Let's get one thing straight, first: I liked this film a lot. But... well, I like the James Bond films. I've seen most of them, some several times, but not all them. I haven't seen Goldfinger before for instance. But I'm vaguely aware that the received opinion of this film is that it's amongst the best. But, well, I liked it very much but I liked it's predecessors better.
Why? I'm not entirely sure. Perhaps it feels smaller in scale? Perhaps the locations aren't as big or exciting, with long scenes in golf clubs and dull cells, and Bond spending much of the last part of the film as a prisoner? I think it's mainly that Gert Frobe is ok but not all that good or charismatic. Even the "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!" moment underwhelmed me. Has popular culture led me to expect too much?
Still, Connery is awesome as ever.and the full on gadgetry emerges with the gadget filled Aston Martin and a glimpse into "Q" branch. There are some good set pieces, too, most notably Jill Masterson being killed from asphyxiation after being covered in gold paint, as so splendidly debunked in Mythbusters.
Honor Blackman is suitably icy as the deliciously named Pussy Galore, but.. well, the sexual politics of the Bond films have raised a good number of eyebrows up until now, with all the slapping and somewhat unreconstructed attitudes, but Bond quite unambiguously subjects Pussy to sexual assault. It isn't depicted as rape, with Pussy clearly shown to be yielding... but that in itself is troubling.
Still, it has the best theme tune so far and possibly ever. And is still a bloody good film.
If you thought Bond kinda forcing himself on Galore was problematic, I suggest you brace yourself over a much more worse and far unpleasant scene that occurs in the 1983 Hound of the Baskervilles adaptation.
ReplyDeleteWhile it is safe to say almost certainly that even back then in 1964, some people found the Barn scene to be uncomfortable, I think, we the audience, are meant to be shocked by Bond’s womanising (especially with the legths he sometimes went to, and Book!Bond is said to be even more worse), I think even Bernard Lee’s M disapproved of it. Plus, I don’t think he handled “villains” differently as well. It is meant to be uncomfortable yet there’s something fascinating about this “sexist, misogynist dinosaur” that you find him fascinating as a character. As Ian Fleming himself put it, expecting a hero to be an all round good guy is not the way to approach Bond. He isn't a "nice" guy, he's in a gray area (having virtues but also serious flaws) while modern audiences tend to see everything black and white. I listen to both sides of the arugments and tend to see it in a neutral light, considering whether "is this scene flat out uncomfortable or is it passable enough or not all bad as people put it?" One interpretation I heard when watching scenes like Bond is to pass it off as a club in judgement based on the Pepé Le Pew (Looney Tunes character) style gags. With the barn scene in Goldfinger, I flinch a little but nothing more than that: sometimes all we can do is chuckle “awkwardly" whenever something disgusts us.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, Ironically, there's much worse depictions (Non-Bond films) of sexual assault (sometimes even more explict) before and after. For example, 'River Of No Return' (1954) in which Robert Mitchum's character (the film's supposed "hero") throws himself at Marilyn Monroe in a scene five times longer and more violent than anything in 'Goldfinger' (where Bond at least accomplishes his mission through his behavior). There is also an unpleasant scene of assault involving Hugo Baskerville (Nicholas Clay) and the farm girl (Francesca Gonshaw) in the 1983 tv version of Hound of the Baskervilles that makes scenes in the 60s Bond look tame by comparison.
I pretty much agree in that Bond is clearly presented in all media as morally ambiguous and by no means a "nice" guy. We also have to account for the fact that social attitudes about consent and sexual politics more broadly, in 1965, were what they were. But we're watching these scenes in the present day, so we wince.
ReplyDeleteI vaguely recall the Bond of the books, but it's been about thirty(!) years since I read any. I vaguely remember Bond being much more of a snob in them. But Casino Royale is in my ridiculously large TBR pile, so we'll see!