When I was a child, still not interested in the female shapes that now are the clear draw, I asked my dad what the meaning of the James Bond credits sequences was.
“That’s the dream life of Bond, of James Bond,” he said laughing, and went to scribble it down.
“Oh, of course,” I thought but did not say. Young children do not say such things yet.
I’ve always loved the Bond movies. I love the Bond movies so much, I’ve never even attempted to read the Bond books. I’m sure they are superior works, and yet I love my Bond movies too much to sacrifice them to superior works. I love all of them, mostly, or I guess I like all of them, love a good number, and am ambivalent about relatively few (A View To A Kill and the recent Quantum Of Solace have a rough time trying to sneak past my defenses, but I’ll always give them another shot.) There are no movies, in the whole of the series, that I don’t enjoy on some level, and that’s a pretty mighty feat for popcorn.
The reason, I think, is because of The Broccoli Bond’s character: a generally witty (when he’s Roger Moore), fierce (Connery and the new guy) secret agent who is absolutely sex-mad, nearly more interested in Eros than his work (Connery and Moore, not the new guy yet, but definitely Brosnan.) And his work comes with the caveat that he can kill anybody he wants, and he does so in absolute cold-blood, sometimes out of pure hatred. This is one enjoyable fictional fantasy role model, folks.
My friends and I have a nicely ridiculous theory that the Bond movies, as clearly formulaic and disconnected as they are, should represent a strict chronological timeline – and, beyond this, that each new Bond actor should represent a “change of season” in Bond’s life. But not necessarily in the order by which they appeared. For instance, it makes us laugh to consider that Daniel Craig is meant to be fetal Bond, but that the adventure of George Lazenby (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the best of the Bonds along with Casino Royale) follows the two Craig films, and I can’t recall quite how the rest of the evolution goes, but we all agree that Roger Moore represents the most evolved Bond, the most enlightened Bond. His job is killing, and he’s long-since fine with that, and his fancy is fucking everything, especially girls who won’t make it past the second act. And all along, he maintains an ironic distance, a wit, a supreme remove. Fucking and murder among jokes, yep, that’s Roger Moore as Final Bond.
But I’m not gonna write about the actors, and I only mention the opening credits sequences as a segue to a discussion of the Bond songs, and as an introduction to the idea that the credits and the songs can represent, if you so wish, and it’s a lot more fun let me tell you, the secret life of Bond. The part he hides from everyone in his world but cannot hide from us on this side.
TO BE CONTINUED…
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1 comment:
Ahhh, here we have to part ways. I can't stand the Bond movies. Maybe I'm not meant to, I'm not the target audience so it really doesn't matter what I think.
Then again, I like adventure. I loved Jonny Quest and the original Star Wars movies and I read all the Tarzan books, including the bad ones where he goes to the center of the earth and fights the ant-men. Most people think that line from "To Kill a Mockingbird" was a joke title!
I can't stand James Bond. I've seen only three, but it feels like I saw the same one over and over. Lots of movies are slammed as 'formulaic,' but with James Bond it is absolutely, inarguably literally true!
I hate to cry sexism or chauvanistic colonialism. Doing so often removes the power of these accusations. But in the case of the Bond films they're accurate descriptions.
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