The Bond Legacy

For those wiling to ignore his alcohol-fueled misogyny, one of the longest standing criticisms leveled at James Bond is that he is not a very good secret agent.

Going back for another, huh Jimmie? Not like you're on the clock or anything.

It's certainly evidenced by own often he's captured by the enemy (from whom he then escapes due to their desire to out-do his own incompetence). It's also shown by how many of his comrades just seem to up and die. Or how many times he's been "killed" himself.

Like a lot of things with Bond, I was willing to ignore this for a long time. Nitpicking at plot points and worrying about realism in a James Bond movie is like complaining about how this Nutcracker Suite has simply too many arabesques. It's missing the point and, worse yet, it's the height of tedium. It's a movie. Better yet: It's a Bond movie. Some silly things are going to happen

That all changed when I started reading the books. After finishing Live and Let Die, I realize that it isn't a contrivance of the screenplay or an oversight of the director, it's is as much in James' blood as vodka.

Yeah, here's a guy with his priorities in line.

In Casino Royale, he doesn't kick down the door or save the day. He crashes his car (not due to his alcholism, mind you). He's then tortured, nearly castrated, and then by a Soviet secret agent, who basically lets James Bond live so he can appear in more books. James Bond is saved by his enemy. . . Who he then swears revenge on, because, again, he's probably blacked out and doesn't really remember exactly what went down.

In Live and Let Die this tradition is continued. Bond is, once again, captured by the enemy. They spare him the ball torture this time around in favor or keelhauling him until he's eaten by sharks. This time around there is one further evolution in Bond's dubious heroics, in that he actually does plant a mine on the villain's boat.

Aw, the rummy is all tuckered out!

But then he's saved by a shark. A SHARK.

The world's foremost secret agent and world-renowned pussy hound is saved by the chance happening of a shark arrival (which is described as an excited dog. I don't know. It was the 50's).

Bond doesn't so much uncover plots as he stumbles into them. Knocking them over like so many glasses of wine that he didn't see there. To quote Fleming (and, later on, M), he's a "blunt instrument." All of the bowties and Brioni suits are only there to disguise the fact that he's a wrecking ball. A drunken wrecking ball. There are census takers that are better spies than James Bond. It's probably why Hannibal Lector hates them so much.

James Bond is, was, and always will be a kind of crappy secret agent. I wouldn't have it any other way. . . I mean, barring the return of 1950's racism.

James Kislingbury writes comics and podcasts. You can follow him on twitter.

The Casino Royale Prequel and Other Bondian Revelations

WHERE'S MY GRITTY AUSTIN POWERS RE-BOOT?

For all of the talk about reboots and reinventions and everything else that James Bond has gone through over the past ten years or so, I think it's

Casino Royale isn't an aberration of the franchise, it's a reintroduction of a tone and style that has been there for almost forty years. And that movie is, of course, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, that's right, the one with George Lazenby.

Let me get the obvious similarities out of the way--

First of all, James Bond whips the shit out of everybody he meets in this movie. Just socking guys in the teeth from beginning to end and often with no real reason. People are just there for him to work his judo out on. Sure he looks scared as hell when he's going it, but he's not the one with an Italian loafer broken off in their ass.

Secondly, there are no gadgets from Q. There isn’t even a mission from M for that matter, now that I think about it. The more important fact is that James Bond is left to his wit and his acumen with brute force to save the day. There’s no exploding car keys or watch lasers, just lots of fisticuffs. . . and maybe one electronic safe cracker, but that’s just the one thing, I mean, come on now!

Thirdly, this movie revolves around James Bond being vulnerable. He’s scared and, what is even more crucial, is he is capable of loss. Unlike a Connery or a Brosnan, this Bond’s arc revolves around losing and gaining something, which is the same arc that Bond follows in Casino Royale.

This isn’t so much of a secret long uncovered as proof that the James Bond we’re living with now is almost as old as the one we started with.

INTERNATIONAL ASSHOLE OF MYSTERY

Another point that I’ve come to agree with and, this is only after re-watching the Connery films and watching the Dalton movies for the first time, is that James Bond is something of a dick. I’m willing to come to terms with this.

What kind of an asshole goes to foreign countries with the express purposes of creating paperwork for the local police? Do you pay taxes there? Do you know these people? Why are you drunk driving? Why is there a flaming Alfa-Romero in St. Peter’s Basilica?

Then there’s the fact that he just plows through women in this movie like nothing else. The whole movie kind of hinges on the fact that he’s courting this Countess, meanwhile he just bangs a bunch of chicks at Bloefeld’s mountain compound. Like, consecutively. At first it’s kind of funny then you just realize that behind all the pirate shirts and kilts that he might just be a skeezball.

He also hits Diana Rigg in the face at least twice.

But to quote this song, he's suave, it's okay.

SWEET RACK, BRO

With other Bond movies I always felt that the sexist attitudes, if they were sexist, were always in fun or they were knowingly ridiculous or they fell into the generic trappings of the spy movie and were therefore mostly exempt from criticism in the same way that complaining about the physics in a science fiction movie are slightly beside the point. It doesn’t mean all is forgiven or that you can’t say something meaningful, but people should be aware that when you harp on about how James Bond is a sexist, misogynist dinosaur and you aren’t Judi Dench you are likely a tedious person.

It’s just it’s a spy movie from the 1960’s, not a treatise on suffrage by Susan Sontag.

And with all of that said: OHMSS has one of the best examples I have ever seen in the Male Gaze. It’s kind of incredible on an academic level and it’s even more incredible that, at one point, a series of people making a film thought that this was a totally cool thing to do. It’s flabbergasting just how perfect it is.

I don’t truck much with the Male Gaze and, if it does exist I don’t have a huge problem with it. Men like looking at a nice ass. A nice ass is a nice thing to look at. Women will tell you the same thing. We can debate about possession and objectification and the dominant patriarchy, but the reality is nobody wants to watch a movie about Eleanor Roosevelt’s ass for two hours no matter how well it’s told. Sometimes people want to see Marilyn Monroe. In fact, science has proven that people always want to see Marilyn Monroe. To me, as interesting and as relevant as the Male Gaze can be as an argument, it strikes me as sour grapes about 90% of the time. Incredibly boring sour grapes. I mean, shit, we have to use that college degree for something, don’t we? (Unlike me.) 

All that said, this movie pretty much has the perfect example of what the Male Gaze is. There is a scene where James Bond is gambling (one more tally on the James Bond is a Dick scoreboard) and a woman walks into frame. Or part of her does. Her head is blocked by a lamp and the only thing we can see is a very fine dress displaying the fact that Emma Peel has a far nicer rack than you might have previously imagined.

Seriously. It’s a nice, nice rack.

I SPY SOME NIPPLES

This Bond movie has not one, not two, but three nipples in it. That’s higher than most Bond movies.

At one point James Bond not only reads a Playboy, but he also performs the ultimate middle schooler move by tearing out the center fold.

It’s kind of hilarious.

Also, as a testament to how things have moved on, can you imagine Daniel Craig picking up a Playboy in a contemporary Bond movie?

BACK TO THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF THE BEGINNING BUT NOT BATMAN

Swinging back to my vague premise: I believe that OHMSS is a hard precedent to Casino Royale. Not to say that it’s the gritty, post-Bourne work that Royale is, but they share more DNA than any other movies in the series do. It proves that Bond was never truly re-booted, because he's still the same basic guy that he was in 1969.

More importantly, OHMSS is a pretty darn good movie. It wouldn't be worth talking about if it wasn't.

In that way it’s the missing link between James Bond talking about listening to the Beatles on headphones and James Bond cussing at waiters for dillydallying about his order. Most thankfully this story is free of the self-parodic elements and arch-silliness of the Roger Moore films (which, again thankfully, disappear with Timothy Dalton’s movies). It’s still a Bond movie, though, and it still comes with the basic trappings of the series for better or for worse, yet it manages to be emotional in a way that doesn’t take away from the fun of the ski chases and bikini babes.

What else could you want out of a Bond movie?

Damn your Heiney!

Apparently James Bond is going to be drinking beer in the new movie. Apparently, like everything, this is an outrage, which is strange. It used to be that a woman had to get raped and murdered for an outrage to occur and that came to be because the words "raped and murdered" were too vulgar for polite consumption (the same goes for "white slavery" because no white person wants their poor women to be equated with the half-breeds and such that "prostitute" themselves. I mean, perish the thought).

It's absurd. James Bond has been a tool of corporate consumption since he was first incepted. That's almost the entire point of the guy. He's a violent, glamorous ad exec that saves the world. He's Don Draper with an accent and he always has been. To make a poo-poo out of what he drinks is ridiculous.

Even if this was an issue-- and it is because Heineken is a crap beer and what kind of an upper class gent would drink that swill?-- I don't really care because Skyfall is looking to be a good movie. It's got a solid director and more quality actors than you can shake a stick at.

What's more is I believe it is going to be good because of the video below. Look at that gal. She isn't blinking. That's significant. That means somebody put the care and effort into this movie's action. I just watched an action movie (the name of which I cannot remember, sorry) and whenever the characters fired they started blinking. You almost have to when you fire a gun, that's a natural response. Take note of that. The next time you watch a movie go ahead and see whether the actors blink when they fire a gun or not. You'd be surprised how often it happens.

It's maddening.

It takes effort and attention to detail to get over the fact that you're holding an explosion and it is pretty near your face. It takes training. It looks like maybe they took the time and the effort (and the money) to breed that out of this woman.

Watch this--

This is going to be a good one. . . unlike that piece of shit Quantum of Solace. What the fuck was that thing?

A Wee Bit of Film Theory

In CASINO ROYALE, James Bond is the Bond girl. Look at the way they even show him emerging from the ocean like Ursula Andress. Sexual torture, too, if less creepy-glam than being stripped and painted gold. Vesper Lynd is Bond: never not in control, never without a plan, seducing to further her goals. She has to die so Bond can become her.

--Warren Ellis.

You Only Live Twice

You're Trying Too Hard Again, James

 

I feel like if there's anybody who never had to do a handstand to impress a girl, it'd have been him.