Thursday, Jan. 29, 1998 | 1:55 a.m.
James Bond is back. In fact, he will not go away. The James Bond films are the most successful movie franchise in history, with most of the movies among the top earners of the year.
"Tomorrow Never Dies," the current Bond film, opened Dec. 19 and was still in the Top 10 at the box office last weekend, having earned $115.5 million, second only to "Titanic" among the current hits.
Over the last 36 years, there have been 18 Bond films - 20 if you count the Bond parody, "Casino Royale," and "Never Say Never Again," the 1983 remake of "Thunderball," which marked Sean Connery's return after 12 years.
For the unenthusiastic, all Bond movies, which were initially based on a character created by Ian Fleming, seem to be pretty much the same: James Bond, the handsome, rakish British secret agent, after flirting with his boss' secretary, Moneypenny, and ably assisted by the devices of "Q," the equipment officer, escapes death several times. Bond seduces, or is seduced by, an untrustworthy woman, and finally, Theseus-like, penetrates the innermost lair of the villain and destroys him. In the end, Bond gets the right girl, usually drifting off with her in a boat, or at least necking with her near a body of water.
But to Bond aficionados, and scholars in the field of cultural studies, James Bond just isn't what he used to be. Fathers, brought up on the early Bond movies like "Dr. No" and taking their sons to see "Tomorrow Never Dies," have complained that the new Bond film devotes no time to character development. For them, "Dr. No," with its relatively leisurely pace, in which Bond flirts a little, drinks a little, then kills off a villain or two, is the ideal Bond.
But just as the audience judges the Bond films, the films judge the audience, providing a kind of map of cultural change over the years.
Literally scores of scholarly works have been written on the James Bond films. "The primary ideological and cultural coordinates within which the figure of Bond has functioned have been, first, representations of the relations between West and East," Tony Bennett and Janet Woollacott write in their 1987 book, "Bond and Beyond," and second, "representations of the relations between the sexes."
The authors, drawing on the work of the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, write that the figure of Bond has provided a focus "within the ideological construction of gender relations and identities."
"He's gone from being an anti-communist, to fighting rogue generals, to being against a combination of Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch and William Randolph Hearst," said Daniel Leab, a professor of history at Seton Hall University. Leab was referring to Elliot Carver, the villain in "Tomorrow Never Dies," a media baron who manipulates the news for his own ends.
Leab pointed out that the screenplay for "Tomorrow Never Dies," written by Bruce Feirstein, even has Elliot Carver uttering words attributed to Hearst: "You give me the pictures. I'll give you the war."
In the old days, Bond used to be at war with the Chinese communists. "Now Bond works with her," Leab said, referring to Michelle Yeoh, a veteran of Hong Kong kung fu movies cast in the film as a Chinese communist agent who cooperates with Bond.
Along with the political economy, the character of Bond himself has evolved through the years.
"Sean Connery was the classic working-class Scot," said Toby Miller, a professor of cinema studies at New York University, who is writing a scholarly study of spy films, including the Bond movies. "He's a person who, because of his accent, every time he says anything cultivated about brandy, is sticking it to the Brits. There is a dissonance between his accent and his observations, and in the Britain of the 1960s, that was an important part of his appeal."
Roger Moore, who played Bond for 12 years starting in 1973, was more like the Bond envisioned by the Fleming novels, cool and smooth and a little stiff.
Timothy Dalton was a blip on the horizon, and George Lazenby got to play Bond only once.
Pierce Brosnan is very much a Bond for the '90s. The Irish-born Brosnan has an indeterminate accent, not quite high English, not quite Connery, a reflection perhaps of the breakdown of English class lines. Some women find Brosnan a rather unsexual Bond, more interested in killing off his enemies than in attending to his girlfriends.
"The women are the key to the evolution of the Bond films," Miller said. "In 'Tomorrow Never Dies,' the time that would have been spent in the past establishing the relationship between Bond and the Bond girl goes to letting her have her own fight scenes. There are three to four minutes of Michelle Yeoh fighting. Normally, that would have been three to four minutes of her staring into his eyes.
"Also, another significant change: she has a fight scene and Bond is not there the whole time to see it. She doesn't need Bond's approval and protection."
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