IN GOLDENEYE, JUDI DENCH’S M tells Bond he’s a misogynist, sexist pig—a relic of the Cold War. Despite probably disqualifying Bond from being awarded the Employee of the Month parking space, the criticism was taken by 007 in characteristic stride. Bond had always had a prickly relationship with his previous onscreen bosses, but the scenario traditionally presented 007 and M more or less as unruly student and benevolent but stern headmaster. The GoldenEye exchange was the first attempt to shed some significant light on how Bond actually related to the figure of immediate authority in his otherwise freelance existence. As such, audiences were able to see human elements expressed that had not been explored in previous films. (The scene—and exchanges with M in future films of the Brosnan era—did take pains to note that there was an underlying mutual respect between the two.)
The aforementioned sequence was somewhat jarring for audiences because over the course of the previous thirty-two years, there were precious few attempts to explore the personal life or psyche of James Bond. Considering how intimately the public has come to know the films themselves, it is rather surprising how little they know about the central character of Agent 007. Ian Fleming’s books were more generous with attempts to explain Bond’s early life and some of his motivations, though even Bond’s literary father seemed content to only offer the occasional tantalizing morsel of information. The films made Bond even more opaque—especially in contrast to other legendary screen heroes. You don’t have to be a fanatic about the Superman movies to know Superman was born Kal-El on the planet Krypton and was sent to Earth as an infant before the doomed planet exploded. Likewise, it’s virtually common knowledge that Bruce Wayne’s Batman was ultimately motivated to fight crime because of the death of his parents at the hands of a mugger. However, the Bond films have always steered clear of providing in-depth background information about their central character—thus making Bond the cinematic equivalent of the man who hides in plain sight. He’s the most visible presence in each film, but on the aggregate, the least interesting.
I’ve always been of the opinion that in a way Bond is one of the least important elements of his screen adventures. His primary focus is to serve as a catalyst for the actions of the far more interesting characters with whom he interacts. There is nothing intrinsically interesting about most of what we see Bond do. Yes, he gambles extensively on the inexplicably inexhaustible salary this British civil servant seems to have, and yes, he certainly dallies with the ready, willing, and able beauties he encounters at every turn. Beyond that, however, there is little evidence that Bond would even make an interesting dinner companion, let alone a larger-than-life figure. Indeed, the brief glimpse we’re afforded of the first M’s personal life (in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service) shows him to be engrossed in the hobby of cataloging and displaying butterflies. While this may fall somewhere below attending a John Tesh concert in terms of cutting-edge behavior, it at least indicates that M has a passion for something tangible beyond the “sinful” excesses demonstrated by Bond. We certainly know Bond’s interests don’t extend to interior design. In the forty-plus years of the series, we’re only invited into his London flat on two occasions. In Dr. No we find it to be tastefully but drably decorated, while in Live and Let Die the interior looks like a bad Peter Max painting and reminds one of why the ’70s are referred to as the Decade that Style Forgot (let’s not even mention that polyester safari suit Bond wore in The Man With the Golden Gun, with pockets that made him resemble Captain Kangaroo more than the top agent of MI6).
The lack of insight into Bond’s past seems to be a consistent and deliberate strategy on the part of the filmmakers. Bond fans may consider it to be sacrilegious to accuse him of being bland, but any honest evaluation would force you to consider the following hypothetical question: Who would make a more interesting companion on a long airline flight, Mr. Bond or Auric Goldfinger? The literary James Bond is a more complex character largely because the printed page allows the author to specify the character’s emotions and mindset in great detail. The cinematic Bond is bound by the obvious restrictions imposed by celluloid: such aspects of his personality can only be hinted at without slowing the pace dramatically. Any attempt to provide an in-depth emotional analysis of Bond’s psyche might inadvertently turn a 007 action epic into a Bergmanesque piece of pseudo-psychology. Because they have a more expansive canvas on which to present a character’s background and emotional state, authors have the advantage over filmmakers. Thus, Ian Fleming and his successors John Gardner and Raymond Benson were able to flesh out the character much more fully.
Bond enthusiasts tend to pine away for the days when the films had not been carried away with an obsession with gadgetry and hardware, specifically the first two entries in the series, Dr. No and From Russia With Love. While those classics did indeed emphasize the more humanistic qualities of Bond’s world, it would be an oversimplification to state that they included any serious attempts to give the character significant depth. Although these films are regarded as “serious” entries in the series, a close inspection of how Bond is presented proves that his characterization is equally opaque there as in later films. The introduction of hardware to the series began modestly with the famed lethal briefcase seen in From Russia with Love. When the Aston Martin DB5 became a cause célèbre in its own right in Goldfinger, the producers became obsessed with the notion of placing as much hardware around Bond as was humanly possible. A sly, self-effacing reference to this comes in Thunderball when Bond—fully loaded with a Sherman tank-size scuba jet pack on his back—is about to jump from a helicopter to join a raging battle beneath the sea. “. . . And the kitchen sink,” he quips to Felix Leiter, who assures him, “On you, anything looks good!”
When producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman initially brought Bond to the screen, humor was not intended to be a main ingredient of the character. Although Fleming’s books were considered to be “over the top” adventure stories, the literary Bond was not defined by his wit. As shooting on Dr. No got underway, the director Terence Young and star Sean Connery decided to inject some humor and wisecracks into the proceedings, as though giving the audience a wink and a nod that they were in on the absurdities of the plot. Fortuitously, they decided to play the humor in a straitlaced manner without overt reaction shots or moments of outright slapstick. It can be argued that the very first indication of Bond’s wit comes in a rather non-descript sequence in Dr. No. En route to a meeting in Jamaica, Bond discovers his chauffeur is an enemy agent. After a brief struggle, the man commits suicide by biting into a cigarette laced with cyanide. Not wanting to be late for the appointment, Bond simply sits the hapless fellow upright in the back of the convertible and pulls up to the office where his meeting is being held. He casually comments to the security guard to “see to it that he doesn’t get away” as the man does a doubletake, seeing the corpse in the back seat. The sequence is modest in scope but set an important precedent for how we would come to perceive Bond. No one ever questions him about how the dead man ended up in his car, he doesn’t even mention it in his meeting with government officials, and when the meeting ends he casually leaves the premises after getting the phone number of a sexy secretary—quite the contrast to those of us who can’t even carry a nail clipper through airport security without incurring a body cavity search. Bond’s ability to rise above mundane rules and regulations would become a mainstay of his character. Rules are for you and me, not for Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.
Both the gadgetry and the humor, while initially appealing innovations the series had made over the usual spy stories, quickly became the films’ focus, upstaging the man who employed them. Sean Connery’s desire to leave the franchise was exacerbated not only by his financial differences with producers Broccoli and Saltzman, but also by his increasing frustration with the character of Bond, who had by the late ’60s been relegated to mostly pushing buttons to activate the latest hardware from Q Branch. Releasing Connery from his contract and hiring George Lazenby to succeed him in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service provided a chance to do something different with Bond, and Peter Hunt, who had edited most of the previous films, was chosen to direct.
Hunt’s vision represented the most dynamic attempt yet to flesh out the character of Bond and make him something more than a colorless hero around whom more exotic characters gravitated. He dispensed with the usual hardware and gave Bond only plausible, nonexotic gadgets that could be realistically woven into the story. Hunt and screenwriter Richard Maibaum were also determined to bring Bond as close to the roots of Fleming’s vision as possible. The script followed Fleming’s novel rather closely, with some exotic action sequences thrown in for cinematic effect.
Despite some rough edges due to inexperience, Lazenby acquitted himself well. While it would be a mistake to refer to his Bond as “warm and fuzzy,” Maibaum’s script did provide for ample sequences that allowed us to see a bit further into Bond’s psychological makeup. When the film begins, Bond is still every bit the womanizer and perennial bachelor. His love affair with the equally adventurous and independent Contessa Teresa di Vincenzo allows him to find love for the first time, though he has to be initially prodded into dating her by her father, an organized crime boss who has promised to lead Bond to the elusive Blofeld if Bond “tames” his daughter’s wild ways.
What begins as a business arrangement leads to a genuine love affair, and for the first time we get a depiction of Bond as a three-dimensional character—capable of tenderness, generosity, and ultimately heartbreak. The film depicts the couple’s wedding, a sequence that also helps paint a more complete picture of Bond in subtle ways. (When he spies his emotionally devastated would-be lover Miss Moneypenny, tough guy Bond can’t find the courage to actually address her in this awkward situation, but makes the sentimental gesture of silently tossing her his hat, knowing it will remain a treasured keepsake for her.) Bond’s full emotional range is on view in the film’s daring and tragic climax, where Tracy is murdered at the hands of Blofeld and his henchwoman Irma Bunt. The absence of a happy ending and the shattering final shot of Bond holding his beloved wife while he breaks down actually alienated some critics, who complained that 007 was now a mawkish figure. However, the ensuing years have been kind to the film, and Hunt’s bold vision has now been acclaimed by many as a high-water mark of the series.
Conventional wisdom has said that if only Sean Connery had starred in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, it would have been a masterwork. The argument is an invalid one, however. By the time the film went into production, Connery’s Bond had long ago segued into a flippant, rather emotionless character prone to making wisecracks and glossing over tragic events. It is highly doubtful that if Connery had starred in the film, the producers would have tampered with the formula in any substantial way. It is quite probable that On Her Majesty’s Secret Service would have been just another Bond adventure, emphasizing technology over human emotion. (Indeed, the producers completely discarded the plot of the previous film, You Only Live Twice, and replaced the tale of a one-on-one struggle between Bond and Blofeld with an elaborate plot centering on rocket ships!)
Proof that the above stated theory is correct is borne out by the fact that Connery’s return in Diamonds Are Forever in 1971 (replacing Lazenby, who quit after his one appearance as Bond) was a reversion to the old formula. In fact, this film is so over-the-top in terms of overt comedy that Connery’s previous epics resemble arthouse films in comparison. The notion that this overt humor originated in the Roger Moore era that followed is contradicted by any objective analysis of Diamonds Are Forever.
The success of Diamonds Are Forever only encouraged the emphasis on humor during the Moore era. Much of this was in keeping with Moore’s understandable desire to create Bond in his own mold—and by any definition he is a far more humorous person than his predecessor. However, a consequence of this formula was that even less attention was paid to fleshing out the character of Bond himself. Moore played Bond strictly tongue-in-cheek, with the quips flying as fast and frequently as the bullets. Although Moore is perfectly capable of giving a very good dramatic performance (The Man Who Haunted Himself, The Wild Geese, Shout at the Devil), he made it clear from day one that he felt the character of Bond was an absurdity in itself and played the role accordingly. He has frequently stated how ludicrous he thought it was to have a “secret agent” who is immediately identifiable the world over to the extent that bartenders recognize his drink preferences and casual acquaintances outside the intelligence industry are familiar with his name. (Witness diamond smuggler Tiffany Case’s response to what she believes is the death of 007: “You just killed James Bond!”—as though she were discussing an iconic figure such as Walt Disney.)
By 1981, even Moore and the Bond producers realized that the character of Bond had been weakened to the point that he had become a bit of a bore. Even the blockbuster success of 1979’s Moonraker could not hide the fact that the films had become almost exclusively about technology and slapstick comedy sequences. For the next film, For Your Eyes Only, producer Cubby Broccoli decided to bring the series “back to earth” both literally and figuratively. In doing so, there was a concerted attempt to humanize Bond, taking the emphasis off the flashier Bond trademarks and focusing on character development. In the pre-credits sequence we see him briefly in somber reflection at the grave of his late wife Tracy—a nice touch, and one of the few attempts to link any Bond actor with a previous Bond actor’s films. Bond becomes involved with Melina, a young woman obsessed with avenging the murders of her parents, and shows a distinctly human side when he advises her about the emotional toll vengeance can take. For Your Eyes Only also took pains to revert the character to his earlier, hard-broiled persona, in one sequence shoving an enemy trapped in a car off a cliff and effectively reminding audiences that 007 had once been more than a stand-up comedian in a tuxedo.
Perhaps the most complex onscreen Bond persona was seen during the brief tenure of Timothy Dalton in The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill. Dalton is an intense actor who actually studied the works of Fleming in preparation for the role. In fact, certain silly sequences that had originally been planned for Daylights were eliminated because they would have been at odds with Dalton’s determination to bring a more human element to the character. Licence to Kill comes the closest to giving significant background on Bond’s psychological makeup. Instead of presenting us with a largely emotionless superman, the plot finds Bond acting in direct contrast to the philosophy he espouses in For Your Eyes Only, obsessed with tracking down the crime kingpin who has mutilated his friend Felix Leiter and murdered Leiter’s new bride. For the first time, his relationship with M takes on a very meaningful dimension. Bond ignores M’s orders to remove himself from his self-imposed mission of revenge and in doing so loses his license to kill. In fact, he becomes listed as a rogue agent. The film bristles with a realistic quality not seen in most previous Bonds, though audiences remain deeply divided about the end result. Some fans argue that the film is a refreshing digression from the spectacle and hardware associated with the series, while others feel the movie more resembles Miami Vice than vintage 007. Indisputably, however, Dalton largely succeeded in his quest to make Bond a more comprehensive and complex character. Where Moore’s Bond gave only window dressing and cursory attempts to flesh out the character, Dalton made a daring and overt attempt to inject considerable humanity into 007’s persona.
When Pierce Brosnan replaced Timothy Dalton, he brought an exuberance and sense of fun to the part that had been missing for many years, but also attempted to continue Dalton’s tradition of making Bond a more nuanced, less mechanized character. His attempts to inject humor were more successful than his predecessor’s uncomfortable attempts at making quips; Brosnan’s Bond was a letter-perfect hybrid of his predecessor’s strengths and his own personal touches.
Critics and sociologists have long pondered the reasons for James Bond’s lasting popularity. In one of the Sherlock Holmes films, Basil Rathbone affectionately describes his colleague Dr. Watson as the one fixed point in an ever-changing world. The same backhanded compliment helps explain the durability of the Bond films. Although society and the world have changed dramatically since 1962, Bond has endured. It may very well be that Bond’s blandness is the reason. The minimal background and character development Bond has been given makes him capable of being adapted to the needs of any audience.
When the series returned in 1995 with Brosnan in GoldenEye, there was much speculation that Bond was about as relevant in the 1990s as the Bay City Rollers and Nehru jackets. Since Dalton’s last film, the Cold War had ended and the Soviet Union had collapsed. The smart money said that Bond was irrelevant in the new world order, but the producers felt otherwise, and they addressed the lingering rumors that the character was out of place in the 1990s by updating the attitude of Brosnan’s Bond toward the third long-standing hallmark of the Bond franchise: women.
| ASK DR. YES |
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Dear Dr. Yes,
I also used to work for SPECTRE, but after I made love to James I came to realize that a life of crime was wrong. He’s a wonderful man—and the sex is great—but whenever someone shoots at him he keeps using me as a human shield. I’m starting to worry that this means he doesn’t take our relationship seriously. What should I do?
Help me,
Nervous in New Orleans
Dear Nervous,
Don’t be silly! James would never use you as a human shield unless:
a) he believed you were working with the enemy,
b) you were atrocious in bed, or
c) a bullet was coming at him and you were the only thing handy.
Have you considered being more giving, sexually? This isn’t all about your needs. In the meantime, I’ll be taking out a life insurance policy in your name, proceeds to go to the 007 Champagne Fund (Dom Perignon is not cheap, particularly the earlier vintages). Good luck!
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The most defining aspect of Bond’s lifestyle may be his relationship with women, though with the exception of the Lazenby film, his lovers have been sexual conquests rather than emotional relationships. Although generally regarded as a “love-’em-and-leave-’em” playboy, Bond’s apologists can make the case that he does not manipulate naïve women; they use him for their selfish pleasure as much as he uses them for his, and the women he’s been involved with have largely been the ultimate symbols of female liberation: highly intelligent, highly capable, and very courageous. But in general, Bond’s relationships with women have remained fairly consistent throughout the films. He is not immune to falling in love, but he shows little willpower in rejecting the advances of the opposite sex, and the consequences (to him, if not to his female partner) are few. It wasn’t until the Dalton era that Bond was presented in a more mature light in terms of sexual practices. With the exception of one pre-credits sequence dalliance, Dalton’s Bond remains monogamous in The Living Daylights and keeps his sexual activities all in the line of duty in Licence to Kill.
Brosnan’s Bond is refreshingly complex and “modern” in his dealings with women. Like his predecessors, he has plenty of dalliances with minor female characters (there must be a bus carrying “roadies” for sexy secret agents), but his Bond is more prone to romance than sex. In Tomorrow Never Dies he becomes literally depressed when confronted with a previous lover, Paris Carver, for whom he has been carrying a torch. Her death leaves him quite shaken—an emotion generally downplayed in the previous eras, when Bond would gloss over the death of a lover or colleague (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and Licence to Kill being the main exceptions).
But could the character’s evolution go so far as to render him entirely unrecognizable? Bond’s use of violence has shocked audiences since 1962 when, in Dr. No, Bond shoots the villainous Prof. Dent even though the man’s gun is empty of bullets. A cinematic hero killing someone unnecessarily when the other man is defenseless was considered to be so provocative that the censors forced the producers to eliminate several of the final shots Bond fires into Dent’s prone body. Similarly, Brosnan’s Bond needlessly kills the beautiful but treacherous Elektra King in The World Is Not Enough. But while times had changed enough that the sequence, which would have been unthinkable in an earlier era, did not produce much controversy, it seems out of place with the generally chivalrous nature of agent 007. It’s one thing to kill an unarmed man, but extending that practice to women feels out of touch with what has been clearly established of Bond’s persona.
It is likely that the character will continue to evolve, and it may be that decades from now audiences will embrace a very different agent 007 then we have known. Indeed, as this is written, Daniel Craig has yet to bring his own version to an eagerly awaiting fan base. As society’s values change, concessions will always be made to the character to keep him in tune with modern audiences, but one hopes the producers continue their practice of not making the changes too drastic in order to maintain relevancy with the youth market—or I fear one day we may actually see a marquee that boasts the dreaded words: “Ludacris IS James Bond!”
LEE PFEIFFER is the author/co-author of numerous books about the cinema and is regarded as one of the foremost James Bond scholars. His book The Essential Bond: An Authorized Guide to the World of 007 (written with Dave Worrall) is the top-selling Bond film book of all time. Pfeiffer is also the editor-in-chief of Cinema Retro magazine, dedicated to films of the 1960s and 1970s (www.cinemaretro.com). He resides in New Jersey.