by Graeme Stirling
As the new James Bond novel approaches, we probe the many faces of a disputed, immortal character.
Last year saw the release of the smash-hit Skyfall, the twenty-third film of the James Bond franchise and the third starring actor Daniel Craig. It became not only the second-highest grossing film of 2012, but the highest grossing British film of all time, outstripping the other 22 entries that propelled the likes of Sir Sean Connery to global stardom. So, has the Bond formula finally been perfected? According to those involved, it seems not...
This month, the latest Bond novel, Solo, will be released, penned by multi-award winning English novelist William Boyd. Boyd has enjoyed a long career in the literary world and has recently branched out into espionage fiction with novels such as Restless and Waiting for Sunrise. His and Craig’s interpretation of the character, could not be more different, and audiences seem to be equally divided.
As the new James Bond novel approaches, we probe the many faces of a disputed, immortal character.
Last year saw the release of the smash-hit Skyfall, the twenty-third film of the James Bond franchise and the third starring actor Daniel Craig. It became not only the second-highest grossing film of 2012, but the highest grossing British film of all time, outstripping the other 22 entries that propelled the likes of Sir Sean Connery to global stardom. So, has the Bond formula finally been perfected? According to those involved, it seems not...
This month, the latest Bond novel, Solo, will be released, penned by multi-award winning English novelist William Boyd. Boyd has enjoyed a long career in the literary world and has recently branched out into espionage fiction with novels such as Restless and Waiting for Sunrise. His and Craig’s interpretation of the character, could not be more different, and audiences seem to be equally divided.
Film fans love to argue over ratings and reviews – after all, these are essentially opinion pieces, and band-wagoning always plays a role. Skyfall holds a 92% critic rating (and 85% audience) on Rotten Tomatoes, and some of us still don’t understand why. Casino Royale, Craig’s first outing from 2006 – which holds 95% and 87%, respectively – was universally praised for fixing every broken component in the series. The gratuitous gadgets were gone, replaced with the gritty violence you might expect from a real-word spook’s assignment gone awry. Craig stated in several interviews that he wanted to be as “physically involved as possible” and threw himself into the action like a man possessed. Instead of an awful, dry quip after each kill, we saw panic, shock, despair and overflowing adrenaline that damaged the character to the core, making Casino Royale the perfect prequel set-up to a much-needed Bond reboot.
Follow-up Quantum of Solace had limited success, dogged by over-direction that left a strangely simple plot line almost impossible to follow. Was disaster set to strike? Had all of 2006’s efforts been wasted? We waited and waited for Bond 23, and along came Skyfall to save the day. The film raked in $1.1 billion dollars and was almost as lauded as its predecessor. How did it achieve this? By bringing back everything that Casino Royale had carefully removed and turning it into a Roger Moore flick. This is an odd habit of EON Productions – Connery himself walked out of the Bond series several times for this reason, stating that Bond had quickly become a parody.
Follow-up Quantum of Solace had limited success, dogged by over-direction that left a strangely simple plot line almost impossible to follow. Was disaster set to strike? Had all of 2006’s efforts been wasted? We waited and waited for Bond 23, and along came Skyfall to save the day. The film raked in $1.1 billion dollars and was almost as lauded as its predecessor. How did it achieve this? By bringing back everything that Casino Royale had carefully removed and turning it into a Roger Moore flick. This is an odd habit of EON Productions – Connery himself walked out of the Bond series several times for this reason, stating that Bond had quickly become a parody.
The forced banter is everywhere. Q is back, offering various electronic tools and toys. Bond has an Aston DB5 with machine-gun headlights. The attempts to balance these classic Bond-movie elements with the gritty 2006 version were awkward and strained, and yet unanimously praised. Then, of course, there are the massive plot holes.
Yes, reviews are essentially opinion pieces and yes, taste is subjective. But this film was a let-down.
So how does Craig, the man we thought saved Bond, see the character? Some of us were taken aback to find out. According to several interviews from August of this year, Craig wants to see the “ironic humour” for which the old Bond films are known make a comeback. He enjoyed the lighter touches in Skyfall and is particularly fond of the scene where, having landed painfully on the roof of a moving train, he stops, Pierce Brosnan in Goldeneye-style, to straighten his cuffs. Dammit. Maybe it will be a disaster, after all.
Boyd happens to agree. He has described the on-screen Bond as a “cartoon character” and publicly vowed not to see Skyfall as a result. He sees Bond as a “boozer” and a miserable type with real psychological problems and a nasty, murky workload to deal with. This is precisely how Ian Fleming’s Bond was originally portrayed on the page and Boyd knows that, hence Bond’s return, in the new novel, to the smoky 1960s.
Yes, reviews are essentially opinion pieces and yes, taste is subjective. But this film was a let-down.
So how does Craig, the man we thought saved Bond, see the character? Some of us were taken aback to find out. According to several interviews from August of this year, Craig wants to see the “ironic humour” for which the old Bond films are known make a comeback. He enjoyed the lighter touches in Skyfall and is particularly fond of the scene where, having landed painfully on the roof of a moving train, he stops, Pierce Brosnan in Goldeneye-style, to straighten his cuffs. Dammit. Maybe it will be a disaster, after all.
Boyd happens to agree. He has described the on-screen Bond as a “cartoon character” and publicly vowed not to see Skyfall as a result. He sees Bond as a “boozer” and a miserable type with real psychological problems and a nasty, murky workload to deal with. This is precisely how Ian Fleming’s Bond was originally portrayed on the page and Boyd knows that, hence Bond’s return, in the new novel, to the smoky 1960s.
Before we start another scrap or come off as whiny purists, the key thing to note here is that the star of the books and the star of the films have always been two different characters. This is inevitable. American crime author Jeffrey Deaver – read that again, it’s a mystery how he got the job in the first place – tried to mix the two together in Carte Blanche, the last novel to be released, in which Bond appears as a “former smoker” who served with the military in Afghanistan, a sort of hard-edged but accessible character designed for the modern market. There have been worse ideas, but also plenty of better ones.
Halting the laser-wielding, mass-murdering, collar-tweaking and camply-quipping cinema monster for more than one or two films at a time (see Timothy Dalton’s similar attempts to ground the character to its original form in the late 1980s) seems impossible, and those of us who don’t approve are just going to have to deal with it. We still, however, have the books, and those who haven’t read them should give them a try. Bond is an intriguing character with very different flaws – cold and “almost cruel”, as Fleming put it it, a fetishistic chain smoker and astoundingly heavy drinker who lives on painkillers and coffee for the perpetual hangover and plunges the moral dilemmas of killing and chaos.
We will also always have the fact that Fleming, had he lived to see any of the films after Connery’s first few outings, would have agreed with us. In From Russia With Love, the most successful of the Bond novels, beautiful Russian agent Tatiana Romanova remarks: “You look like American film star.” Bond, aghast, replies: “For God’s sake, that’s the worst insult you can pay a man!”
Solo, by William Boyd, will be published on 26th September in the UK (Jonathan Cape) and 8th October in the US (HarperCollins).
Follow Graeme on Twitter!
Halting the laser-wielding, mass-murdering, collar-tweaking and camply-quipping cinema monster for more than one or two films at a time (see Timothy Dalton’s similar attempts to ground the character to its original form in the late 1980s) seems impossible, and those of us who don’t approve are just going to have to deal with it. We still, however, have the books, and those who haven’t read them should give them a try. Bond is an intriguing character with very different flaws – cold and “almost cruel”, as Fleming put it it, a fetishistic chain smoker and astoundingly heavy drinker who lives on painkillers and coffee for the perpetual hangover and plunges the moral dilemmas of killing and chaos.
We will also always have the fact that Fleming, had he lived to see any of the films after Connery’s first few outings, would have agreed with us. In From Russia With Love, the most successful of the Bond novels, beautiful Russian agent Tatiana Romanova remarks: “You look like American film star.” Bond, aghast, replies: “For God’s sake, that’s the worst insult you can pay a man!”
Solo, by William Boyd, will be published on 26th September in the UK (Jonathan Cape) and 8th October in the US (HarperCollins).
Follow Graeme on Twitter!
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