Bond

[poliphilo]

Have they chosen a new Bond yet? Do I care? Only insofar as it would grieve me if an actor as good as Jude Law or Clive Owen got hitched to that infantile and career-killing franchise.

Only one actor ever came back alive from playing Bond. And that's Connery. And the return to the land of the living took him about three decades.

Moore lingers on in a strange twilight world.

Lazenby has returned to the obscurity from which he came.

Dalton has disappeared off the face of the earth.

I never liked Bond- not even as an inky schoolboy. I hated his smug brutality.

There'a scene in The Man With the Golden Gun that gives the game away. Bond is in conference with the professional hit-man Scaramanga (the ever wonderful Christopher Lee.) It goes something like this.

Scaramanga: We are much alike, Mr Bond.

Bond: What do you mean?

Scaramanga: We both kill for money.

Bond (losing his cool- a sure sign that a raw nerve has been touched): Bullshit. I only kill on the orders of my government.

OK. Freeze it there. We're supposed to be impressed by Bond's superior morality. But Bond is a government assassin. And The British Government is the fount of all goodness and wisdom? Yeah, right. Not even in the 70s did we believe that. A goon who kills on government orders is doubly a goon because he has surrendered his mind to the machine. Earlier versions of the lone wolf hero- Sherlock Holmes, Richard Hannay, Philip Marlowe- remained free agents. They picked their own adventures. They could look authority in the eye and- when conscience dictated- defy it. Bond has forfeited that right. He is an unreflecting automaton, bought and sold, and Scaramanga is far and away the better man.

It's weird how the Bond franchise keeps rolling and rolling. It's a triumph of branding over experience. We look at the logo not the product.

The Connery Bonds are the gold standard. Actually they're not all that good. The early 60s was a bad time for commercial film-making and, set beside a prime 40s noir, things like Dr No or Goldfinger look limp and flabby.

And then things went down hill.

Bond is to action adventure what the Carry-on series is to comedy.

Hey, Jude, Clive, you're doing fine, both of you. You've got burgeoning careers; you've got credibility. Don't throw it all away.

Comments

[besideserato.livejournal.com]

I was having a very similar conversation with my sister about Sidney Bristow, the main character of the series Alias recently.

It's like we are connected at the collective unconscious these days, poliphilo! I agree with you whole-heartedly. Although I have to admit I am a total and complete sucker for Pierce Brosnan.

Especially after the new Thomas Crown Affair came out. A sexy man in a suit! Art! Seduction and intrigue! More art! All while playing Nina Simone's Sinnerman--oh, baby, I'm sold!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I liked him in The Tailor of Panama- where he sent up/deconstructed his James Bond persona.

[besideserato.livejournal.com]

Haven't seen that! I must look into it!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's a film with two excellent performances- from Brosnan and Geoffrey Rush- but the story's weak and predictable.

See it by all means, but don't expect too much...

[besideserato.livejournal.com]

Oh, I never will again. Film school does horrible, horrible thing to a woman!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Oh dear, how sad....

I still go to the cinema expecting great things. I'm often disappointed, but I always pick myself up, dust myself down and repeat the mantra, "the next film I see is going to be a masterpiece."

I watched Bunuel's L'Age D'Or this afternoon. It says "masterpiece" on the box and, by God, the box is right.

[besideserato.livejournal.com]

Seriously?

OK, that's it. I hereby declare you Sir Movie Guru. Your word on films is the last. I shall seek your advice in all things film.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I am not worthy....

But, no, I do love the movies- anytime you want to chat about them I'm game.

[besideserato.livejournal.com]

You are so modest! That makes you all the more worthy! I shall seek your opinion about movies whenever I set about to watch one.

Last night I watched The Stepford Wives. I thought it was incredibly slow though the book might have been somewhat interesting. I have not yet seen the 1975 version of this film--have you?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I saw it so long ago that my opinion is worth nothing.

But I have a soft sport for its director, Bryan Forbes, an unsung Brit who, in his early days, made a number of low-key classics.

We bought a DVD that teamed Darling, starring Julie Christie, with Forbes' all but forgotten L Shaped Room. Darling (which is the one we wanted to see) is glossy, misogynistic rubbish, but the L Shaped Room is bloody marvellous- a humane and emotionally subtle story of people living in bed-sits in 1960s London just before it started to swing.

Equally good, perhaps even better, is his debut feature, Whistle Down the Wind- the story of how a group of kids in rural Yorkshire mistake a murderer on the run for Jesus.

[besideserato.livejournal.com]

I will have to look into it. Now that I have more time at my disposal (read: now that the horrors of film school are done with and I can watch what I want) I shall be more able to focus on what I would like to see.

I shall have to see whether the local video stores offer these jewels. If not, I will be putting them up for Santa to fetch me some presents! Last letter to the North Pole gets out this Wednesday, I am told! [Giggles] Haven't done this in over a decade!

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Like you, I hope Jude Law stays away from the Bond series. Have you heard something?

He is in a position right now to take on major dramatic roles. He seems to be the major romantic lead at the moment.

For very good reasons, I might add.

He and Viggo are just breathtaking (except I find Viggo even more gorgeous with stringy, unsavory Ranger hair! Odd.)--

I've seen many Bond movies, but I'd never thought it through before that Bond was an "unreflecting automaton, bought and sold"--thanks for exploring that so well.

(I was in college during Goldfinger. Robbie Hopkins and I walked from the campus to the downtown theater through heavy January snow. Robbie played the guitar and referred to his girlfriend--not me--as his "wench." At that time, I thought it must be wonderful to be someone's "wench." Sheesh.)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Jude Law sees to be in every other film these days. Did you see him in Road To Perdition? It showed he can do creepy and unglamorous too.

A number of actors have been named in connection with Bond- Law among them. I've no idea whether he's been offered the role or if its all just media speculation.

I don't think I've ever called anyone a "wench. I hope not.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I didn't know what "wench" meant--I doubt Robbie did, either.

His girlfriend, who sat in his lap at the Episcopal college house while he played guitar, went on to become a marketing executive.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

And what became of Robbie?

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I saw Robbie about 10 years ago. He said he still played the guitar, was writing some music, was recently divorced, and had a grown son or daughter.

I told him I was playing soprano recorder in a little recorder group. He said, "Way Cool!"

Robbie would say startling things--once he pretended to cut his palm with a knife. He said, "See? If you don't use the point, you can't cut yourself! It's a secret!"

He also told me that he felt that he was like an Indian, because the way he liked to hunt was to sneak up on deer and slap them. "It's like you got them, but you didn't have to kill them," he said.

He was, now that I think about it, a lot of fun.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen Road to Perdition. I thought it looked depressing! Did you like it?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It was lovely to look at- styled after Edward Hopper- all acid greens and yellows.

Paul Newman was wonderful (what a beautiful old man he is) but the characterization was simplistic and the story was the usual macho Hollywood crap about sons and fathers.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Oh, good--I like acid greens and yellows, and sylized movies.

I'll just watch the scenery and not care about the plot.

Plus, I didn't know Jude Law was in the movie.

This afternoon I'm going to go see Oceans Twelve. Who knows? It might be good.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's a sequel to Ocean's Eleven?

Yeah, Law plays a newspaper photographer who goes round taking pictures at murder scenes- and if there's a shortage of murder scenes he supplies them himself. It's a character part and Law transforms himself into a creepy little black beetle of a man.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Yes, this is a sequel to Oceans Eleven, which I didn't see.

Julia Roberts, George Clooney--but the plot looks stupid.

It's either that or Christmas with the Kranks, which looks even worse, and I am in the mood for a movie.

Or the Polar Express, which looks like the animation for a computer game.

It's spitting snow here, and suddenly cold. I think I'll see what's on the old movie channel.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I saw Ocean's Eleven. It was instantly forgettable.

Snow sounds good. I'd love it to snow here.

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

I was in college during Goldfinger.

Ooh, flashback!

When I came back from Japan, I sat through 3 or 4 James Bond movies as part of my reacculturation.

[kaysho.livejournal.com]

The earlier Bond films do have a certain atmosphere to them ... and I loved the over-the-top silliness of Moonraker, although surely not for the reasons the filmmakers intended. But the world could be a better place if all the negatives of the films from the nineties and naughties were lost.

The best Bond film I've seen lately has been The Incredibles. :)

But give me the soundtracks!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Moonraker was the only Bond movie I ever saw in the cinema- and that was because there were children lying around the house who needed pacifying.

My favourite secret agents were John Steed (that bowler, that brolly) and Ilya Kuryakin (that black, polo-neck sweater!)