In an agreement that shocked Hollywood, the rights to James Bond have gone to Amazon. 007 fans are freaking out, but Amazon may do Bond right. The key is to return to the source material: the books of Ian Flemming.
In recent years, Daniel Craig has depicted James Bond as a killing machine, an orphan with very few friends or cultural refinement. Of course, in books such as Casino Royale and From Russia with Love, Bond is an expert assassin. Yet he has always been far different from exterminators such as Jack Reacher or the characters played by Jason Statham.
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In his book The James Bond Bedside Companion, Raymond Benson notes that Bond “rarely sets out on a mission without getting an ally involved in some way, normally another strong male figure with whom he develops a bond of friendship and camaraderie.” Furthermore, “the Bond girls of the books are much more independent and crucial to the plot than they are in the films and often have strong characteristics to back their justification for being included in the story.”
This doesn’t mean that Bond is not a womanizer. Yet the new films can depict women the way Miss Moneypenny was in the Craig films: someone who can match wits with 007. This is not a woke departure from the novels — it is faithful to them.
Of course, it’s important to depict Bond as a man in a broad, powerful, and wonderful sense. He isn’t a Jason Bourne brute with no memory or a Bruce Willis knucklehead. John McClane, Willis’s Die Hard character, wouldn’t know what to do with vintage wine, but Bond knows his drinks, can quote literature, and his suits are top-of-the-line. He’s a gentleman. But, as 2012’s Skyfall shows with uncompromising clarity, he is also a man. Without apology and with a great deal of pride, he is a man. He has friends, lives in style, loves his country, and protects it from enemies.
The harder thing to pull off is how to show a new, young Bond. A major takeaway from Skyfall is that younger people are clueless and incapable of action at the proper time. In one key scene, Bond solves a riddle that has escaped the young, tech-savvy Q (Ben Whishaw) because Bond remembers that a clue refers to an old subway station that closed decades earlier. In the end, Bond doesn’t dispatch the villain, a creepy Javier Bardem, with a computer, but with the most primitive of weapons: a knife.
“Youth is no guarantee of innovation,” Bond tells the young Q when they first meet. The new Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) is several years Bond’s junior, and she is put on desk duty because she’s a bad shot. M (Judy Dench) shows more courage and determination than MI6 agents half her age. Skyfall expresses a rebellion against today’s young males who have forgotten what it is to be a man, whether it be the ability to couple noble purposes with raw strength or just the proper way to shave.
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In Skyfall, Bond is shown shaving with a straight razor. This is an older, more dangerous, more macho way to shave than even the safety razor, which itself is considered old school. “Some of the old ways are the best,” he tells Moneypenny before letting her shave him. Without the erotic charge, the scene could almost play as a father teaching his daughter what it’s like to be a man. Judging by the number of insecure and vulnerable women who get lured into pornography or suffer eating disorders due to absent or abusive fathers, there’s a great need for such strong men.
Ian Fleming once observed that his Bond books were written for “warm-blooded heterosexuals in railway trains, airplanes or beds.” That’s true. Yet they were also written for men who value male friendships, self-sacrifice for their country, and who know great wines and writers. Ironically, by making him less of the brute he has been in recent years, Amazon can bring Bond back.
Mark Judge is an award-winning journalist and the author of The Devil’s Triangle: Mark Judge vs. the New American Stasi. He is also the author of God and Man at Georgetown Prep, Damn Senators, and A Tremor of Bliss.