Day for Night Magazine

James Bond

Sincere Absurdity
BY Jason Klorfein

As conceived by author Ian Fleming, James Bond was a charming, cold, sadistic, civilized playboy—the very definition of Western decadence, and the perfect Cold Warrior. Yet even the earliest adaptations of Fleming’s novels to the screen demonstrate that Bond movies, though always properly regarded as fantasy, may have been even less in tune with the 1960’s geopolitical reality than one would think. In Fleming’s Casino Royale and From Russia with Love, Bond battles SMERSH, the Soviet special intelligence agency. In the early Connery films, From Russia with Love and You Only Live Twice this organization become SPECTRE, an apolitical terrorist organization that simply seeks to ignite conflict between the Russians and British for power and wealth. In shifting Bond’s main opponent from a Soviet agency to an omnipresent transnational organization, the Bond films willingly and wisely turn their back on any kind of realism.

When Bond faces the Soviets directly in the EON films—for example, a mad Soviet general in league with female clowns (Octopussy)—these Soviets were always the “bad apples” among the lot. Even after the Cold War, the Bond films held to their apolitical nature: the North Korean general in Die Another Day is an insane rogue disguising himself as an English billionaire in high-tech, diamond encrusted “white-face” (ironic in that the first Bond villain, Chinese Dr. No, was played by a New York theatre actor in makeup). Perhaps rather than defining the Cold War mentality for the action film, Bond films have shaped the “bad apple” story that has been used in many Hollywood films. Released after President Bush’s “Axis of Evil” speech, Die Another Day, like other Bond movies, flirts with topicality without committing to any politics—in other words, the perfect pop fantasy. As the ominous SPECTRE-like terrorist organization is revived in the guise of the mysterious Quantum for the current Bond films, Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, the terms adherent to realism and topicality are being bandied about again. Daniel Craig has been praised for bringing a grittiness to the role, but perhaps what makes Casino Royale and Craig a “serious Bond for our serious times” is his stylishness, his adherence to what was, until September 2008, a canny early-adapter strategy to consumer trends. The casino was set in Montenegro, just as the Balkans were being hyped as the new tourist generation.

Furthermore, Craig’s Bond embodies the masculinity of the twenty-first century playboy. This Bond is completely sincere in his love for Vesper Lynd (French actress Eva Green) and takes pleasure in wearing a tight shirt and pants while he sips vodka martinis. But his dandyisms are excused by his harsh torture at the hands of the film’s suave villain, Le Chiffre. There’s nothing that makes a man more of a man than survival of torture to his genitalia. The film’s torture scene is gritty and realistic, but it paradoxically furthers the myth of Bond rather than grounding it. The scene is brutal, but Craig’s muscular body and the James Bond character cannot help but be eroticized.

The Bond character is a myth, one that remains desirable because the films take place in an eroticized, stylish, but recognizable universe—one in which a few self-interested rogues are intent on evil, not the Soviets or North Koreans. This, in itself, is somewhat absurd. The absurdity of the little details—of License to Kill Bond girl Carey Lowell’s strange line as she removes a bulletproof vest (“This Kevlar’s great,” as if she’s sipping a new gin), or of Roger Moore looking at Jane Seymour’s tarot card reader like she’s a complete crazy in Live and Let Die—is what continually makes Bond movies distinctive. Perhaps, then, it is the revved up ludicrousness of Casino Royale’s most human, realistic moments that makes the film feel so fresh after a few tepid late 90s Bonds. The third act of the film shows a man falling in love with a woman. There is no subtext here; Bond actually says, “I love you.” It’s all absurd, and strangely sincere.