Lileks on Bond
Lileks finally watched On Her Majesty's Secret Service. I thought this was an interesting note:
But Lazenby keeps surprising you, because he displays something else you never saw in Moore and only rarely detected in Connery: cruelty. When he starts slapping around Diana Riggs – which ought to be against international law – you get a sense of the true fellow behind all the civilized postures. He’s not a nice man. If Lazenby hadn’t been forced into the shaken-not-stirred suave mode, he would have been much more convincing from the start.Well, duh. That's kind of the point of Bond. I noticed that too about Lazenby and thought he came off rather well. I didn't like Dalton just because he was weird-looking and lacked charisma, but he definitely had that mean streak going for him in License to Kill (much underrated, I think.) But Dalton got it wrong, too: Bond is not supposed to be some dark and haunted loner like Batman; hauntedness is for saps and people with fully-functioning consciences.
Bond kept his sadistic streak in check most of the time. It's one thing to shoot the villain in his mountaintop lair, and to off his professional uniformed goons with sardonic nonchalance. But there's a scene in Dr. No where Connery-Bond lays a trap for the corrupt scientist, Dr. Dent, who sneaks in and fires six shots into the bed where he thinks Bond is sleeping. Bond clobbers him and interrogates him, but Dent's revolver is still just out of reach. Dent recovers it, and threatens Bond, who notes drily that "that's a Smith and Wesson. You've had your six." And plugs him.
Bond knew the guy wasn't a threat. He didn't arrest him, he didn't let him go, he toyed with him, and killed him in cold blood--none of which are especially heroic things to do. I remember how startled I was to see that when I watched Dr. No as a kid, especially in the age of TV shows where the bad guys must never die.
If you were used to Brosnan and Moore smirking and cracking wise, it might surprise you like it did me--until I started reading the novels. There you learn Bond is a borderline sociopath, an arrogant SOB who has a vestigial conscience and a strong sense of duty. He would be intensely loyal as a friend, but I could never figure out how this character actually formed friendships. While there was much to admire about him, what was there to like? And even though his swinging lifestyle was the envy of the Hefner generation, Commander Bond was not at all chivalrous toward the endless parade of women in his life. Oh, there's no doubt he's better than the bad guys he dealt with. He would save the girls from danger, yes; but he also treated them like disposable tissues afterwards.
All to say that Bond is an interesting character. The good movies--and the good actors--make use of that. That's why I liked the new Casino Royale--Daniel Craig may be a complete putz in real life, but I thought every level of the film understood the weirdness of this dude. Not "wacky" weirdness; Walken weirdness. And he knows it.
At the end of one of the Bond books--maybe Golden Gun--Bond is offered a knighthood. He turns it down, explaining in a telegram that "eye am a scottish peasant". As debased as knighthoods are, and as much of a polished gentleman as he pretends to be, James Bond knows there's more to knighthood than that. He still believes in the institution, he understands chivalry, and he understands that that is not, by nature, who he is. He is a Scottish Peasant, and they do peasanty, unchivalrous things.
Like kicking flaming terrorists in the balls.
God love 'em.
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Anwyn wrote a piece the other day about characters flawed in precisely the opposite direction--heroes in Tolkien too overcome with conscience and nobility and the things of the spirit to do what needs to be done. Might be an interesting contrast.