The James Bond Phenomenon: A Critical Reader
2004; Volume: 34; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1548-9922
Autores Tópico(s)Leadership, Courage, and Heroism Studies
ResumoChristoph Lindner, editor. The James Bond Phenomenon: A Critical Reader. Manchester University Press, 2OO3. 268 pages, $74.95. Hero as Globetrotter When Ursula Andress arose from the waves, like discreet Venus, in Dr. No in 1962, she became, for all time, the quintessence of the James Bond style, so much so that Halle Berry's similar star entrance in Die Another Day (2002), was sign that the old formula still intended to weave its magic in changed times. Never mind that in the intervening forty years 007 had been played by five different actors, or that the Cold War had been and gone along with Swinging London and Scan Connery's hairline. This new version announced the longevity of Bond, the fact that he was spy for all seasons. According to Variety, over half the world's population has seen Bond film, and this is not, perhaps, as surprising as it might seem. For these outrageously popular fantasy adventures tap into two general concerns that have been worldwide constant ever since 1945. The first is an anxiety surrounding the international situation, whether it relates to potential nuclear holocaust, or to terrorism. The second rises out of the first: it is the deep, necessarily deluded need to believe that these problems are less complex than they appear, and that they can be solved by the courage and moral righteousness of an individual hero. James Bond is that hero. This collection, written by range of scholars from different disciplines and countries, tackles numerous issues surrounding fiction's most famous secret agent, both on screen and on the page. all the essays are, in essence, variations on the theme of the hero as globetrotter, an empire warrior sent from M's clubby office to exotic locations where he slugs it out with the Blofelds and the Largos, who, in turn, represent all the malevolent forces that whisper to us out of the headlines. A certain amount of ideological baggage goes with this idea: as many contributors point out, Bond is an imperialist, other races are not quite pukkah, and the energy of conquest extends to some pretty dodgy dealings in the sex war. Yet Christoph Lindner and his team show that these issues do not remain constant. To borrow Tony Bennett's and Janet Woollacott's phrase, the character some countries call Mister Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang is a moving signifier. This means that the nature of Bond's heroism slips and slides according to the particular historical period, or to the writer's point of view. For example, in Licensed to Look: James Bond and the Heroism of Consumption, Michael Denning paints the spy of the books as response to the growing Fifties phenomenon of tourism; he sees him as super-consumer of other cultures, who gives the banality of modern travel an added excitement: Fleming's adventures are really tales of leisure, tales where leisure is not packaged, commodified 'holiday'.. .but is an adventure, meaningful time, time of life and death. By contrast, Jim Leach views Pierce Brosnan's film Bond as reconciler of current tensions surrounding the dominance of technology. The agent connects the impersonality of his gadgetry to the human cunning that can make it effective. In the midst of these multiple views, one issue remains constant. …
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