zumeist gekürzt wird.
This tells me my Casino Royale-OTP of Bond/Le Chiffre and my Skyfall-OTP of Bond/da Silva is canon. Yay! \o/