Male awkwardness in DN / FRWL
Shady Tree
London, UKPosts: 3,014MI6 Agent
Yesterday I saw the Park Circus Films remastered editions of Dr. No and FRWL at the BFI Southbank, London - FRWL at the NFT3 followed by DN at the BFI IMAX. (DN was shown as a late programme change, as the cinema's copy of the billed film, Thunderball, had broken.) There's no doubt that viewing the films again on the big screen makes a difference, and I found myself enjoying many of the background details in the pictures which I miss when viewing at home, even on my 50" TV screen.
I made some new observations while viewing and I was also reminded of a few random thoughts I'd had in the past. Here are a couple of them...
In Dr. No, there's an embarrassing moment of awkwardness which really jars. It's at the end of the tense scene in the back room at Pus-Feller's bar where Leiter finally tells Bond that they're on the same side. Leiter and Bond shake hands, Bond and Quarrel shake hands - but Bond doesn't shake hands with Pus-Feller, despite some banter and their proximity to each other. Connery, glancing down, looks as if he wants to shake Pus-Feller's hand too - as if he feels he ought to - and he even looks as though he's about to... but he doesn't, and the fact that he doesn't (presumably because Terence Young felt that the gentleman Bond would regard the barman as having least status) means Connery's smile towards Pus-Feller at this point looks awkward, undecided and uncomfortable.
In FRWL, while watching again the shenanigans at Zagreb train station, it occurred to me that there were some underlying homoerotic tensions at play. The shady and surreptitious business of Grant linking up with the real Captain Nash in a train station toilet, and Bond's own furtive contact with Grant on the platform, believing him to be Nash, all has a whiff about it of transgressive gay 'cottaging' - especially since we don't overhear what any of them is saying to the other. My amusement at this thought was added to by the fact that the supporting actor playing the real Nash looks rather like Ian Fleming himself, although a little fleshier around the jowels. Could it be that the final, explosively violent fight between Bond and Grant is an expression of repressed homoerotic desire?
It struck me, indeed, that it might be possible to argue a 'queer reading' about much of FRWL, with, for example, a case to be made that the personal significance of Tatiana for Bond becomes less her own desirability and more that her presence and involvement in the plot provide a pretext for his lascivious male-bonding with Kerim Bey.
Incidentally, if Bond ever makes an overnight judgement regarding which of the two gypsy fighting girls should be deemed the more marriageable - the winner - we never learn what his judgement is: maybe Bond's not actualy equal to the red-blooded heterosexual challenge the gypsy patriarch has left him, to decide which of the two is the more eligible girl! The sequence has its cake and eats it too, as when Bond leaves the gypsy camp everyone seems happy, including the two girls, but without any apparent resolution to the question of the the girls' rivalry.
I made some new observations while viewing and I was also reminded of a few random thoughts I'd had in the past. Here are a couple of them...
In Dr. No, there's an embarrassing moment of awkwardness which really jars. It's at the end of the tense scene in the back room at Pus-Feller's bar where Leiter finally tells Bond that they're on the same side. Leiter and Bond shake hands, Bond and Quarrel shake hands - but Bond doesn't shake hands with Pus-Feller, despite some banter and their proximity to each other. Connery, glancing down, looks as if he wants to shake Pus-Feller's hand too - as if he feels he ought to - and he even looks as though he's about to... but he doesn't, and the fact that he doesn't (presumably because Terence Young felt that the gentleman Bond would regard the barman as having least status) means Connery's smile towards Pus-Feller at this point looks awkward, undecided and uncomfortable.
In FRWL, while watching again the shenanigans at Zagreb train station, it occurred to me that there were some underlying homoerotic tensions at play. The shady and surreptitious business of Grant linking up with the real Captain Nash in a train station toilet, and Bond's own furtive contact with Grant on the platform, believing him to be Nash, all has a whiff about it of transgressive gay 'cottaging' - especially since we don't overhear what any of them is saying to the other. My amusement at this thought was added to by the fact that the supporting actor playing the real Nash looks rather like Ian Fleming himself, although a little fleshier around the jowels. Could it be that the final, explosively violent fight between Bond and Grant is an expression of repressed homoerotic desire?
It struck me, indeed, that it might be possible to argue a 'queer reading' about much of FRWL, with, for example, a case to be made that the personal significance of Tatiana for Bond becomes less her own desirability and more that her presence and involvement in the plot provide a pretext for his lascivious male-bonding with Kerim Bey.
Incidentally, if Bond ever makes an overnight judgement regarding which of the two gypsy fighting girls should be deemed the more marriageable - the winner - we never learn what his judgement is: maybe Bond's not actualy equal to the red-blooded heterosexual challenge the gypsy patriarch has left him, to decide which of the two is the more eligible girl! The sequence has its cake and eats it too, as when Bond leaves the gypsy camp everyone seems happy, including the two girls, but without any apparent resolution to the question of the the girls' rivalry.
Critics and material I don't need. I haven't changed my act in 53 years.
Comments
As for the two FRWL moments in question:
-- We know exactly what Grant and Nash are saying to each other: the recognition code. Terence Young even has them pantomime it for us, in case it's not clear.
-- I had always assumed that Bond picks "red girl" (Aliza Gur), since she walks Bond to the car and is seemingly quite grateful to him as he leaves. By contrast, "green girl" (Martine Beswick) remains back with Vavra on the porch of the cabin, although she bids Bond a friendly farewell.
Of course we know literally that Grant and Nash are sharing the recognition code, but we don't overhear, and that creates, somehow, a sense of the illicit and the clandestine. It's not the plot itself but the whole ambience of the sequence, the 'maleness' of the situation and, in particular, the manoeuvre into the toilet together, which brought to my mind, by association only, the notion of cottaging. (Not that it matters, but I'm a straight guy myself, not given to such activities.) There's a lot of stuff in this movie to do with bonding and tension between men, and men watching other men, which enables, I think, a 'queer' or transgressive reading, should one wish to pursue it.
In 'Dr No', the villain's visit to Bond's bed to pull back the sheet and to look at his face seems creepily invasive - like the intimate approach of the tarantula - and it similarly suggests the transgressive, as does Bond's gratuitous penetration of Dent's back with another bullet when the man is already lying face down on the floor. Of course, there are literal explanations of each action (Dr. No checking Bond's identity / a vengeful Bond ensuring that Dent is indeed killed) but it's what's beneath the surface that's interesting. Not to mention all the Oedipal connotations of the business between M and Bond to do with Bond's Beretta - connotations transposed from the novel.
OK, I'll take your word for it. Just don't forget the sight of a buff, tanned, oiled Robert Shaw wearing little more than a loincloth and briskly walking with martial cadence on Spectre Island.
The way I saw that scene: the rivalry had become moot because after having spent the night with Bond, neither girl wanted the other guy anymore.
To which comedian George Carlin once famously replied: "And sometimes, it's a big, brown ****."
That's the great thing about film: it uses shadows and light to project images onto our mind. How we filter and interpret those images is up to us
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
1. the genres rules modify our normal responses to situations - in Bond films for instance we are perfectly happy watching Bond kill people which in real life would totally freak us out
2. because our normal "reality" responses are modified by the genre rules, the space created is occupied by voyeuristic and erotic meanings in certain situations and power-pleasure meanings in others. These are determined by our sexual preferences and fetishes if any.
3. A cigar is just a cigar to a straight man but may be much more to a gay man. Bond shooting a bad guy has a power-pleasure feeling for most viewers.
4. Notice though that the recent Bond films are undermining this - Bond's first kill in CR is conveyed as troubling to Bond and therefore to us. "Made you feel it did he?" says his second target. This is because Haggis and co. have CHANGED THE RULES OF THE GENRE. We cannot watch Bond anymore without a conscience or considering the moral/spiritual consequences of being a murderer, however well-intentioned. In CR Bond was been given a soul. But in FRWL and the other early films, the lines of good and evil, right and wrong are still clear cut.
...Which arguably is what makes him an appropriate Bond for his time: this particular, morally-conflicted, post-9/11 age...and ironically, the Literary Bond, in 1953's Casino Royale novel---near the end of the piece---becomes quite troubled by this very sort of moral ambiguity, presaged (as it was) more than fifty years ago now. Interesting.
I've personally never imagined or perceived Bond to be lacking when a heterosexual challenge was mounted...so to speak...nor have I afforded the Fleming novels a 'queer reading.' But I have no qualms about delegating such important responsibilities to others.
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
I love Connery's performance in DN but I have always found his performance to be a little awkward, not in realtion to this, but more so when he was gruff. I don't think he was smooth as he would be in later films, and the roughness of his performance has always struck me as forced, and therefore awkward.
If you're on this planet long enough - you see, hear, and read all manner of things you would have never thought possible.
Bond’s Beretta
The Handguns of Ian Fleming's James Bond
Wasn't one of the reasons that Dalton quit because of the homoerotic aspect, or lack of it?
So what you're saying here, delicious, is that Shady Tree is gay?
Never mind the implications for the cigar-girl...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K68THqDqPKc
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I dont know if Shady Tree is gay or straight but I should have distinguished between one's personal interpretation of a film and a more academic one. I straight man who wants to just enjoy a film probably doesn't go looking for possible homoerotic interpretations, but an academic/critic might. As a student of literature I made sure i stood outside my own personal preferences when I was analyzing literature/film in order to be fair and objective. But if Im vegging on the couch watching a Bond film I will let me mind do its own thing based on my own personal desires, as we all like to do when we enjoy a film. Hope that makes sense.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Sometimes a cheroot is just a cheroot... If you see a mad postgraduate with a book on semiotics, just smile! ;-)
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
Wonderful! {[]
The girl fight is flat out bizarre. Are we expected to believe that these gypsy princesses will fight each other to the death just to marry the chief elder's son? Sounds like a load of bull to me. Letting Bond decide is also quite strange. Did he slept with them both? If I was the chief elder's son I would not be too happy about that! It also struck me as funny that one of them was sewing Bond's shirt sleeve while he was actively drinking with that arm..must have been a challenge for her. Is Bond also judging the women on their sewing abilities? sexxxiiissstttt I would consider that whole sequence the low point of From Russia With Love.
1. GE 2. MR 3. OP 4. TMWTGG 5. TSWLM 6. TND 7. TWINE 8.DN 9. GF 10. AVTAK
Silva: "A first time for everything, yes?"
Bond: "What makes you think this is my first time?"
I love to analyse a lot of stuff in the Bond movies as well, and sometimes my interpertations of certain scenes in the movies are quite different than what others make of it. But in this case, I honestly believe you are over analysing this bit to far and though I respect your interpertation, I don't believe this particular scene was ever meant to be homoerotic.
First Grant is shown over hearing Bond talking with one of Kerim Bay's sons on the station. He notices the spy code.'can I borrow a match..." "I use a lighter" etc... He later uses that line to get into contact with the real Nash and simply kills him at the toilet and takes his identity to fool Bond. Thats the way it should be interpreted. No homoerotic meanings (or hidden meanings) whatsoever.
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If I'm right about this, it would parallel, sort of, the implicit lesbianism of Klebb's interest in Tatiana. (It's more explicit in the novel). And note how, on SPECTRE Island, Klebb's admiring look at the spectacle of the bikini-clad blonde massaging Grant is intriguingly ambiguous, with an implication, again, that it's the woman's form which preoccupies Klebb more than Grant's (which she's there to assess professionally). From the beginning of the movie, therefore, the relationship of the relay of looks to sexual orientation is subtly in play. Klebb's villainy is codified, in part, by her lesbianism, which within the homophobic value system of Bond's world is an intolerable aberration (though there's more to Klebb's villainy than that, of course). If, as I have previously argued in this thread, there is any homoerotic tension associated with 'the male gaze' of the movie then this would similarly be intolerable in terms of Bondian ideology; any repressed energies of this sort are dissipated in on-screen spectacles of male-on-male violence (particularly ferocious in the case of Bond's 'climactic' fight with Grant).
Hmm, the female competition is out cold in the next compartment, you have a silenced pistol with Bond on his knees...what can you persuade him to do for you?
Dalton - the weak and weepy Bond!