Bond's Obscene Look At Violence
Moore Not Less
Posts: 1,095MI6 Agent
I came across the following article which relates to the meaning of the violence in Casino Royale and such films in general, TV, video games etc.
'Bond' reveals familiar, obscene look at violence
http://www.courierpress.com/news/2006/dec/08/bond-reveals-familiar-obscene-look-at-violence/
JOHN GOTTCENT, Retiring Thoughts
Friday, December 8, 2006
In his book "The Company We Keep," author Wayne Booth talks about the effect fiction has on our sense of ethics. It's not that reading a graphic novel will make folks go out and shoot somebody, Booth says.
It's that constant exposure to such violence - in books, and by extension, in films, TV, video games and music lyrics - will, slowly but ever so surely, desensitize us, leading us to accept and, worse yet, except such violence as "just the way it is."
I thought about this recently while watching "Casino Royale," the latest James Bond movie.
I'll admit that I didn't like it - for many reasons. But most of all, I was struck by its persistent and gratuitous violence. The word I hit upon was "obscene" - offensive to morality or decency.
Before I sound like a prude, let me say that I don't mind movie violence that has a moral context. I watched "Saving Private Ryan" and came away with an awe-filled sense of what I owe those soldiers who endured violent hell for me. I watched "Flags of Our Fathers," a film with its share of blood, dismemberments and even decapitation, and came away with a renewed sense of how badly we treat those soldiers after we're through using them.
But the violence in "Casino Royale" has no such context. It's clearly designed to titillate the audience. And, given early box office results, it seems to be working.
Others who saw the film with me say I'm overreacting, that it's "just another Bond movie." They're right - and that's just the point.
Because this movie is like so many other flicks, Bond and otherwise, it contributes to the slow but sure desensitization Booth warned about.
Another thing I noticed about this movie was that Bond himself is really no better than the bad guys he fights. Like them, he's a sadistic, misogynistic, emotionally crippled, psychopathic killer.
He likes killing ("I would'nt be very good at it if it bothered me," he says). He seduces married women because "it's less complicated" - apparently meaning there's no chance of emotional entanglement, which would send our hero into a dither.
And even when he does seem to fall for one of this film's Bond girls, that doesn't work out, and he goes right back to killing without feeling it.
The only thing that makes him a hero, in other words, is that he's on our side.
That's just the kind of thinking that leads us to invade Iraq and torture prisoners. It must be OK because we're the good guys. If our country is in moral decline, it may not be because we allow abortions or have become more open to homosexuality.
It may have more to do with the fact that we accept a culture filled with guns, fights, rapes, torture and mayhem as forms of entertainment.
The funny thing is we could stop this - easily and quickly. We could refuse to go to such films, but such games, watch such TV, support such music.
If there were no money to be made in these ventures, the culture would begin to change overnight.
Obscenity is not about sex. It isn't about prudery.
It's about taking stock of what we allow to happen to ourselves, in small but persistent increments, when we elevate psychopaths to heroes and wallow in the blood they leave behind.
'Bond' reveals familiar, obscene look at violence
http://www.courierpress.com/news/2006/dec/08/bond-reveals-familiar-obscene-look-at-violence/
JOHN GOTTCENT, Retiring Thoughts
Friday, December 8, 2006
In his book "The Company We Keep," author Wayne Booth talks about the effect fiction has on our sense of ethics. It's not that reading a graphic novel will make folks go out and shoot somebody, Booth says.
It's that constant exposure to such violence - in books, and by extension, in films, TV, video games and music lyrics - will, slowly but ever so surely, desensitize us, leading us to accept and, worse yet, except such violence as "just the way it is."
I thought about this recently while watching "Casino Royale," the latest James Bond movie.
I'll admit that I didn't like it - for many reasons. But most of all, I was struck by its persistent and gratuitous violence. The word I hit upon was "obscene" - offensive to morality or decency.
Before I sound like a prude, let me say that I don't mind movie violence that has a moral context. I watched "Saving Private Ryan" and came away with an awe-filled sense of what I owe those soldiers who endured violent hell for me. I watched "Flags of Our Fathers," a film with its share of blood, dismemberments and even decapitation, and came away with a renewed sense of how badly we treat those soldiers after we're through using them.
But the violence in "Casino Royale" has no such context. It's clearly designed to titillate the audience. And, given early box office results, it seems to be working.
Others who saw the film with me say I'm overreacting, that it's "just another Bond movie." They're right - and that's just the point.
Because this movie is like so many other flicks, Bond and otherwise, it contributes to the slow but sure desensitization Booth warned about.
Another thing I noticed about this movie was that Bond himself is really no better than the bad guys he fights. Like them, he's a sadistic, misogynistic, emotionally crippled, psychopathic killer.
He likes killing ("I would'nt be very good at it if it bothered me," he says). He seduces married women because "it's less complicated" - apparently meaning there's no chance of emotional entanglement, which would send our hero into a dither.
And even when he does seem to fall for one of this film's Bond girls, that doesn't work out, and he goes right back to killing without feeling it.
The only thing that makes him a hero, in other words, is that he's on our side.
That's just the kind of thinking that leads us to invade Iraq and torture prisoners. It must be OK because we're the good guys. If our country is in moral decline, it may not be because we allow abortions or have become more open to homosexuality.
It may have more to do with the fact that we accept a culture filled with guns, fights, rapes, torture and mayhem as forms of entertainment.
The funny thing is we could stop this - easily and quickly. We could refuse to go to such films, but such games, watch such TV, support such music.
If there were no money to be made in these ventures, the culture would begin to change overnight.
Obscenity is not about sex. It isn't about prudery.
It's about taking stock of what we allow to happen to ourselves, in small but persistent increments, when we elevate psychopaths to heroes and wallow in the blood they leave behind.
Comments
As for getting into entanglements with married women so what, it happens all the time (I've been there!!)
Bond is an assassin, he by the nature of his work kills people as he is told to do. His character as it is feels nothing because he cant become attached or think of the bigger picture (mentioned during the torture scene).These people exist....period. Bond is a fictional character used to put these 'shadow people' into a context that 9 to 5 people can relate too. Critics are just wastes of space who live off the psycho analysing of something they dont understand.
As a martial arts instructor I found the fight scenes some of the most realistic portrayed in a film and damn good viewing.
It's a film, a story watch it for what it is and dont use it as another soap box to launch an attack on human nature...it's in our nature to destroy ourselves.
Seriously, yes, there are some in society that can be affected by watching violence or playing violent video games but please, the majority of us in the real world have the ability to draw a line between fantasy and reality. I am so tired of the people that make connections between violent behavior and violent entertainment. The people in society that act in a violent manner or use deviant behavior would continue to do so even if they grew up reading only books like the "Winnie the Pooh"
*ahem*
sorry, I know we don't like political entanglements here...
but come on. The author isn't saying violence is the main reason we have violence in america, or even that it is a major factor. But that doesn't mean it never has an effect.
I mean you believe in cause/effect, right? I don't think it is a good idea to assume everyone who commits crimes were just 'born bad'. I know from personal experience that environment DOES change people.
Its all psychology. You can't throw out nature OR nurture. They're both factors.
Action films will always fall foul of certain moral commentators. The irony is that the War on Terror is real and certainly a lot more gruesome and unecessary that most of the fatalities in CR!!
Violence is a part of human life and has been since first humanoid stood on two legs. It's part of our nature. And it's also sometimes necessary.
And to me, that's the key. To me, violence is not obscene if it's for a greater good. And moral people don't use violence except when they have to and a greater good is threatened.
I think that's the way violence in CR is presented, so I think the writer is full of it.
I would also point out that despite violence being endemic to human beings, the overwhelming majority of us still deplore it, so I don't see how he can say we are "desensitized" by it.
A small aside -- the writer mentions he has no issue with the violence of Private Ryan or Flags of Our Fathers, presumably because he was properly and understandably horrified. But let me ask him this: would those men portrayed in those films have done what they did -- thereby allowing fascism to flourish -- had they somehow been able to see those films beforehand? It's a question worth asking, which begs another: which movies really do the most harm? Realistic ones like Ryan and Flags, or more fanciful ones like CR? Just asking.
More objectionable, to me, are the 'splatter'-variety of horror films: "Saw," "Friday the 13th Chapter 848," "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," etc., which I feel are much more 'blood for blood's sake,' and are made simply for gratuitous titillation, shock and gross-out purposes---but even these are defencible on artistic freedom grounds...still, I think they're seen by too many impressionable children; pity that film ratings can't be better enforced...
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
Not to be rude, but as a film student I have to point out one thing. The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre worked much more on implied violence than actual on-screen violence, especially compared to modern horror films. Same with the original Phsycho and Halloween films. None of those films were really violent in viewing but much moreso in the implications and that was more than enough for the time they were made. That is part of the problem (And I am not agreeing with the critic), but films have had to get progressively more violent (Both horror and non-horror) than they have been in the past to have the same impact. Now violence in films simply doesn't bother people. I have watched relatively serious films in the past year where half the crowd in the theatre laugh at the sight of a decapitation or someone getting killed in a gruesome manner. This is much moreso in the US than elsewhere, but I think the biggest issue is that most violence in films isn't realistic. It usually looks quite fake. That combined with the fact that as a society, we are becoming more and more used to it, means that we (Again, especially in the US) don't see it as violence anymore. We know it's a film and we don't accept it as it just doesn't seem real. This makes it much harder for directors of more serious films to make a shocking scene (Like some in Private Ryan) work and therefore they have to make it all the more shocking. That is also why Casino Royal had to be more violent than the standard Bond film for it to work. My point is, violence isn't what it used to be. It really doesn't have a purpose in film like it once did. Now a violent scene is only as good as the actors and the director make it. In order for the violence to be shocking or to have a purpose ot must be very well-shot and well-written, which is part of the reason why horror films are no longer scary, they forgot that it is what isn't seen that sometimes has the greater impact on people.
Yes, the work he does obviously requires the use of lethal force in many instances, but his job is not that of a hitman. He is an agent of the British government to obtain secrets from its enemies for military, political, or economic advantage. His license to kill is only valid if it's used in the line of duty.
I'm afraid I'll have to disagree with you on that one. Part of Bond being a spy is that he also assumes the role of assasin. Two prime examples: TLD, in which he is assigned to kill the sniper, and DAD in which a) he shows up to kill Graves (before Graves pulled a Michael Jackson) and b) when Zao takes his picture Bond is labeled and called an assasin. Bond a spy? yes. Bond an assasin? yes aswell.
My point was the remake of TCM, and not the original, of course---and your point about escalation of violent content is well-taken---but you pretty much make the point I was attempting to make: The original Halloween, Psycho, etc., were stories, well-told. Violence in and of itself really achieves nothing...and it's up to the storytellers to frame it in such a way that it is a means to an end, and not the end itself.
Yes, society has become increasingly desensitized to violent content (and more's the pity), but so-called filmmakers who simply throw buckets of blood, viscera and severed body parts around generally aren't actually telling a story, IMRO---at least, not a quality story---and such artistic laziness contributes to the problem.
Which brings me full-circle to my point about death without consequence, and 007: these days, it seems a prudent time to examine the moral relativism of what Bond does for a living---whilst, hopefully, still being able to delineate Good from Evil...Fleming himself felt moved to address this in the CR novel, and it's even more applicable in the here and now.
Good luck in your studies.
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
Ah yes, the incomparable Friz Freleng and Chuck Jones B-) Nothing desensitizes like an anvil---or some other form of lethal force---deployed by a rabbit in drag...but only after he plants a kiss on his victim
Classic Warner Bros. animation---Nobody did it better {[]
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
I'm sorry, but I disagree. I love a good debate such as this! {[]
I view the role of the assassin as one-dimensional (and maybe this is where we disagree) - the assassin's job is only to kill a specified target, nothing more.
In TLD, I agree that Bond was under orders to shoot the suspected sniper. However, those orders were given strictly to protect General Koskov, who just happened to be in mid-defection out of the Soviet Union with the help of MI6 and in imminent danger of being shot himself. I don't consider this a simple "assassinate the sniper" assignment.
In DAD, he wasn't under any orders to do anything until after he returned from Cuba. He was AWOL before that. If anything, he was trying to figure out who the mole was within MI6 to clear his name. Assassinating Graves wouldn't have helped him. As for the Zao photo labeling Bond an assassin, since when did Zao gain credibility? He can label Bond a member of the Swedish Bikini Team - it doesn't mean he is.
To your credit, I grant you that the double-o designation means Bond isn't just a spy either. Maybe we'll come up with something suitable. Just don't say he's a spassassin!
Bond is an assassin, IMRO, in that he occasionally must kill for Queen and Country, but of course it's not that simple. Still, it's only natural for his enemies, who are quite often in the sights of his Walther, to refer to him as such.
He is, as Kingsley Amis famously pointed out in his fabulous James Bond Dossier, a 'secret agent.' He's a licenced troubleshooter, a blunt instrument, a provocateur, saboteur and, yes, occasionally even a spy. Whatever the mission requires B-) Sometimes it's an investigation, sometimes an infiltration, sometimes it's undercover---and sometimes, he's there to kill someone.
And Nobody Does It Better :007)
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
It is not Hollywood's job to raise people's children. People are just falling down on that job and entertainment makes a convenient scapegoat. Personal responsibility, that's the stuff. Stop telling people that if they go nuts and shoot a cafeteria full of people it's the entertainment that pulled the trigger, because that isn't true. It's the finger on the killer's hand guided by his decision.
And saving Private Ryan's violence happens to be overwrought, dramatically improbable, and a few people who were there will tell you it is an exaggeration. It loses any saddening effect by trying so hard to shock that it is alienating. Casino Royale was more effective at portraying the emotional effects of being around violence and having your life threatened.
Well said! Another example of our ridiculously PC time we live in.
Perhaps Saving Private Ryan’s Normandy beach scene might have been an exaggeration (personally I don't believe that) but even if it was an exaggeration of the actual events, through the power of cinema it does bring home the true horror of war which I think was Spielberg's intention. I remember watching Schindler's List at my local cinema and when the film finished the whole place was quiet and grown men came out of the cinema with tears running down their faces. When discussing cinematic violence and its role in society one must differentiate between "popcorn movies" i.e. most modern drekk horror films which are appealing to 16-24 year old teenage boys, and movies for grown ups. Now, if people cannot differentiate between reality and fantasy, and get their rocks off on violence - that is a psychiatric problem that they are suffering from. I don't think Jack the Ripper was a great movie goer for example, Hitler apparently loved musicals. Violence on-screen and violence in real life are two separate things and people - IMHO - who try to create a link between the two have a hidden censorious agenda.
For me Saving private ryan produced little or no emotion from me. But I have to agree Schindlers List is one of the rare films which brings out real emotions from me. I think emotion from film has little to do with the actual visual violence than it does from things like the story, the acting and the music. But then again if you see real life violence just knowing it's real brings alot more emotion than film violence, even if it is very realistic. This is where some people can't draw the line. Of course it also depends alot on your own personal beliefs and opinions whether you are moved by it and in what way.
Just because you would never link the two and can't understand how people could be so disturbed that they would link it. Humans are very complex, and you can't know how all peoples minds work.
If it was a bloke would he have done the same?
Drowning someone or strangling I would imagine is alot harder to do than shooting someone. He shows little or no emotion when he shoots people.
Also his first kill is bound to be quite emotional.
Brosnan's Bond had three pts out of four where he acts as an assassin or almost. However, this is unlike the Connery and Moore films.
For the record, the day after CR I found myself cheerfully fantasising about smashing a glass vase in someone's face until I caught myself, then realised it was the CR effect. However, I'm not sure it will last - I just don't empathise or sympathise with CRaig's Bond much.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Are you sure about GE? I don't remember his mission in the PTS but I don't recall that it involved an assassination. Anyway, I have to disagree that such a phenomenon is unique to Brosnan. Connery killed a man in cold blood in the PTS to TB and in DAF Connery 'killed' Blofeld. Plus, in FYEO, Moore killed Blofeld as well.
As for some of his statement’s about Bond. Well….
‘Bond himself is really no better than the bad guys he fights,’
You’re absolutely right John. Bond is a disgrace. What’s he doing preventing ordinary hard-working bomb-makers from going about their daily business? They are just trying to make a living like anybody else. What is he thinking when he tries to prevent Le Chiffre from financing international terrorism? It’s a free market economy after all and money makes the world go round. What is he playing at when he brutally defends himself against a man armed with a machete? Perhaps he was just trying to cut Bond’s hair. Honestly, 007, do grow up.
‘He’s a sadistic,'
Bond’s use of violence seems practical rather than sadistic to me. Need to escape from a building. Throw the parkour-guy out of the window, he likes flying through the air anyway.
‘Emotionally crippled, psychopathic killer.’
What, you’d rather he was a well-adjusted killer? That’s even more frightening. You’re not a psycho if you can still feel and Craig suggests that there’s a lot going on behind those blue eyes, however tough he might act on the outside.
And as for Gottcent’s belief that ‘the culture would begin to change overnight,’ if we all went to see nicer movies, well ‘Love Actually,’ is a nice film, and that made me feel such pathological rage that I could do a lot more damage after watching that crap, than I could after watching CR. Does he really believe that if we all went to see ‘Happy Feet,’ and avoided the new Tony Scott movie, that’s opening this week, all the world’s problems would begin to fall away. That’s a little fanciful to say the least.
And saving Private Ryan's violence happens to be overwrought, dramatically improbable, and a few people who were there will tell you it is an exaggeration. It loses any saddening effect by trying so hard to shock that it is alienating. [/quote]
No so good a point, Napoleon. There may be a few who were there (there were several beaches) who didn't experience the same thing on D-Day as the soldiers in Ryan. At Utah Beach, for example, they waded in practically unopposed. But many more who were there would tell you that, If anything, the violence of that first wave on Omaha Beach was worse than depicted in Ryan. As for Iwo Jima, consider this: only a little more than 1,000 Japanese survived of the 20,000 or so defenders. More than 6.500 Americans were killed and 20,000 wounded. That's pretty violent, and it's not an exaggeration. This information is available to anyone who wants to look it up.
[/quote]
Any men, Dan. The fact that those particular films focus on the American side is irrelevant to the question, which was: would anyone step out into that kind of carnage if they'd seen those films ahead of time? And given that (I think) we all agree it was necessary, which films, Ryan and Flags, or CR, are potentially more harmful?
I don't think that any of these films (Ryan, Flags, CR) are really all that harmful but I understand what you're saying.
It's not that I really think they're harmful; I'm just suggesting an alternate theory in response to the article: that a case might be made that the depiction of "realistic" violence, which doesn't seem to bother the writer, could actually in some circumstances have more of a negative impact than cartoon-type violence like CR's. Go and look and all that World War II newsreel footage from any nation you choose and see how many times you see a dead body. They're amazingly rare for a conflict that took 50 million lives, and when you do see one, it's almost always an enemy combatant. That's not a coincidence.