Ahh Venice

Engaged in New York, honeymooned in Venice – I’m a very fortunate woman. What makes it even better is searching for film locations in those amazing places with my like-minded partner who enjoys the hunt as much as me. Someone who is happy to make a detour to find random buildings that feature in a few seconds of celluloid.

Seeing the shocking images of Venice under water recently made me even more grateful that we got to see the city in its prime. It was only in October that we spent a full week there, staying in a hotel just a few minutes away from St Mark’s Square. It was my second visit, I’d stayed in a rather cheap and cheerful backpackers in 2005 which interestingly enough was the same year they filmed the James Bond film Casino Royale.

Now I had known the city was used in an Indiana Jones film (Last Crusade – I’ve written about it previously), and hundreds more film and TV shows – check out the ever useful IMDB for a full list. But what I hadn’t realised how much the city had been used in the Bond films. Casino Royal is the most recent and quickest to come to mind but I learnt the city was also used in Moonraker and From Russia with Love. Also that the exact same building was used for different locations in both Moonraker and Casino Royal – a music school – the gloriously named ‘Conservatorio di Musica Benedetto Marcello’

Fortunately for us we were in Venice in an odd numbered year – which meant the famous Venetian Arts festival the Biennale was on – art exhibitions were everywhere, random buildings down random side streets! The Bond location music school was open for an art installation called ‘The Spark is You’. https://parasol-unit.org/whats-on/the-spark-is-you-parasol-unit-in-venice/ The courtyard was a little obscured by two large art installations but still recognisable. It was very quiet, off the tourist trail and with only a handful of people about to look at the art. But there was some gentle background music of a piano practice session which added to the slightly surreal experience. We had far too much fun trying to recreate some shots as we watched scenes on our phones via YouTube.

Something I really like about location hunting is that you can end up having the most amazing experience visiting something you might not have otherwise explored. The Clock Tower in St Mark’s Square is a great example. The clock was under restoration when I first visited so had never really learned much about it. Given there’s so much else to visit in Venice it wasn’t even on my ‘to do’ list. But my husband being the major Bond fan in our relationship was interested in it as there’s a memorable scene of Roger Moore fighting a ‘ninja’ in the tower, and throwing him out of the glass clock face into the unsuspecting crowd below. I’d seen mention of only being able to visit through organised tours so I checked the website out whilst we were in Venice and was able to book two places on the English language tour during our stay. Limited to only 12 people it’s a fascinating tour and highly recommended with a great view from the top. It’s quite obvious a lot of creative licence was used in the Moonraker, there’s not enough room to swing the proverbial cat – let alone fight and the clock face is neither glass, or visible from behind.

 

The impressive finale of Casino Royale is a fight inside, and subsequent collapse of a palace on the Grand Canal. Done by a combination of model shots and CGI it’s quite a dramatic scene. It’s also the first, non-location-location I can remember trying to find. The palace doesn’t exist in the real world – there is an existing building in the spot that is completely replaced. We looked up the location on Google maps, and realised it was not far after the Rialto Bridge so we hopped on a vaporetto and looked for the distinct terracotta coloured building that was next to the replaced palace. We were able to get off at a stop across the way and take some pictures. There’s a very broad canal side pavement that’s behind a locked gate but would have been a perfect site for the film camera team. There is a fantastic resource online about Bond location which goes into much more detail than I do – check out this blog https://jamesbondlocations.blogspot.com/2017/03/fall-of-house-in-venice-casino-royale.html

There are few other recognisable spots, particularly around St Mark’s Square – the shop that’s the front for Moonraker lab is still there, and of course the square was the location of the totally ridiculous ‘Bondola’ scene. The sight of Roger Moore driving a gondola out of the water and across the main tourist location of Venice is wonderfully silly. Again check out this blog for a more detailed insight into Moonraker locations. It’s also possible to try and recreate some of the scenes were James Bond is trying to find Vespa when she heads to the bank to withdraw the winnings in Casino Royale. We found the ‘bank’ which is actually a posh handbag and accessory shop. Watching the ‘making of’ the film was interesting as they explain the difficulty of trying to film in an area so full of people. They couldn’t exactly expect people to stop their holiday, but Daniel Craig was bemused that they’d waste some of it watching the crew set up and film.

 

We certainly didn’t waste any of our holiday, seven days seemed a lot but there were still things we didn’t get to do. Hopefully the city will survive the latest flooding, and the locals and their businesses get back up and running. It is a place that is truly unique and i’m thankful that I’ve been able to experience it in its prime.

Of course we visited the Indiana Jones location again just because.

 

Bonus location – some of the 2019 ‘Spider-Man: Far from Home’ was filmed in Venice https://www.movie-locations.com/movies/s/Spider-Man-Far-From-Home.php We found the square – Campo Santa Maria Formosa and the church tower that features in a dramatic scenes were ‘bubble head’ fights the water monster and destroys half of Venice in the process.