Skyfall , James Bond's Resurrection, and 21st-Century Anglo-American Imperial Nostalgia
2014; Routledge; Volume: 62; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/01463373.2014.949389
ISSN1746-4102
Autores Tópico(s)Nostalgia and Consumer Behavior
ResumoAbstract This article provides readers with an ideological critique of the latest James Bond installment, Skyfall. The author argues that the director of the film, Sam Mendes, has succeeded in creating a highly popular movie by tapping into societal desires for Anglo-American imperial nostalgia. Several characters in the movie, including Bond and M, suffer falls from grace that parallel the loss of British imperial power, but in the end, both Bond and the empire are resurrected when they return to the old and true ways of dealing with cyberterrorist dangers. The 2012 release of Skyfall became a part of the British pageantry that swirled around the London Olympics and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, and the nostalgic imperialism of this latest Bond film allowed Anglo-American audiences to celebrate Britain's continued relevance and the need for MI6, the British Secret Service. Keywords: FilmVisual Rhetoric Notes The very term “nostalgia” seems to have been sutured together from the Greek fragments nostos (“to return home”) and “algia” (longings and loss”). See Peters (Citation1985, p. 135). As Hoa (Citation2012) has argued, it is perhaps no coincidence that Dr. No (1962) was released the year that Jamaica gained its independence, allowing viewers to contemplate the impact of “British decolonization” (p. 3). In Casino Royale, Bond was also portrayed in an unusually vulnerable light, and audiences witnessed both his physical and psychological struggles as he grapples with the aftermath of torture and betrayal. Additional informationNotes on contributorsMarouf Hasian Marouf Hasian, Jr. (Ph.D., University of Georgia, 1993) is a Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Utah.
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