On James Bond ...

 I am a James Bond film addict.

I got that out of my chest and what a relief ... now, none can accuse me of any bias, of any cinematic illiteracy.

This blog post has been brewing in my mind for a long time, and what made me sit at the computer to chicken peck my thoughts on my laptop keyboard was when I learned that Dame Judi Dench, who assayed ‘M’ in seven James Bond movies, was only 5’ 1” tall. I measure about the same. Then, I could have been...

I have seen every James Bond movie more times than I can count with my-fingers-in-one-hand. The worst of them all is Octopussy. This is not because my sensibilities were offended by the stereotypes attached to Indians in the western world at that time – a world of snake charmers. I have discussed this earlier in a different post, much earlier. My rating for the movie took a dive because the villain was so weak; the role could not have been written any weaker – no malice, no arrogance, no viciousness ... tut, tut. Drax (Moonraker) was good and so was Stromberg (The Spy Who Loved Me). Dr. No - not that good

Then, I also had posted how ‘Q’ drove the plot, and if you watch carefully (that is, without snoring) you would find on every assignment Bond gets precisely the gadgets he needs to get out of tough situations he would face in that movie.

This post is not going to focus on any particular character, but I will start with Dame Judi Dench’s last words in Skyfall: ”I did get one thing right”.

Perhaps only in my third viewing I made sense out of those dying words. The context is, I believe, her unpleasant conversation with Ralph Fiennes as Gareth Mallory (a sort of demotion for ‘M’), where, she says, “I’ll leave when the job’s done.”

The above means – discerned from another portion of her dialogue in the movie – that she would not leave MI6 in worse shape than she found it when she was appointed the head of ‘M’. This is what I would I have missed in all the times I was snoring through it.

Call me slow on the uptake, but watching James Bond over and over again is still thrilling, given that the scenes of combat are not as funny as in Indian movies, be they in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu etc.

I say, nay, indeed assert that there is no violence shown in Bond movies. Don’t get me wrong. The operative word is “shown”. I am not saying that there is no violence, only that it is more implied than shown explicitly. It is truly hard to see violent acts in Bond movies – the editor does the job. The best scene I have seen in this matter is when the thugs from a “shithole” (per Donald J. Trump) country fight (???!!!) with James Bond in Casino Royale. The Bond girl plays her role to the hilt in this scene.

Editors of Indian movie are no slouches. They ensure that the effect of every jab, punch, hook exaggerates the result, to get the audience whistling. To notice this one must be fed a steady diet of Indian movies – every jab gets the stuntman flying through air and crashing into the windshields of cars and or three wheelers! Every left hook lands the villain on the hook of a crane conveniently placed about 15 m above. What about the right hook, you ask. Say, at only 12 meters high! Hero’s fist packs a punch that slides the villain 20 meters denting the door panel of a Bimmer parked conveniently.

Indian heroes are both right handed and southpaws; taking that onto account, you may wish to switch the height as appropriate. Indian heroes can survive under water for 15 minutes – how else to make a movie run for 150 minutes, now reduced from the earlier 180 minutes (blame multiplexes for this brevity)!

Of course, in both Bond and Indian movies the female – the quintessential ‘Bond girl’ – gets in on the last act, if not just a little bit earlier.

Now, I come to English sub-titling Bond movies for Indian audiences. I can understand the logic – Indians are good at reading English but not in listening to the same from natives (English, Scottish, Americans et al. I do not remember having seen a Canadian role).

The syllable “cock” in cockfight is not suitable in Die Another Day; the syllable is not redacted but rather substituted by four, count them, four * s. But, in Skyfall, when Gareth Mallory says to James Bond “Don’t cock it up,” the syllable is allowed to be heard by the audience in glorious and fulsome sound by the Central Board of Film Certification, India.

Go figure! Of course, Die Another Day came a few years earlier than Skyfall, and Indian prudishness perhaps accommodated this word during the time interval! One can only guess.

I think I will stop here now. Leave something for the next time I am felled by Writer’s Block.

Raghuram Ekambaram