Connecting The Villains Of 'Quantum of Solace'

WARNING: Plot spoilers

Stax at IGN and Rotten Tomatoes recently visited the Quantum of Solace set in Austria for a closer look at the villains in this 22nd James Bond film.

‘The way we finished up in Casino Royale was with a man who’d lost something that was taken away from him. The woman that he loved killed herself because he thought she was guilty because she was double-crossing him. And he never had the chance to go: “Why?”,’ said Daniel Craig during during a roundtable interview. ‘That’s where we start the story and he’s looking for that quantum of solace. He’s looking for that little bit, but he can’t be open about it because it’s a sign of weakness. It gets very complicated but then [the title] also ties in to who the bad guys are.’

Explaining what sets the villains of Quantum of Solace–including Dominic Green (Mathieu Amalic), Elvis (Anatole Taubman), Mr. White (Jesper Christensen) and General Medrano (Joaquín Cosio)–apart from others in the Bond series, director Marc Forster said: ‘I just find it interesting that everyone today–and that’s why I wanted to have Greene in there when Paul [Haggis] and I were working on the script together–everybody presents themselves today as green is so fashionable. Everyone’s trying to be green, every corporation … so I think it’s something one has to look at very carefully.’

‘To be a James Bond, 007, you have to have killed two persons. So you are an assassin and you are also a secret agent but you’re also a broken heart. They wrote the script with that concept.’ – Mathieu Amalric on the character of 007

In one of the scenes observed at the Seebühne floating stage on Lake Constance in Bregenz, 007 is tracking down Mr. White early on in the film. Bond observes his target making contact with other villains in the audience as the Tosca performance continues.

Quantum Of Solace Bregenz Set Visit

Summing up the scene, Forster said: ‘Bond is trying to figure out who these people are and what is the relationship between them, because he’s realizing just how many there are. He’s trying to figure out how they are connected because the interesting thing is we have several bad guys in this movie. Dominic Greene is the lead one but there are a couple of other ones and he’s trying to connect them all.’

‘Tosca has a parallel to the story I’m telling,’ Forster added as a reason for choosing the location for Quantum of Solace.

‘Last time Bond spent the whole of Casino Royale learning the lesson that you don’t kill people before you ask them the important questions. He learned that; he shot me in the knee,’ said Christensen of his character ‘Mr. White’ in the film. ‘So we start the next one with him asking me the questions. And then he screws up and stuff happens.’

‘We’ve got a single character who’s trying to make some sense of the world and fighting against perceived evil. But he’s also very independent and therefore he should always remain non-political.’ – Daniel Craig

On comparing the intricate mix of reality and fantasy that make up the film, Amalric said: ‘If it was realistic the evil would win because that’s what would happen today. That’s why I think it’s called Quantum of Solace. It’s quite ironic. It’s as if Bond was saying, “Please, can I stop running? Maybe if the evil wins I can have some peace and go home and just sleep.” And I like that because everybody knows there’s going to be a 23rd film. The poor guy will just keep running and searching for the next villain and the next evil.’

There’s much more. Check out the following two set reports for further information on the involvement of Mr. White and all the villains in the film, the low-key approach taken with the Bond baddies, Craig on 007, Forster on locations and classic Bond, and several other Quantum-related details.

Quantum of Evil
(IGN)

For Your Eyes Only: RT in Austria with James Bond
(Rotten Tomatoes)

Additionally, 13 new behind-the-scenes photos of Craig, Olga Kurylenko, Amalric, Christensen, and others have been added online: Click Here

CommanderBond.net will keep you updated with all the latest news and complete coverage of Quantum of Solace.