Martin Campbell tones back Bond with `only one explosion`

The director Martin Campbell tells James Mottram why there's a bit of Zorro in the new Bond - reports The Times.

Martin Campbell is beginning to carve out a reputation as a director who saves the day. Hot on the heels of his latest film, The Legend of Zorro — which has just taken $27 million worldwide on its opening weekend — Campbell is ready to switch swords and swashbuckling for Walther PPKs and wry quips in Casino Royale, which also features a new Bond in Daniel Craig. It’s his second crack at 007, and his second new Bond: in 1995 Campbell directed Pierce Brosnan on his debut in GoldenEye.
Campbell, who moved to London in 1966 to train as a cameraman before directing a string of television series from The Professionals to Minder and Bergerac, says that his experience on GoldenEye taught him to bend, not break, the rules. “At first, I thought I’d change it completely. I remember thinking, ‘It’s a tired old series and I have to re-vamp it.’ But then I realised this was madness. It’s been a huge hit for 30 years — and most of it they get right.” As a result, he addressed Bond’s “past-his-sell-by-date problem”, partly by introducing Judi Dench to play Bond’s hitherto male superior M, as well as making the traditionally weak female companions far feistier.

Ironically, Campbell and producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson — charged with putting what he calls “a new coat of paint on the series” — are heading back to the origins of the character. Casino Royale was Fleming’s first literary outing for 007, and this will be the second film of that title — it was previously mangled in a 1967 spoof starring Woody Allen, David Niven and Peter Sellers as three Bonds.

“It’s when Bond earns his double-oh stripes,” says Campbell of the story. “It’s his initiation. He makes mistakes and he thinks with his heart, not his head. It’s attractive to see him bleed a little bit, have some arrogance and rough edges knocked off him.”

The script, by the Oscar-nominated Paul Haggis, jettisons the first half of the novel, which was set during the Cold War, and beefs up secondary characters such as the tragic Bond girl Vesper Lynd. “Paul’s job is to make sure her relationship with Bond is an interesting one,” Campbell says. Such staples as Q and Miss Moneypenny are absent, and Campbell admits that there is only one explosion scheduled — and even that is “in the distance”. “How many more huge bangs and 747s going down in flames can you do?”

While Bond purists are no doubt gulping down several vodka Martinis to steady their nerves, Campbell can’t be faulted for attempting a complete overhaul after the middling-to-tepid reviews served out to The Legend of Zorro. This sequel to Campbell’s 1998 hit The Mask of Zorro made the fatal mistake of undermining the masked swordsman by challenging his very relevance. Set as California is about to become the 31st state of America, the film “asks whether Zorro is an anachronism”, according to Campbell, in an era when the rifle became mightier than the sword. This, of course, is a question that might just as easily be asked of a post-Cold War James Bond.

As for Legend, Campbell admits he was nervous of tackling the first sequel of his career. “The streets are littered with films that tried to cash in too quickly on previous successes,” he says, pointing out that three scripts were written and rejected before the existing one was settled on. While focusing on Zorro’s domestic problems — tearaway son, faltering marriage — may not have been the ideal solution, his loss might just be Bond ’s gain. For, if there’s one thing Campbell has learnt, it’s that you can deconstruct a myth too much.

Thanks to `lorna` for the alert.

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