Brave and broken: the James Bond of "Casino Royale" and "Quantum of Solace"

I HAVE A LONG and painful history with James Bond, stemming back to an article I wrote at my Christian-college newspaper on "Goldeneye," the first Pierce Brosnan feature. Back at that time, I was pushing the envelope in terms of what films I reviewed, making the case for including in the Christian conversation some profound or controversial films that were rated 'R', in each instance backing up my assertions with thoughtful commentary. I had a great number of conversations with faculty and the administration defending my choices. But I was surprised when one day, the conservative mother of one of my friends who subscribed to the paper challenged me on my article on James Bond, a rather lengthy piece covering all the previous incarnations of Bond as well as the first Brosnan film. I literally had no words to defend it. James Bond was and is such a part of the culture that I had never really thought to question him as a whole, and thought only to quibble with which Bond was best. It was not a fun conversation.

Let me be frank: James Bond is a reprehensible fellow. His lasciviousness, callousness, and above-the-law status are virtually the antithesis of Christian ideals of charity, empathy, and humility. There is no question why he is so popular: he is the unchecked id of the male species, free from reality and constraint. He is not a hero exactly, like our boy-scout Superman, nor an anti-hero either, like our revenge-driven vigilantes. He has no motivations, no fears, no strivings at all. He has something to do and it's going to get done, like a force of nature. He probably has more in common with the creature in "Alien" or with the Terminator: just carrying out what they were designed to do. Maybe that's why I can't exactly hate him, even if I can't defend him either.

The Brosnan pictures let me down considerably. One thing I noticed when watching the first sixteen 007 films in college was how maddening it was that James Bond never changed, never engaged emotionally whatsoever with what was happening onscreen. (The one exception was the end of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service," which was promptly erased by the first few minutes of "Diamonds Are Forever.") They're pretty much the definition of roller-coaster movies: fun and exhilarating the first few times, but quickly getting dull and repetitive as you know exactly where the next twist, turn, or thrill is coming from. Pierce Brosnan promised something new: emotion. In 1995, Brosnan promoted the movie promising a Bond with more depth than had ever been shown before, and further promises that with him on board, each subsequent film would show more and more layers. "Goldeneye" did offer a few glimpses of humanity (in particular his betrayal by a close friend, and a discussion of his steely exterior with his love interest: "It's what keeps me alive," he says, to which she says "It's what keep you alone"), but the following three films went back to the old formula.

So when "Casino Royale" came along in 2006 and Daniel Craig was out promoting the film as a new, harder-edged Bond, I could only roll my eyes. Not only had I given up hope of seeing a Bond that approached a real human being, I had come to believe that such an attempt would destroy the very essence of who Bond was. Because if he were real, then all the killing and womanizing and egocentrism would no longer be remote fantasy but mere ugliness. They would have to change the character itself in order to bring him down to earth. But would they take such a risk with such an icon as Bond, particularly when the series was quite financially healthy under Brosnan?

I share my circa-2005 mindset simply to highlight what a tremendous gamble it was to write "Casino Royale" the way they did. They risked killing the character. Think about the scene where Bond sits in the shower with his arm around a woman who has broken down in tears at having been rescued via two brutal murders. That scene could have sunk the franchise. That scene couldn't possibly have worked in any of the other films. And yet somehow Bond survived, finding an audience — in fact, embraced by audiences around the world. The new Bond no longer avoids being a hero or anti-hero, but is a curious mix of the two. In many ways "Casino Royale" is about the loss of a man's soul: a man whose desire to serve his country is so strong he agrees to become its hitman, who finds out that he's still too much of a human being to follow through on it, and who then loses everything and had nothing left but country. The film is sad, heart-wrenching, and brutal, even as it is tense and thrilling. But Bond is also heroic: he's the big-hearted soldier who risks himself for the common good. We never forget watching the film that there are real soldiers and real spies out there who have given up a part of themselves, their innocence and their clean hands and maybe a clean conscience so that we don't have to. "Casino Royale" asks us to consider the life of a spy, isolated and dualistic, embracing deceit, living at the edge of death, and what that does to a soul. Bond steps into that role and takes on the ugliness of what the average person can't or won't face. He is both brave and broken.

"Casino Royale" also took the risks of jettisoning the wacky gadgets (the only "gadget" in the film was a high-tech defibrillator, which I'm guessing didn't spawn a toy-line replica) and the villainous superweapons that will destroy the world (the film opens with a decidedly low-tech foot chase that is nonetheless thrilling in its freshness, using the stunning discipline of freerunning, or 'parkour'). The film is instead set decidedly in the real world, in the context of money laundering, arms dealers, terrorism, and conspiracy — and is all the richer for it. There is an uncomfortable scene in the film where Bond is being tortured, naked and bloody, and it refuses the sugarcoat the horror. There is no pit of doom he's about to be lowered into, or slowly-moving laser beam to avoid. He has no 'deus ex machina' gadget from Q to help him escape. He is trapped, caught, and helpless, with only his wit to guard him. This is the world we live in, where, yes, on all sides, torture is practiced. Where people walk out their door one way and come back, if ever, completely different. This film is a psychologist's explication of James Bond, laying out the rationale for why Bond inevitably becomes who he does. It gives us reasonable explanation for the layers, the coldness, the brutality, as well as the romantic side, the idealism, the bravery. It gives reason for the sardonic humor (here much toned down, less reliant on puns and heavier on the ironies), and the death-wish heroics. James Bond might not be any more moral than he used to be, but he is now a fully realized person.

(I have thus far tried to avoid spoilers for "Casino Royale," but to discuss its sequel, "Quantum of Solace," I have to reveal the first film's ending. So ... SPOILERS AHEAD.)

My appreciation for "Quantum of Solace" is much more cerebral than "Royale," which I find more or less the definitive Bond movie. But again, I keep being impressed with the risks that the Craig films are taking with the franchise. When "Royale" ends with the signature line "Bond — James Bond," you might think that Bond is at last fully stepping into his new persona. One might be excused for thinking that, from that moment on, we're past the origin story and back on track with the endlessly recycled adventures of James Bond™. (Roger Ebert certainly took it this way, and was kind of pissy that they defied his expectations of what would happen next.) But keep in mind that Bond has just, in the last day, been through the roller coaster of emotions of fleeing the spying life, being betrayed by his lover, who then regrets it and she gives up her life trying to spare his. Bond is not yet so cold that this bounces off him. He's in mourning, in grief, and yet is wounded, too. The mix of emotions are strong and complex: is he mad as Vesper for betraying him? Mad at the mysterious Mr. White and whatever shadowy cabal is fronting for him? Mad at MI-6? Mad at the world? At life? Is his last act revenge, or has he detached and is just burying himself in his work?

In fact, that is what the whole of "Quantum of Solace" is about: Bond's unstable mental condition. He knows he can't turn back the clock. He knows that the dead don't care much about being avenged. So what does he do with his life? How does he go on? Does he go on? How might he find (dare I say it) some quantum of solace? Of course, there are no sessions on a therapist's couch in the film, no monologues for Bond to reveal his state of mind. Rather, we have a whole action film centered around the varying intensity of Bond's steely gaze. We are meant to read between the lines, to see the process of piecing back together a life — any life — from the mess that was left him. We are meant to feel the tearing inside as each new stage in his grief and/or anger comes popping to the forefront. At times he wants to seem to want to die in the line of duty. Other times he seems to want revenge, or at least closure. Sometimes he just wants to do his job and get a good night's sleep. Sometimes he wants to never sleep at all. There is a fascinating little scene with Bond sitting alone at a bar on a Concorde while everyone else dozes through the night; he refuses, for the second film, to order his trademark drink, not caring what he pours into himself. This is James Bond as Everyman, the Bond who bleeds.

There are very few true trilogies in the history of film. The original "Star Wars" films is a good example of one: Luke, the protagonist, is three distinctly different characters in each film. He is the naive farmboy, the headstrong prince, and the zen master. The films tell one complete story, but also three distinct ones about different iterations of a character. (As a point of comparison, the usual way sequels go is to simply rehash the same character over and over in new situations.) It remains to be seen how the third film in this Bond series will turn out, but it seems like they're going for this 'true trilogy' pattern. There is a larger, overarching story being told here, with the main villain in "Casino Royale" being revealed to be just one cog in a larger machine of conspiracy; in this film we discover the nature and name of the organization, Quantum, and the rumor for the third film is that we'll see Bond face down the head of the organization: Blofeld, his Moriarty. At the same time, we are seeing different versions of Bond: the Bond who feels deeply, the deadened Bond, and the emergent Bond, whatever that looks like.

Director Marc Forster had an incredible difficult task here, taking on the second chapter. He has the least interesting part of the overarching story (neither the breakthrough moment of discovering there's larger conspiracy nor the payoff of uncovering its full extent) and the least cool version of Bond (presumably) of the trilogy. One would expect a massive audience rejection of this chapter, but Forster was able to inject it with enough heft, enough intrigue, and enough action to actually propel the film beyond the first's domestic gross receipts, a pretty impressive feat. I have to admit that the finale of the film, which features of lot of explosions that seem improbably fortuitously set up, lost me a little. I have my quibbles with the pace in parts, and with the casting of the Dominic Greene part. I'm curious to watch it again and see how I react the second time around. But I should also admit that before the film I didn't know anything about the Cochabamba Water Revolt, the real life event that inspired the film's premise of a contractor attempting to privatize water supplies. This version of Bond, although still pulling elements from the cold-war-era Ian Fleming books, stays remarkably up-to-date about the threats the world faces today.

I think Forster did well because he knew how to engage the audience: he knew that the icier that Bond gets in the film, the more we fear for him. Audiences have never had the experience of worrying for James Bond before. This is a whole new feeling. He was always going to be OK, with some one-liner to hurl in the face of danger or some gadget to save him. But this more human Bond can be hurt; he is hurt. We hope to see him heal. Forster is able to take the remarkable step of asking us to prize Bond's tenuous holds on empathy, compassion, loyalty, and trust. And, in the seeking, asks us to prize our own.