jamesbondresearch.co.uk
The James Bond film series is undoubtedly the most successful film series in cinematic history, with films released, on average, every two years since 1962. The films have also been globally successful, particularly in the United States, Japan and Europe, and have reached an estimated audience of three billion people - half of the world's population. Although it is probably true that other highly successful film groupings, such as the Star Wars trilogy, have had an equally wide reach, there have been less of them and they have originally been released over a far shorter period of time.
There are now twenty-one Bond films, with the release of Casino Royale. James Bond is often referred to as a spy, yet this is not strictly accurate. James Bond is indeed a member of the British overseas branch of the intelligence services, MI6 , and holds the prefix 00, meaning that he has killed in cold blood twice in the line of duty. Bond, however, is not necessarily a spy. The vast majority of his missions are not based on the traditional intelligence gathering duties that spies, which the very nature of their title suggests, are employed in. As Kingsley Amis remarks, the novel title The Medium-Grade Civil Servant That Loved Me would have been more acceptable and accurate . More specifically, James Bond is a counter-spy, and in most cases is sent to prevent a plot coming to fruition, rather than gaining evidence to pre-empt that plot initially.
According to Fausto Antonini, 'James Bond is a
"cybernetic" hero…he reacts to stimuli selecting precisely
those that are useful from those that are harmful…' . If Antonini's psychoanalysis of the character of James Bond is to be
accepted in broad terms, then the above statement would suggest
that Bond, as a "cybernetic" being, is the product of
the stimuli around him, be those stimuli political, social, sexual
and so on. Essentially, the activities and reactions of James Bond
are the product of the period or circumstances that the
novelist or film producer put him in. One such example is that of the
1974 film, The Man with the Golden Gun, where the energy
crises, precipitated by the oil crisis of the mid-1970s, is the
central thematic focus of the film. In a discussion with M at the
beginning of the film, where Bond is to be reassigned to
another operation, Bond stresses the importance of solving the
energy crisis, possibly demonstrating his "cybernetic"
construction.
The stimuli that construct Bond and a Bond film can be altered to a certain degree. It is a well-known facet of the Bond films that there will be a set structure that is scruplilously followed. Within this structure, however, there have to be variables; the lead actor and actress, gadgets, locations and such like can change, but the plot essentials do not. The plot of a James Bond film is usually founded around a megalomaniac villain who is motivated by a desire for even more power, money or a philosophy that is clearly unhealthy. All of these plot related issues are in some way a threat to the world or, more specifically, the Western world.
It is the political ideals behind the plot
itself and the relation between the new plot and the real contemporary
circumstances of the time that provide the fluid elements of a Bond film. It
is certainly true that the operation of the formula has changed over the
decades, as it has become updated in order to reflect changing social and
political attitudes. The question of how and where such variable factors can
originate from is quickly raised when dealing with such a seemingly rigid
formula. There are two inextricably linked strands in the construction of
the variable elements of the background and plot of a James Bond film.
Firstly, as Aljean Harmetz argues, in his article in The New York Times, the James Bond films are a product of the newspaper headlines of their time;
'he [Cubby Broccoli] stands behind his desk skimming the headlines and photographs on every page of six English newspapers day after day. He believes in keeping the material contemporary' . This is a view that is confirmed in Broccoli's autobiography when referring to You Only Live Twice, 'Now and again the Bond scriptwriters are accused of being too outlandish in their ideas. In fact our storylines, intentionally or by coincidence, frequently reflect today's, or even tomorrow's headlines'.
Secondly, there are certain political
assumptions within the James Bond films that have originated from two main focal
points. It is not necessarily the case that the James Bond films are political
vehicles of some kind, with the express goal of hammering home a set of clearly
defined political ideals, but the films do contain political leanings. The James
Bond films have made many political assumptions over the last 42 years. It would
take far too long to go into all of the details in this website - and I'm not
giving all of my ideas away here either! Taking just three examples of the
political content of the films, to illustrate the point, it can be seen that
there certainly are certain political viewpoints expressed.
Dr No sees the head villain, of the same name, wanting to topple American rockets on behalf of the now very famous SPECTRE crime syndicate. Bond immediately assumes that Dr No has an immense disregard for life and must therefore be working for "the East". This, however, does not constitute the most striking facet of this film - the similarities between the plot of this film and the fears held in America regarding Cuba and Soviet intentions there are glaring. It was a fairly common fear in the United States, at this time, that Cuba was a source for Communist interference in the US rocket programme. The use of an "expendable" Caribbean island by Dr. No and his visible links with Communist regimes through his henchmen being Chinese would have all tied in with the red-threat ideas in the West at this time. The anti-Communist sentiments of the film began a pattern of such behaviour, though this is not wholly out of context for the period. The McCarthy witch-hunts of the 1950s and the commissions looking into "Un-American" behaviour were all very much a reality, and were designed to flush out the subversive Communist threat.
Octopussy is perhaps the best example of the political assumptions of the James Bond films.
Most of the people that look at this site will probably have an
interest in Bond already, so I wont go into the details of the
plot, save to say that a Soviet general, Orlov, intends to
detonate a nuclear weapon in West Germany in order to trigger
massive support for the peace and disarmament movement, a
fairly substantial group at this time, and the withdrawal of
Western nuclear weapons from Germany. The plan is to leave the
boarders undefended for overwhelming Soviet conventional
forces to walk across them.
The implication of the film's plot is that nuclear weapons are vital for Western territorial defence against the Soviet threat. Although Orlov is often cited as a renegade general, he fits with Thatcher and Regan's ideas of the Soviet threat; as though Orlov is merely doing what everyone was thinking. It is also true that the plot, and ideas, presented in this film were in direct opposition to the defence policy of the British Labour Party at the 1983 General Election - Labour forwarded a policy of unilateral disarmament, yet the Bond film of that year clearly opposed it. The film was released the day before the General Election.
The Bond films also use gender to make
certain points. Bond is essentially the ultimate male -
irresistible to women, suave, sophisticated and any other cliché you
might want to employ. The majority of the villains and
henchmen have been sexually deviant in some respect, helping to
define them as different and evil. Some of the villains abstain
from sex and show no interest at all, such as Dr No, Blofeld
in several films and Stromberg, a direct violation of the
standards set by Bond. Other villains, such as Largo,
Scaramanga, Zorin and Carver, mistreat women making it easy for their
partners, no matter how evil they may have acted in the
case of Mayday and Zorin, to defect to Bond and betray
their former lovers. The third and possibly most interesting
deviancy is that of homosexuality and kinky behaviour.
Xenia Onnatopp's methods of killing people during sex
and getting turned on by murder helps her evil nature be
defined, whereas the homosexuality of Wint and Kidd and
Blofeld, as played by Charles Gray, help define them as being
a social aberration.
The
female characters themselves have been traditionally weak but have got
steadily stronger from 1977 onwards. Twenty years after Barbara Bach played Anya Amasova, in the Spy Who Loved Me, Michelle Yeoh
played arguably the strongest Bond girl to date in Tomorrow
Never Dies. The combination of a strong leading lady
and the robust and hard M, played by Judi Dench, has brought
Bond to the point where he is seen less and less as a social
outlaw.
The latest films, however, has been made in a world where
political correctness is politically incorrect. Although, in The World
is Not Enough, Christmas Jones is meant to be a nuclear
physicist, many will remember her for the prolonged wet T-shirt scene
at the end of the film and not for her unconvincing portrayal
of an attractive scientist. The World is Not Enough
displays and array of unprofessional women - M nearly gets
herself killed and is taken hostage through her own
questionable actions, and Dr Molly Warmflesh, whose name suggests
that she is unlikely to be a Mastermind contestant, is
thoroughly unprofessional as a doctor to Bond. It is debatable whether
or not the films have advanced to the point of equality as
far as gender is concerned, but the progress towards
change is clearly evident. In Die Another Day, we see an exceptionally
competent Jinx, who is very much in the mould of Wai Lin.
