The Old Bond Was Dying and the New One Struggled to Be Born
The Old Bond Was Dying and the New One Struggled to Be Born
A Genre Approach to GoldenEye (1995)
GoldenEye (1995) – Genre
Tina Turner and my best friend share a birthday (26 November). Because of this, my best friend, with whom I just spent a few days, said “obviously we have to watch GoldenEye [(1995)] then.”
Full disclosure: I had not seen GoldenEye.
Then the Review Roulette wheel turned up Genre as our approach and my eyes widened.
Fuller disclosure: I had never seen a James Bond film in full.
But this was the challenge I set for myself, so let’s see what I can pull out to review a film from a genre that I have never dabbled in before. This review will largely consist of the conversations I have had with others since viewing it. While that sounds like a cop-out, it’s actually one of the best ways we learn and distil our ideas and reactions to a film into a shareable, understandable stance.
Fullest disclosure: I particularly dislike the concept of James Bond and bristle at even the thought of digging into the genre. In my own personal political view – and again, I have only seen one Bond film fully because I was so turned off the other times – I see Bond as a character who is made apolitical. His allure is that he is apolitical, a cool suave guy. Men want to be him, and women want to be with him (to use a stereotypical phrase as outdated as the archetype I am here critiquing). But I don’t think he should be afforded that luxury after having given up his entire life and identity to Queen and country. I see Bond’s role as enforcing a world structure of Western supremacy that he personally takes no interest in questioning.
Now, I said this to my partner, a fan of the films and genre more widely, and he gave me some excellent context to consider and really pull apart why I feel this way. Martin Campbell’s GoldenEye was the first Bond film released with Pierce Brosnan in the titular role; it was the first Bond film that was not based on an original Ian Fleming story; it was the first to have Judi Dench in the role of M; and it was the first Bond film released since the end of the Cold War. The most important thing my partner said, however, to help me breakdown the discomfort I have with the character and series and genre, is that this film (the seventeenth in the franchise) is the first one that starts to change the character into a more nuanced and progressive depiction that is expanded on even more in Daniel Craig’s 21st century reprisals of the role.
There are elements of this film that I really enjoyed that did complicate the idea of an unquestioning secret government asset, namely M’s push back. M says to Bond in their initial meeting: “I think you’re a sexist, misogynist dinosaur. A relic of the Cold War, whose boyish charms though wasted on me obviously appeal to the young woman I sent out to evaluate you.” Now, as I’ve said before, I don’t particularly like judging films by today’s standards, but something about all of James Bond just gets under my skin and it is definitely not the misogyny that’s bugging me. And in this quote from M it’s the specific part of mentioning she thinks he is “a relic of the Cold War” that’s couched and bookended on either end in gender and sexuality language leading you to believe that perhaps by 1995 we have come forward with our feminism – misogyny and sexism and structural advantages for men are a thing of the past. A woman is the head of MI6 now, after all.
But I don’t think that’s why it struck me. This film is the first since the Cold War, is the first to expand the franchise beyond its original author, and goes over the top with stunts and special effects and one absolutely exceptional tank chase through St. Petersburg. But beyond that, it is actually starting to question the character and the role of the genre and what it means for James Bond to now exist sans creator – who is James Bond in 1995? Some other elements of the film and characters also challenge the role of loyalty to “Queen and country” – what does it mean to dedicate your life entirely to a government that will not love you back? GoldenEye complicates the things that are givens about James Bond – the stereotypes that I knew of the character and that I brought with me to the film. It was evidently the right one to start with coming with such prejudice against the genre as a whole.
In further discussions about this film, I boiled down why I might feel this way while others around me from different generations might not. It struck me that I became a teenager in 2007. Most of my publicly conscious life has been dominated by discussions in schools and in the news and online about US interference in the Middle East inspiring extremism in those regions, or the CIA or Kissinger or wars on terror or US drone strikes on a hospital and wedding, all peppered with growing distrust of the government that definitely informs my worldview and politics now. I am not saying that my politics hold no nuance; I am saying that I am extremely uncomfortable with cheering on covert operations and anyone at all who is unquestioning of their government, let alone an active government spy and assassin.
Bringing this together, it made me think about Barbie (2023). I really enjoyed Barbie, and I also fully understand the criticisms of it that it wasn’t “feminist enough.” I do reject the ideas that went around online that it could have gone further because I genuinely do not believe a film that was further left of that would have been made. I think it struck a perfect balance of pushing the limits of how far our current Hollywood will allow a film to go in terms of its feminist messaging and also creating the best performing film in Warner Brothers’s 100+-year history. A film making well over a billion dollars, being seen in nearly every country in the world, and carrying a slightly left of centre critique on heteronormativity and gender roles and all of the things it does do is better for advancing that discussion and sparking an inspiration in audiences to think further on those issues, in my opinion, than a film that is seen by a couple thousand people with a more precise and stronger message that matches more closely to my own politics.
What this has to do with James Bond is that I wanted more of a critique on the role of James Bond than this film could realistically give in 1995. At one point in Barbie, a voiceover breaks the fourth wall to remark that Margot Robbie is the wrong casting choice to depict a depressed and ugly woman. The film is acknowledging that even though it is a film made from the female perspective for the female perspective, it still has to function under the rules of the current Hollywood system and the conventions that make a film successful – e.g. in this instance, a classically beautiful woman in the iconic role of Barbie. For me, this moment is similar to M’s in GoldenEye in which she says Bond is “a relic of the Cold War”. I truly think that that line is not about the progress in gender roles but rather a start to the questioning of the role of Bond and the genre as those questions continue into the 21st century films. But as Brosnan’s first film, as the first breakaway from Fleming’s works, as the first with a woman M, and as the first post-Cold War Bond film about the problems with the current state of global affairs in its aftermath, it was already doing a lot and I cannot fault it for not going as hard as I wanted it to.
So, as I have learned, GoldenEye was the first to break the genre’s mould in terms of challenging the role of an apolitical assassin. I can’t say I am a particular fan of the character or genre even beyond these political hang ups – I just don’t really enjoy the odd explosion, just does nothing for me – but I can say I appreciate the nuances of the character much more and am willing to give a different franchise in the genre a try (I was promised more complex criticism in the Bourne trilogy). If you are a James Bond fan and made it this far, thanks for sticking with!
Because I’m Never Done When I Say I Am
Disability
Another thing I find really sinister about Bond is that the villains always have some form of physical disability. That’s not an original thought at all and many people more familiar with the genre and franchise have said much more eloquent things about it, but as I’m griping, I might as well name that one too. Disabled people aren’t threats.
As a lifelong Bond obsessive (who wrote their college thesis on Bond) I was very happy to see you covering one of the films! As always I appreciate the discussion points you bring up. Bond is often discussed in a dismissive light or without any consideration of the series artistry so I find it refreshing when anyone takes a serious and nuanced approach to discussing 007.
I would suggest that seeing the original 20 film series or at least more of them gives a deeper context to Bond himself over time. There's also much more nuance and texture in the Bond film formula elements than most people would have you think. The films have a slightly different concept and rendering of Bond but the core is the same as Fleming's creation in the Literary Bond. Where he can seem cold there's a buried humanity and a sense of being the ultimate outsider. Fleming was a big Raymond Chandler fan and there's a sense of Philip Marlowe tarnished knight tradition in the book Bond. Bond retains his humanity and is extremely opinionated but is forever distanced from the outside world living with the baggage of being a "licenced trouble shooter".
The films kept the classic adventure flavor Fleming was inspired by in his writing but tweaked things a bit to add more humor and get his sense of fun and danger across in a more accessible way. This is at its purest in the first two films of the series before Goldfinger set the lighter formula idea in everyone's heads. The first three films are the core of the series and only certain films afterwards feature a more direct Fleming type approach. This is why On Her Majesty's Secret Service is such an outlier as it is essentially a direct adaptation of Fleming's Bond. There wouldn't be this much Fleming in the films again until the 1980's films began focusing directly on literary materials culminating in the sublime but short-lived Timothy Dalton era. Dalton is the purest rendering of the literary character onscreen but with a sense of the film Bond to not alienate the film audience.
If you follow along with the series you can see how they tried different approaches while trying to keep up with the popular culture of the time. The Roger Moore era sees several tonal shifts and Moore brilliantly developed the gentleman adventurer knight inherent in the character. The key is the original films never lost sight of the core identity of the character or the series. Goldeneye is the transitional film and was a make or break point coming after a six year hiatus and being the first post-Cold War series entry. It avoids the pitfalls of trying to reinvent the wheel and instead goes for a slightly self aware deconstruction of the traditional Bond film formula. That factor combined with the sense of real espionage worked in amidst some incredible style is what makes the film work. If this is your entry point to the series though it could give you a feeling of a slight hollowness. That's why I'd again suggest at least looking at some of the earlier films to get more of a sense of Bond's character and the world of Bond which blends adventure fantasy elements into reality.
The rest of the Brosnan era shows the series trying to find its footing but always snapping back to the traditional style. After this point they threw everything out the window including (I'd argue) the character himself. The biggest issue is that the key creative team members departed or passed away over time and most damaging was losing the original producer and primary writer after Licence to Kill.
Goldeneye deconstructs Bond in a postmodern sense for the mid 90's but it certainly wasn't the first time elements of Bond as a character were questioned by the story, the film's approach or even by Bond himself in self-reflection or disgust. Bond is far more human in the novels and the best moments in the films find ways to weave that sense of humanity into the adventurous witty escapism.
As for the villains frequently being disabled, scarred or having some sort of physical unique aspect to them it's been a subject of discussion for years. Fleming was heavily inspired by classical pulp fiction and the early days of spy fiction. Most of these featured larger than life villains with some kind of unique appearance of disability in some fashion. I've never felt that Fleming's characters or their film versions are meant to be demeaning to people with disabilities, but I can certainly understand why people might feel that way. As a counter argument I would offer up that Fleming did at least have a positive disabled character in the novels as Bond's best friend and ally Felix Leiter was nearly killed in the novel Live and Let Die. Through the rest of the novels, Leiter learned to live with his disability and forced change of career while also growing immensely as a character. This is one aspect I would love to see in the films someday.
Oh shoot...I didn't intend to leave a massive comment. You can't tell I'm a die hard Bond fan can you...
You'll likely enjoy the Bourne films but I would note outside of The Bourne Identity taking the basic concept of the first novel they are completely different from the Ludlum books which are much darker and incredibly complex.