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MI6 caught up with author Laurent Bouzereau to
talk about the new official book "The Art of
James Bond"...
Click
here to read part 1. |
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Laurent Bouzereau Interview (2)
13th October 2006
How did you select the people to feature
in the book?
We select people, the team at Eon and Danjaq. Then I picked the
people behind the camera firstly, but only people who would see
it the film though the eyes of a filmmaker. So that is something
we stuck too, and were not going to involve all the actors and
actress because that has been done to death.
How did you decide what to include in the
book in regards to artwork?
The truth was a question of space in the book, a couple of things
I believe I delivered twice the amount of material that was required
from me. I think that the text became a lot more important as
we saw how rich it was. I remember Keith Snelgrove reading the
first draft and say this is all great stuff. I did not want to
be responsible for cut it and put the onus on them. I was so happy
that they decided not to cut it but to basically dial down the
text size, and limit the number of illustrations but I don’t
think there were any compromises made.
I was not involved with choosing any of the illustrations,
I was involved with early discussion, but the group at Eon handled
it. Also Lee and Dave did the captions, that had to happen in
parallel to the work I was doing because of the deadline.
There is a quote explaining how
hard it was to select the final Die Another Day poster why
were none of these concepts shown?
I’m sure there where discussions about lets add more
poster work or other illustrations, there already has been
the James Bond poster book so in the end lets it became
lets show the final product, and maintain the quote that
explains to get to that it take hundreds of trials.
You’ve written numerous books in and around the world
of film how does The Art of Bond compare to them in your
opinion?
This is the best experience I’ve had and I feel that
I came up with a concept based on somebody else idea. I
stuck to the concept and it worked first time, in my previous
works as an author things evolved a lot more and changed
making it a much more difficult journey in some cases not
to my satisfaction. I feel that because of my experience
as a documentary and the fact I had a very very clear idea
of how I was going to approach it I felt empowered. |
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Above: Book jacket artwork.
Order
Hardback (Amazon UK) |
How did you go about research and contacting
all those involved in the process?
I re-watch the entire series with a notebook, and anything that
came up, I thought how interesting, I recorded. Each of them is
a hand written notebook about what I think of the film and any
questions I wanted to ask. The notebooks became my bible which
I carried everywhere. Anytime I had to do an interview I would
review the notes.
I tried to watch the movies as if I’ve
never watched them before, and asking what would be the question
for this scene. If you watch the movies over a week you notice
so many of the connections. I know the movies really well and
some I watch more then others and I started to appreciate the
ones that I didn’t necessarily like as much. I realised
that that scenes were really, really, good and better than I remember.
I was able to view them as an audience member,
and I did go back and research using some of the books I really
admire that coverage the movies. I tried to stay away from doing
research and stay focused on just the movies apposed going off
on a tangent. For example when you meet Ken Adam it’s overwhelming,
he’s worked on so may other great projects other than Bond
and written his own books. So you want to come in with a fresh
view and I feel the discussions I had with him were.
Are you excited about the forthcoming Bond
film Casino Royale? Have you been involved with the Casino Royale
DVD?
I really excited about it, more so then I’ve been in a long
time because of personal reasons. I was involved with Steven Spielberg
‘Munich’ so I now Daniel Craig, but it’s not
like we’re where having beers together or anything! I got
to interview him, see him at work and I was on the set when I
knew he had auditioned for the movie, even though we didn’t
talk about it.
Above: Laurent Bouzereau |
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I think he is an amazing actor, seeing
him work on the set of Munich was a lesson in acting and
watching him work, I was like this guy is so amazing, he
was real professional on and off screen and I was really
impress by him.
I’m really excited about Casino Royale because I think
it will be a celebration of Bond, a celebration of acting,
a celebration of a lot of things that are consider to be
artistic and it totally matches what I was trying to do
with this book.
These movies are movies, there not marketing
movies they not trying to sell you the latest shaving cream…..
(laughter ) - even though it’s part of Bond. I really
feel that it’s a celebration of storytelling, a celebration
of action and a celebration of the genera. It’s not
the other way around, marketing products based on films.
When I was on the set in the Bahamas for a few days it was
so exciting, I felt there was this incredible energy from
everybody and a celebration of what is artistic about the
films. |
Have you been involved with the Casino Royale
DVD?
No I’ve not been involved with it.
Can you tell us what project you are currently
working on?
I will tell you what is coming out, in October I believe my DVD
on Warren Beatty’s ‘Reds’ is coming out and
that is an amazing experience and a DVD people will like. Aside
from being involved with the documentary on that, I was involved
with the Special Edition of Body Heat that is also out in October.
I’ve also done a Stephen King collection for ‘Pet
Semetery’ and ‘Dead Zone’ and I believe that
is also coming out in October. So October is going to be a big
month for me. I’m completing the ‘The Black Dahlia’
for Brian De Palma and ‘Deliverance’ for John Boorman.
And there are fifteen others that either I’m pitching, filming,
or working on that will be coming soon.
If given the chance to work on the James
Bond DVD back catalogue?
John Cork who did the DVD’s has done definitive work, I
so admire John’s work but the answer is of course I would
love to do them, if they have not been done.
How did you get started in the film/DVD
world?
A very long story, but basically I move to America when
I was about 18 20 worked in New York in all kinds of areas
of the film business for being a PA to working in the art
departments for commercials, production companies, marketing
working as a publicity for a small independent distributor.
While I was doing all this I was pursuing
a career as a journalist for French magazines and also writing
books. I got my first book published when I was around 25,
about Brian De Palma. I them moved to LA working on future
developments for Bette Midler’s companies for about
3 or 4 years. Around that time the Laser Disc business had
just started. The Criterion Collection contacted me to work
on ‘Carrie’ Laser Disc. I said, I really want
to do this so what was a side line/hobby my career the second
I was on with Steven Spielberg doing the 1941 Laser Disc,
I embrace that field fully and went on from Laser Disc to
DVD and hopeful on to the newer formats. That was my journey…
Right: Roger Moore and
Lois Chiles on the set of Drax's space station in Moonraker. |
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Moonraker
When I was in my mid-teens in Paris, Eon where shooting Moonraker
at the studios there. My father had nothing to do with the film
business, but through the manager of the studio via a lot of phone
call and a convoluted story I got to go onto the set for a few
days. But it had to be during the week, so I had to miss school
for a week. My parents let me call in sick for a week. I got to
be on the set of Moonraker, in the sound department (Daniel Brisseau).
They were shooting the scene where Michael Lonsdale
was in the space station saying Jaws expel them, during the whole
climax.
One story that I would have included in the book
but didn’t because it’s my memory is, the first day
I got to the studio I sneaked on to the stage and nobody was there
I saw Lewis Gilbert on his own look up at the set planning out
the shots.
Many thanks to Laurent Bouzereau.
Stay tuned to MI6 for further coverage of "The Art of James
Bond"
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