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Saturday Evening Movie Thread 10-02-2021 [TheJamesMadison]

Who is James Bond?

James Bond is the secret agent character created by Ian Fleming in the novel Casino Royale, published in 1953. More famously, of course, he's the main character in a series of films starting in 1962 with Dr. No and, in a series of twenty-five official EON movies, will reach its newest installment, No Time to Die next Friday after a year of delays.

The character, in the official EON entries, has been played by six different actors: Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, and Daniel Craig. Each actor brings something distinct from the others to the role, almost like they're playing different characters in each of the cinematic adventures. They share certain traits (job description, ease with women, ability to commit violence), but their portrayals are all very different from each other, creating distinct flavors of the same character.

Whenever I think of this question, I think of Todd Haynes' 2007 movie about Bob Dylan, I'm Not There, where Dylan is played by six different actors (Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, and Ben Whishaw), each playing different aspects of Dylan's personality. They're all Dylan, but they're all distinct as well, highlighting different aspects of his personality and public perception.

The Beginning

I'd had this post in my head for a while, but as I sat down to write it out I realized that there was a hole in my analysis: I had never read any of Ian Fleming's original Bond novels or stories. So, I partially remedied that by reading Casino Royale and For Your Eyes Only. If there exists a single, authoritative Bond, it has to be here. What's this Bond like? He's professional, intelligent, adaptable, single-minded, a killer, and completely unsentimental. The way he treats women (after Vesper Lynd, that is) is to view the few days of physical pleasure he experiences with them is interruptions between missions. He makes a pledge to never pursue a woman during a mission, and they're always kind of like a treat to be had after he completes his work.

Now, there are a dozen other books written by Fleming about the James Bond character, so my experience here is somewhat limited. However, I have seen every James Bond movie and written about all of them. Based on my more extensive experience with the movies, I'd say that there are definite differences in how closely each actor generally portrays the Bond character compared to the written version. Easily the furthest from the written Bond would be George Lazenby's take. He's simply too naive of a character to be the hardened professional who uses women as an outlet.

Interpretations


You see these kinds of arguments all around franchise movies. Usually about superheroes (because those tend to be the franchises that get rebooted with new actors in key roles), the argument centered around Bond seems to gain a more fervent emotional response from people than arguments about who makes the best Batman or Superman. In my viewings of the Bond films, I've come up with (hopefully) pithy ways that accurately reflect the general feel of how each actor portrays the central super spy.
Sean Connery was the predator. He was going to use every tool at his disposal to get to his target, including sex. Never wavering from his mission, he was willing to use anything to help him along.

George Lazenby was the innocent. He acted like he had never been on a mission before, coming straight out of a boys' school for spies and meeting danger with a waifish grin and the women like he had never touched one before, besmirched by their charms rather than the other way around.

Roger Moore was the Lothario. He acted like he got into the spy business to pick up chicks. Spycraft felt like a secondary motive to bedding the next woman on his adventures.

Timothy Dalton was the wild animal. He was angrier and more focused on violence than his predecessors, at least partially because MI6 kept disavowing him in his two movies. He had to operate alone, and he had to be vicious like that.

Pierce Brosnan was the gentleman. He always felt like he either was wearing a tux or had one underneath his outfit. He was the upper class man of good breeding who knew his wines as well as he knew his women and weapons.

Daniel Craig was the weapon. He was never going to just spy on his target. Violence was always going to be his end goal, even if he didn't intend it.

All six share traits across each other, but I think the above is a decent breakdown of how each actor approached the character. It's also not entirely consistent across films, such as Moore's near torture of Andrea Anders in The Man with the Golden Gun in order to receive information, an action that felt far more at home with Sean Connery's take than Moore's (done at the behest of the producer, which Moore refused to do again). Also, speaking of Connery, his portrayal in his first three films (Dr. No, Goldfinger, and From Russia with Love) is decided different from, in particular, his last official EON appearance in Diamonds are Forever when the franchise had already started moving in a sillier direction than the more grounded area Connery had begun the franchise in. He was less intense and more jokey than before in a movie that would have fit his successor, Moore, better than him.

Correct Interpretation


Who's correct, then? Which actor portrayed Bond "best"?

Is your criteria closeness to the Fleming version? In which case I'd say there's grounds for Connery or Craig's work in Casino Royale in particular. They have the combination of professional focus, suave execution, both ease with and disdain for women, as well as deadly purpose as I read in Fleming's work.

A lot of it really seems to come down to preferences, and that usually matches well with which Bond was in theaters during one's adolescence. For instance, if forced to choose a favorite for myself, I'd probably go with Brosnan. His films overall aren't my favorite (I love Goldeneye, but the rest...), but I like his gentlemanly portrayal. He exudes professionalism, charm, and competence, but at the same time he's just as good as someone like Connery, to say the least. It's kind of weird.

Then there are those who take their preferences to a rather absurd degree. "I like Connery, and everybody else has been nothing compared to Connery," Gene Siskel said in his review of Goldeneye, talking about Pierce Brosnan's performance as Bond. He saw nothing in the franchise past the first three movies in particular. There was little good to be said about Lazenby, Moore, or Dalton either. I mean, I can easily imagine having the preference of one Bond over another, but Siskel dismissed every other Bond for quite literally no other reason than the central performer wasn't Sean Connery. It blinded him to anything else in the films.

I don't recommend that kind of myopic view of the Bond franchise. There's a lot to like in the films, and they represent a fair number of types of entertainment. The Bond franchise has always been a producer driven series of films, and producer driven films tend to chase trends rather than set them themselves. That's why there's suddenly Kung Fu in The Man with the Golden Gun or the action in Casino Royale feels more at home in a Bourne movie than the Bond franchise. The Bond franchise itself represents the changing action mores over the decades, and that includes the actors.

Connery fits very firmly in the early 60s. He's masculine and sexual at once. Lazenby feels almost hippy-ish in his innocence. Moore, throughout the 70s, was a sexually mature man who lived freely. Dalton became dedicated to only one woman at a time in his films. Brosnan seemed to feel more deeply towards his women in the 90s (while also retaining a certain throwback quality that M calls out in Goldeneye). Craig changes a fair bit from Casino Royale, becoming a more sensitive man, especially towards the women, as his movies go through the 10s.

So, loaded question, which Bond is your favorite?

Movies of Today

Opening in Theaters:

No Time to Die

Movies I Saw This Fortnight:

3 Bad Men (Rating 4/4) Full Review "I ended up completely loving this film. It's a wonderful early work from Ford that shows all of his strengths as a director in a rough and tumble form." [YouTube]

The Ward (Rating 2.5/4) Full Review "This was Carpenter really rediscovering his craft at the feature film length and doing a pretty decent job of it. It feels like a Carpenter film, and it's pretty okay. It could have used a rewrite to help things along, but it's honestly better than its reputation." [Library]

Andrei Rublev (Rating 4/4) Full Review "Andrei Rublev is an obviously deeply personal work on an incredibly grand scale. It's also a fascinating historical anomaly as an individualist finds a way to tell such a personal and religiously spiritual story in the middle of the collectivist oppression that was the Soviet Union." [Personal Collection]

Solaris (Rating 4/4) Full Review It's a dense, intelligent film that uses emotional storytelling to explore a more intellectual concept. It's also a film really designed for a certain set of cinematic tastebuds. Yes, it's science-fiction, but it's so far from what most people think of science fiction as to essentially be another genre." [Personal Collection]

Mirror (Rating 4/4) Full Review "Explicitly experimental in construction, it's the least accessible. However, I get swept up in it. The questions it raises, the strong performances, and the incredible aesthetics combine for an endlessly fascinating film experience that I really do enjoy." [Personal Collection]

Stalker (Rating 4/4) Full Review "There's something that cuts deeply and quietly about Stalker. Investing in the steady journey towards the Room ends up being incredibly rewarding intellectually and emotionally. It's a subtle and affecting film, that honestly never should have been made. However, since it was made, I do love it." [Personal Collection]

Nostlaghia (Rating 4/4) Full Review "Nostlaghia represents a further refinement of Tarkovsky's style after the chaos of the previous production, completely freed from the constraints of the Soviet bureaucracy, and still yearning for meaning." [Personal Collection]

The Sacrifice (Rating 4/4) Full Review "Many final films of great directors feel like the spent leavings of a great mind, but Tarkovsky went out swinging for the fences. His quiet ode to his cinematic hero, Ingmar Bergman, has a surprising life and vitality all its own that makes it truly shine in an already bright cinematic oeuvre. It's a beautiful movie that takes its time to fruit, but fruits beautifully nonetheless." [Personal Collection]

Contact

Email any suggestions or questions to thejamesmadison.aos at symbol gmail dot com.
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