“How Safe Do You Feel?”: James Bond, Skyfall, and the Politics of the Secret Agent in an Age of Ubiquitous Threat

This chapter considers the transmutations of the crime genre’s endlessly reproducible heroes in the wake of the Second World War. More or less created by Arthur Conan Doyle (despite a few partial forerunners), series centred round the repeated exploits of a single figure — usually a detective such as Sherlock Holmes or an undercover agent such as James Bond — have dominated bestseller lists throughout the twentieth century and the beginning of this one. But such stories have only an uneasy relationship with what we might normally think of as literary history. It is a form centred not around individual books but around their heroes. However, detective or secret agent series-heroes can be very effective weathervanes of public anxieties: of what, at particular times, we fear most and most need to feel that someone, somewhere can resolve.

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The Cultural Life of James Bond

10.5117/9789462982185 ◽

2020 ◽

Keyword(s):

Popular Culture ◽

Literary Creation ◽

James Bond ◽

Cultural Life ◽

Race Ethnicity ◽

Film Series ◽

Canonical Texts ◽

Secret Agent ◽

Bond Phenomenon

The release of No Time To Die in 2020 heralds the arrival of the twenty-fifth installment in the James Bond film series. Since the release of Dr. No in 1962, the cinematic James Bond has expedited the transformation of Ian Fleming's literary creation into an icon of western popular culture that has captivated audiences across the globe by transcending barriers of ideology, nation, empire, gender, race, ethnicity, and generation. The Cultural Life of James Bond: Specters of 007 untangles the seemingly perpetual allure of the Bond phenomenon by looking at the non-canonical texts and contexts that encompass the cultural life of James Bond. Chronicling the evolution of the British secret agent over half a century of political, social, and cultural permutations, the fifteen chapters examine the Bond-brand beyond the film series and across media platforms while understanding these ancillary texts and contexts as sites of negotiation with the Eon franchise.

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M.I.A.: Actors, acting and Swedish superspy Carl Hamilton

Journal of Scandinavian Cinema ◽

10.1386/jsca_00005_1 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 9 (3) ◽

pp. 289-309 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Chris Holmlund

Keyword(s):

James Bond ◽

Clint Eastwood ◽

Secret Agent ◽

The Brain

Carl Gustaf Gilbert Hamilton is the best-known of Swedish fictional spies – in Scandinavia at least. The brain child of novelist Jan Guillou, Hamilton is Sweden’s James Bond or Dirty Harry. Five prominent Swedish actors – Stellan Skarsgård, Peter Haber, Stefan Sauk, Peter Stormare and Mikael Persbrandt – have played the spy on-screen, yet unlike Sean Connery and Daniel Craig as Bond or Clint Eastwood as Harry, their performances have been largely unnoticed, even in Sweden. This article studies their acting with two goals in mind: (1) to show how actors have shaped Sweden’s best-known secret agent on film and for TV, and (2) to elucidate how their acting decisions respond to genre customs and constraints. In conclusion I comment on why the screen Hamiltons have not found audiences outside Scandinavia and indicate ways that transnational action genres have helped reshape Swedish culture, transforming one of its national icons, Hamilton, in the process.

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THE PERILS OF BEING A SPY: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF CASINO ROYALE (2006) THEME SONG YOU KNOW MY NAME

Towards Excellence ◽

10.37867/te130114 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 148-156

Author(s):

Chetan Trivedi ◽

Rohal Raval

Keyword(s):

Present Article ◽

Critical Analysis ◽

Psychological Effects ◽

James Bond ◽

Psychological Realism ◽

Self Defense ◽

Greater Good ◽

Secret Agent

The present article offers a critical analysis of the Theme Song You Know My Name that accompanies and serves as the title song for the 21st James Bond film Casino Royale (2006). A reboot of the Bond franchise, Casino is credited with introducing more physical and psychological realism to the series compared to previous instalments. As such, the song paints a picture of the constant perils that characterize the life of a secret agent along with the personal sacrifices (s)he needs to make in service of country and the greater good. Moreover, it raises pertinent questions regarding the psychological effects of taking lives, whether in self-defense or for safety and security of the country. The themes of death, killing, failure, betrayal, and the need of sacrifices on part of the agent are explored through an interesting blending or interweaving of ‘voices’ of past and prospective secret agents along with warnings from Fate and Bond’s own reply. The analysis goes on to reveal the depth and richness of meaning in lyrics which at first sight or hearing might be considered devoid of emotional or psychological depth and realism.

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