What the hell has happened to James Bond? Gone are the days when he’d kick Dr. No
into boiling water with a gun in one hand and Pussy Galore in the other. He’s dark now. He has childhood trauma. And in the latest film, SKYFALL, he
goes all Joseph Campbell. Even the
villain, deliciously played by Javier Bardem, is trying to claw his way back
into his “mother’s” womb.
I’m not the first to notice that James has changed. In screenwriting circles it was all the
buzz a few years ago that they were “fleshing out” the character. And we saw evidence of it in CASINO
ROYALE. Not only did we get one of
our best Bonds (Daniel Craig) but we got a new character. A guy who actually fell in love. Who could sit in a shower, clothed,
with a traumatized woman and comfort her.
The world outside was the same—villains, chase sequences, gadgets—but
Bond’s inner life had noticeably deepened. He was wounded, more fragile than he’d been. And I’d argue that it all started with
9/11.
I don’t claim to be a Bond expert, but even I know that though
technically he’s British, Bond has always been a reflection of American culture
and confidence.
Pre 9/11, we still had that cocky attitude about our place
in the world. And it was reflected
in the movies. Sean Connery,
Pierce Brosnan, Roger Moore, there were no chinks in their Bonds. They were calm and cool and incredibly
collected.
How far we’ve fallen.
The Daniel Craig incarnation still looks ravishing (I’m still recovering
from that glimpse of him in the powder blue bathing trunks in ROYALE), but this
guy has issues. In SKYFALL he drinks
too much, flunks the test to be an MI6 agent, and is too tired to even get it
on with Moneypenny. He has two
tasks—save the agents who have been compromised by the release of a top-secret list,
and rescue M. He fails on both
counts.
And yet, this new version of Bond has pulled me in. It may be a girl thing, but I’ve always
hated the old James. He was kind
of a cipher, and the movies were boring. Boat chase, shoot out, blah, blah, blah,
car chase, girl in a bikini, blah, blah, blah… But this new guy is someone I
can get into, root for. Yeah,
he does basically tell Moneypenny she should just be a secretary, and he barely
blinks when his “love interest” dies, but we can still hope. Maybe in the next film he’ll find a
woman to love (WHO DOESN’T GET SHOT IN THE HEAD!) Maybe he’ll encourage a female agent to be good at her
job. He already kicks ass on
people who are actually threatening something important to him. And I wonder if all this will bring a
whole new fan base to the franchise.
Women.
It’s rare that we have the opportunity to analyze a single
character over time, but Bond is the perfect litmus test for our country’s emotional
temperature. We’ve definitely crossed some threshold when a homosexual
attempted seduction of Bond becomes a setpiece for the villain, and when the
climax can only be played out in Bond’s ancestral home, where he and the bad
guy have the same “mother.”
And she dies.
BAMBI, this is not.
But there’s something primal here. This James Bond is crawling into the
Hero’s Journey cave and facing his Ordeal.
Bond is no longer perfect. He’s just as fucked up, tired, and old as the rest of
us. The way the SKYFALL script
plays out, it’s as if the other Bonds never existed. Are we wiping the slate clean? Admitting we were never perfect and suave, that it was all just
an act?
As a country, we’re definitely walking with a limp after the
financial meltdown and recession and wars in the Middle East.
Is it possible that Bond is becoming human?
I’ll be waiting, James.
Just keep wearing that powder blue Speedo.
