Bond is magnifique
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[line]
French intelligentsia contemplate the meaning of Bond
By Elaine Sciolino
International Herald Tribune
Friday, January 19, 2007
PARIS
James Bond has never seemed fascinated by the French, but the French certainly are fascinated by James Bond.
The British secret agent has driven British cars, worn Savile Row and Brioni suits, flashed Swiss watches and demanded Russian caviar and Norwegian honey.
But he speaks French — at least in the 1953 novel "Casino Royale." He detests English tea. He insists that his tournedos béarnaise be served rare and his vodka martinis be splashed with the French apéritif Lillet.
He has sported a French cigarette lighter and French cuff links, by S.T. Dupont, and drunk rivers of French champagne (Bollinger). He has romanced beloved French actresses like Sophie Marceau.
For three days this week, French and foreign researchers came together in a conference sponsored in part by the National Library of France and the University of Versailles to dissect and psychoanalyze, criticize and lionize Ian Fleming's debonair creation.
Titled "James Bond (2)007: Cultural History and Aesthetic Stakes of a Saga," the conference — France's first scholarly colloquium on James Bond — was aimed at developing a "socioanthropology of the Bondian universe."
"James Bond is a fascinating cultural phenomenon who transcends nationality and politics," said Vincent Chenille, a historian at the National Library who helped organize the conference, which ended Thursday. "He's very human. His faults are identifiable."
Hubert Bonin, an economic historian from Bordeaux, who spoke on "the anguish of capitalist conspiracy and overpowering," had a different explanation. "In France we have the myth of the savior, the Bonaparte, the de Gaulle," he said. "Here, we're always searching for the providential hero. James Bond is a very reassuring figure for France."
The conference was a breakthrough in French scholarly circles.
Umberto Eco, Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin have all written seriously about Bond, but the French intelligentsia has been slow in embracing global popular culture.
Fleming, a French speaker whose Bond novels were translated into French decades ago, never has been considered a first-rate novelist.
Film studies in France focus on the "artistry" of directors like Truffaut and Hitchcock; Bond films have been treated as haphazard commercial enterprises that, lacking a single director, have no artistic or thematic unity.
"This conference is a revolutionary act," said Luc Shankland, a lecturer on media and cultural studies at Sorbonne University who is writing his doctoral dissertation on Bond and British cultural identity. "To put this artifact of popular culture in a setting like the highbrow National Library is a kind of provocation. It's been a taboo in intellectual circles to say you like James Bond."
But on the political and the popular level, the French appreciate James Bond. Sean Connery, who is married to a French painter and played Bond in seven films, is a chevalier in the French Legion of Honor and a Commander of Arts and Letters. Roger Moore, a star of seven later Bond films, is a French Officer of Arts and Letters.
French television routinely airs Bond films; 7.1 million viewers saw "The World Is Not Enough" on the leading French channel, TF1, last month. A Bond fan club publishes a magazine called "Le Bond" and organizes trips to sites in the novels and films.
As far back as 1973, Jean-Paul Belmondo parodied Bond in Philippe de Broca's film "Le Magnifique." Last year a Bond spoof called "OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies," with a comic actor playing a French spy made to resemble a young Connery, was a runaway hit.
The new "Casino Royale" has been seen by more than three million people in France since it opened in late November. Eva Green, the film's Bond girl, is half-French in real life. French magazines have run lengthy descriptions of her upbringing in France, favorite Parisian restaurants and boutiques and devotion to her mother, the well- known French actress Marlène Jobert.
The film has had a ripple effect. At one point, Bond rattles off his martini order: three measures of Gordon's gin, one of vodka, half a measure of Lillet, shaken over ice and topped with a thin slice of lemon peel. The recipe, taken from Fleming's novel, has shined the spotlight on Lillet, a little-known apéritif produced near Bordeaux since 1872.
"We're a small company, and our distributors used to be told: 'Lillet? That's old,'" Bruno Borie, the chief executive of Lillet, said by telephone. "The film has given a boost to the brand. It's changed our place on the map."
At the Paris conference, speakers dazzled the audience with Bond trivia. Some lamented the fact that the new "Casino Royale" had lost the novel's French setting and had been transported to Montenegro.
It was noted that the title "Casino Royale" had a grammatical error in French: casino is a masculine noun, royale a feminine adjective, an effort by Fleming to give the novel a French- sounding title. The first French translation corrected the error.
As for his culinary tastes, Bond was a "pitiful connoisseur of wine," said Claire Dixsaut, a researcher at the European Center of Audiovisual Writing. He "never ordered a gastronomic menu," she said.
"He loves grilled chops, sole meunière, rare tournedos and fresh vegetables. He was, at the table as in his investigations, in search of the truth."
Other topics included Switzerland as a financial haven in James Bond, the geopolitics of James Bond, the evolution of female figures in James Bond and the metamorphoses and permanence of the Bondian personality.
The scholarly seriousness has amused some Bondophiles.
"The propensity people have to speak of so many things with so much seriousness — it's incredible," Jean-François Halin, a screenwriter of "OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies," said by telephone. "In our film we mock the French colonial, paternalistic vision of the world. We make fun of the James Bond films. But I guess you can find seriousness in everything."
[line]
French intelligentsia contemplate the meaning of Bond
By Elaine Sciolino
International Herald Tribune
Friday, January 19, 2007
PARIS
James Bond has never seemed fascinated by the French, but the French certainly are fascinated by James Bond.
The British secret agent has driven British cars, worn Savile Row and Brioni suits, flashed Swiss watches and demanded Russian caviar and Norwegian honey.
But he speaks French — at least in the 1953 novel "Casino Royale." He detests English tea. He insists that his tournedos béarnaise be served rare and his vodka martinis be splashed with the French apéritif Lillet.
He has sported a French cigarette lighter and French cuff links, by S.T. Dupont, and drunk rivers of French champagne (Bollinger). He has romanced beloved French actresses like Sophie Marceau.
For three days this week, French and foreign researchers came together in a conference sponsored in part by the National Library of France and the University of Versailles to dissect and psychoanalyze, criticize and lionize Ian Fleming's debonair creation.
Titled "James Bond (2)007: Cultural History and Aesthetic Stakes of a Saga," the conference — France's first scholarly colloquium on James Bond — was aimed at developing a "socioanthropology of the Bondian universe."
"James Bond is a fascinating cultural phenomenon who transcends nationality and politics," said Vincent Chenille, a historian at the National Library who helped organize the conference, which ended Thursday. "He's very human. His faults are identifiable."
Hubert Bonin, an economic historian from Bordeaux, who spoke on "the anguish of capitalist conspiracy and overpowering," had a different explanation. "In France we have the myth of the savior, the Bonaparte, the de Gaulle," he said. "Here, we're always searching for the providential hero. James Bond is a very reassuring figure for France."
The conference was a breakthrough in French scholarly circles.
Umberto Eco, Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin have all written seriously about Bond, but the French intelligentsia has been slow in embracing global popular culture.
Fleming, a French speaker whose Bond novels were translated into French decades ago, never has been considered a first-rate novelist.
Film studies in France focus on the "artistry" of directors like Truffaut and Hitchcock; Bond films have been treated as haphazard commercial enterprises that, lacking a single director, have no artistic or thematic unity.
"This conference is a revolutionary act," said Luc Shankland, a lecturer on media and cultural studies at Sorbonne University who is writing his doctoral dissertation on Bond and British cultural identity. "To put this artifact of popular culture in a setting like the highbrow National Library is a kind of provocation. It's been a taboo in intellectual circles to say you like James Bond."
But on the political and the popular level, the French appreciate James Bond. Sean Connery, who is married to a French painter and played Bond in seven films, is a chevalier in the French Legion of Honor and a Commander of Arts and Letters. Roger Moore, a star of seven later Bond films, is a French Officer of Arts and Letters.
French television routinely airs Bond films; 7.1 million viewers saw "The World Is Not Enough" on the leading French channel, TF1, last month. A Bond fan club publishes a magazine called "Le Bond" and organizes trips to sites in the novels and films.
As far back as 1973, Jean-Paul Belmondo parodied Bond in Philippe de Broca's film "Le Magnifique." Last year a Bond spoof called "OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies," with a comic actor playing a French spy made to resemble a young Connery, was a runaway hit.
The new "Casino Royale" has been seen by more than three million people in France since it opened in late November. Eva Green, the film's Bond girl, is half-French in real life. French magazines have run lengthy descriptions of her upbringing in France, favorite Parisian restaurants and boutiques and devotion to her mother, the well- known French actress Marlène Jobert.
The film has had a ripple effect. At one point, Bond rattles off his martini order: three measures of Gordon's gin, one of vodka, half a measure of Lillet, shaken over ice and topped with a thin slice of lemon peel. The recipe, taken from Fleming's novel, has shined the spotlight on Lillet, a little-known apéritif produced near Bordeaux since 1872.
"We're a small company, and our distributors used to be told: 'Lillet? That's old,'" Bruno Borie, the chief executive of Lillet, said by telephone. "The film has given a boost to the brand. It's changed our place on the map."
At the Paris conference, speakers dazzled the audience with Bond trivia. Some lamented the fact that the new "Casino Royale" had lost the novel's French setting and had been transported to Montenegro.
It was noted that the title "Casino Royale" had a grammatical error in French: casino is a masculine noun, royale a feminine adjective, an effort by Fleming to give the novel a French- sounding title. The first French translation corrected the error.
As for his culinary tastes, Bond was a "pitiful connoisseur of wine," said Claire Dixsaut, a researcher at the European Center of Audiovisual Writing. He "never ordered a gastronomic menu," she said.
"He loves grilled chops, sole meunière, rare tournedos and fresh vegetables. He was, at the table as in his investigations, in search of the truth."
Other topics included Switzerland as a financial haven in James Bond, the geopolitics of James Bond, the evolution of female figures in James Bond and the metamorphoses and permanence of the Bondian personality.
The scholarly seriousness has amused some Bondophiles.
"The propensity people have to speak of so many things with so much seriousness — it's incredible," Jean-François Halin, a screenwriter of "OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies," said by telephone. "In our film we mock the French colonial, paternalistic vision of the world. We make fun of the James Bond films. But I guess you can find seriousness in everything."
Comments
Was she a Bond girl?
FRWL, Chapter 11. It's part of his breakfast.
{[] I'm impressed, Barbel
;% Well, I've been reading Fleming for forty years now- some of it does sink in!
Here's a teaser trailer for 'OSS 117.' Seems to mimic the style of the Connery Bond films perfectly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X85P5Hc0kb4
And somebody else has created this using images from 'OSS' and the soundtrack from the CR trailer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yt1eOvb3fdw
I really want to see this.
I've wanted to see that for a while. I hear it's hilarious, but hasn't been able to get a distributor in the States. It had been expected to make serious money here, too.
I grew up in France and remember seeing the old, serious OSS 117 films with Frederick Stafford among others playing the hero. So seeing this spoof has been on my list for a while. I speak the language, so no subtitles is no problem.
http://www.amazon.ca/Oss-117-Caire-nid-despions/dp/B000ION52I/sr=8-1/qid=1170376467/ref=pd_ka_1/701-2845489-8637162?ie=UTF8&s=dvd
And it is subtitled. Just rented it last week.
Nice one. Thanks. {[]
By the way according to the imdb, Terence Young himself had cowritten a 1966 OSS 117 film. (set in Tokyo -{)
Furthermore, and once again according to the imdb, OSS 117's creator Jean Bruce created the spy hero Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath, agent OSS 117, in 1949. He wrote 75 OSS 117 novels until his death in 1963. Interesting, huh? Perhaps an influence on Fleming?
ps I found no other thread about the OSS 117: Le Caire nid d'espions 2006 film. Perhaps these last comments are off topic.
pps If you haven't watched this film, what are you waiting for?
I got a hold of one of the early films HH, OSS 117 se déchaîne with Kerwin Matthews in the lead role. It was fairly perfunctory, but the extras on the DVD were excellent. John Gavin starred in the 1968 Pas de roses pour O.S.S. 117 and I want to see that next, if only to see how Gavin cut it as a spy hero.
And as for the new movie, there's good news and bad. Apparently, according to one Brit critic who saw and liked the film, distibutors have decided it is too French for a UK or international release. But the good news is there is going to be a sequel, with Jean Dujardin once again in the leading role.
Better late than never.
Bond’s Beretta
The Handguns of Ian Fleming's James Bond
Agree with John Drake, the lead Jean Dujardin gets Connery's mannerism down pat: the adjusting the cuff links when entering a club, all the women turning to admire him, the nonchalent straightening and smoothing down of the tie, the swaggering, steely gait. It's uncanny, and you come to realise just how much of Bond in the 60s was Connery's creation and not really Ian Fleming's character. I have to agree with Loeffs that Connery's Bond, on entering the DC-10, would have to give us a rundown of how brilliant he is and how expert he is as a kind of joke.
The cinematography is a nod to those early films, the movie spoofs From Russia With Love and Thunderball mainly. The main joke is how chauvinistic the hero is, not just in terms of sexism but nationalism and colonialism, and how he puts noses out of joint when he is sent to Egypt. And yet you can't help enjoy his persona... It sends up the style, with subtitles announcing the location even when it's dead obvious, and lots of panoramic scenic views (although this year's Bond falls prey to that also, and also has loads of nods to past movies, something the makers didn't forsee).
It's not perfect - about 20 mins in it seems a one-joke movie and bits of this spy spoof remind one of spoofs of the day, of which there were plenty. Morcecambe and Wise's The Intelligence Men had suspect-looking men in fez's following their heroes around too, and that's going back a bit. Unlike Sellers' Clouseau or Baron Cohen's Borat, Dujardin doesn't give his character that layer of realness or genuine pathos - he is to busy perfecting his Connery mannerisms. It doesn't do enough with the credits or a big song, and there's no funny or serious villain, like Dr Evil or the Naked Gun nemesis, for the hero to go up against (another QoS unwitting homage perhaps?).
But the scene where OSS117 wakes up on a Cairo morning had me laughing out loud in the three-quarters empty cinema, and the whole thing looks wonderful, plus you'll never get a chance to see Operation Kid Brother on the screen, and the women are ace crumpet, really hot.
Roger Moore 1927-2017