Four years after it was released, Quantum of Solace can still stir up debate among 007 fans. One topic is whether the 22nd James Bond film had a political point of view. Director Marc Forster, in a November 2008 interivew with New York magazine, said it did.
Marc Forster while directing Quantum of Solace
Some excerpts:
“It’s like I worked under this political regime with extreme censorship,” Forster plainly admits, describing his arrangement with Bond’s producers, the infamously controlling Broccoli family. “I had to subversively inject my ideas to make the movie my own.”
(snip)
“I question the role that these Secret Service agencies play today—is their role really to protect the country? Or the interest of a few?”
(snip)
Most radical, Forster argues that “Bond isn’t a clear good guy—the villain and Bond overlap.” In fact, the director—never a Bond fanatic—is surprised that 007 has survived this long, “especially as a colonialist or imperialistic character. That’s why you have to put a dent in him, because those powers can’t survive. It’s the end of the American world power in the next few decades.”
Maybe the article was read by a lot of 007 fans at the time (we admit to missing it), but it doesn’t seem to be cited that often in all the message board debates. Anyway, to read the entire article, JUST CLICK HERE.
Filed under: James Bond Films | Tagged: Daniel Craig, James Bond, Marc Forster, New York magazine, Quantum of Solace, Quantum of Solace's political point of view |
The Spy Command 
The villain in QoS is an environmentalist. This alone makes it one of my favorite Bond films.
Here’s what Forster had to say about the environmentalist theme in the New York magazine article:
“Chevron is green now, Shell is green,” he says. “These big oil conglomerates all say, Green sells—let’s make money out of it.”
Dominic Green is walking greenwash – a fake environmentalist out to make profit off selling a natural resource (water) that should be free. He represents all the multinational corporations who are trying to do this in real life, who are attempting to privatize resources that should belong to everyone. Quantum’s theme could be ripped from a Naomi Klein book. This aspect is what makes the film far more interesting than many other Bonds.
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