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handful_ofdustPicked up the Adele theme song for Skyfall today, which completes a pretty clear pattern of nu-Bond credits tunes essentially comprising a conversation between Judi Dench's M and Daniel Craig's Bond. As a couple of people have pointed out, there's this weird maternal tough-love vibe between them, along with a strange intimacy--I know it's supposedly "creepy" to think of M as ever having been sexy, let alone of her being attracted/attractive to sex machine Bond, but what I love about what Dench and Craig are doing is that clear implication that the reason M holds her current position is that she was once just like Bond, albeit without the male privilege bullshit. That she was the 007 of her day, honey-pottin' dudes and perforating heads, before she finally figured out that as she aged out of that bracket, her career assassin's sense of detachment would actually allow her to puppet people well enough to save more than she got killed.
According to the Skyfall trailer, meanwhile, the newest villain seems to also have been a graduate of M's finishing school--some guy with issues, yo, who she picked up, shaped and set loose on the world. Except he's gone rogue and now plays fixer for the other side, or possibly several other sides at once. It's certainly true that loyalty doesn't usually pay out, for spies; OTOH, Bond's real loyalty seems to be less to Her Majesty than to M. It'll be interesting to see how he can sustain that, or if.
In Chris Cornell's "You Know My Name", which seems to be from M's POV, we hear her giving the newly blooded 007 her best advice about spydom:
If you take a life do you know what you'll give?
Odds are you won't like what it is
When the storm arrives would you be seen with me
By the merciless eyes of deceit?
I've seen angels fall from blinding heights
But you yourself are nothing so divine
Just next in line
Arm yourself because no-one else here will save you
The odds will betray you
And I will replace you
You can't deny the prize it may never fulfill you
It longs to kill you
Are you willing to die?
The coldest blood runs through my veins
You know my name
If you come inside things will not be the same
When you return to the night
And if you think you've won
You never saw me change
The game that we've all been playing
I've seen diamonds cut through harder men
Than you yourself
But if you must pretend
You may meet your end
Arm yourself because no-one else here will save you
The odds will betray you
And I will replace you
You can't deny the prize it may never fulfill you
It longs to kill you
Are you willing to die?
The coldest blood runs through my veins
You know my name
"Try to hide your hand, forget how to feel." Bond thinks this is easy-peasy, because he hasn't yet met the person who can make him feel anything; enter Vesper Lynde (Eva Green), and there we go. Vesper, who's working several angles at once, tricks Bond into loving her but has herself been tricked by the person she thinks she loves...and tricks herself, too, by genuinely caring for Bond, by the end. She's the possibility of escape from this image-driven trap, and Bond rejects that possibility in favour of revenge for her death, because revenge is something he can control--either he'll get it, or he'll kill himself doing so. M probably understands this attitude very well, though she does seem to have a First Husband at home. Is he just a cover, though, an infinitely-prolonged undercover operation?
In Quantum of Solace, meanwhile, Bond's path intersects with that of Camille Montes (Olga Kuryalenko, always playing revenge-golems). The song which goes along with this movie is "Another Way to Die", which frankly sounds like M giving Bond dating advice while mapping out the rest of his life:
Another ringer with the slick trigger finger for Her Majesty
Another one with the golden tongue poisoning your fantasy
Another bill from a killer, turned a thriller to a tragedy
Yeah, a door left open, a woman walking by
A drop in the water, a look in your eye
A phone on the table, a man on your side
Or someone that you think that you can trust
It's just another way to die
Another tricky little gun giving solace to the one
That'll never see the sun shine
Another inch of your life sacrificed for your brother, in the nick of time
Another dirty money heaven-sent honey, turning on a dime...
"You're nothing to me," she "says", but is that true? Increasingly, for his very loose-cannon tendencies, Bond is probably the only person M can trust--trust to go the wrong way, to do the opposite, to do what he isn't told to, go further and hit harder than anyone else. And in Skyfall, again from the trailers, it appears that as M moves quickly towards the end of her own career--as the villain calls force-quit on her usefulness, making sure Britain will disown her and withdraw their protection/support--she's headed into a place where Bond, the resurrected dead man walking, will be her only ace in the hole.
Does this mean that Bond will be manoeuvred into completing his training, getting past his issues, "growing up" enough to take on her old job? I think it unlikely. He wouldn't even want that. But he'll be there for her, nevertheless. The song--"Skyfall"--says so:
This is the end
Hold your breath and count to ten
Feel the earth move and then
Hear my heart burst again
For this is the end
I've drowned and dreamed this moment
So overdue, I owe them
Swept away, I'm stolen
Let the sky fall, when it crumbles
We will stand tall
Face it all together...
Skyfall is where we start
A thousand miles and poles apart
When worlds collide, and days are dark
You may have my number, you can take my name
But you'll never have my heart...
Where you go I go,
What you see I see
I know I'll never be me, without the security
Are your loving arms
Keeping me from harm?
Put your hand in my hand
And we'll stand
Asked and answered: The conversation, closed. I almost don't have to see the film, but I will.;)
According to the Skyfall trailer, meanwhile, the newest villain seems to also have been a graduate of M's finishing school--some guy with issues, yo, who she picked up, shaped and set loose on the world. Except he's gone rogue and now plays fixer for the other side, or possibly several other sides at once. It's certainly true that loyalty doesn't usually pay out, for spies; OTOH, Bond's real loyalty seems to be less to Her Majesty than to M. It'll be interesting to see how he can sustain that, or if.
In Chris Cornell's "You Know My Name", which seems to be from M's POV, we hear her giving the newly blooded 007 her best advice about spydom:
If you take a life do you know what you'll give?
Odds are you won't like what it is
When the storm arrives would you be seen with me
By the merciless eyes of deceit?
I've seen angels fall from blinding heights
But you yourself are nothing so divine
Just next in line
Arm yourself because no-one else here will save you
The odds will betray you
And I will replace you
You can't deny the prize it may never fulfill you
It longs to kill you
Are you willing to die?
The coldest blood runs through my veins
You know my name
If you come inside things will not be the same
When you return to the night
And if you think you've won
You never saw me change
The game that we've all been playing
I've seen diamonds cut through harder men
Than you yourself
But if you must pretend
You may meet your end
Arm yourself because no-one else here will save you
The odds will betray you
And I will replace you
You can't deny the prize it may never fulfill you
It longs to kill you
Are you willing to die?
The coldest blood runs through my veins
You know my name
"Try to hide your hand, forget how to feel." Bond thinks this is easy-peasy, because he hasn't yet met the person who can make him feel anything; enter Vesper Lynde (Eva Green), and there we go. Vesper, who's working several angles at once, tricks Bond into loving her but has herself been tricked by the person she thinks she loves...and tricks herself, too, by genuinely caring for Bond, by the end. She's the possibility of escape from this image-driven trap, and Bond rejects that possibility in favour of revenge for her death, because revenge is something he can control--either he'll get it, or he'll kill himself doing so. M probably understands this attitude very well, though she does seem to have a First Husband at home. Is he just a cover, though, an infinitely-prolonged undercover operation?
In Quantum of Solace, meanwhile, Bond's path intersects with that of Camille Montes (Olga Kuryalenko, always playing revenge-golems). The song which goes along with this movie is "Another Way to Die", which frankly sounds like M giving Bond dating advice while mapping out the rest of his life:
Another ringer with the slick trigger finger for Her Majesty
Another one with the golden tongue poisoning your fantasy
Another bill from a killer, turned a thriller to a tragedy
Yeah, a door left open, a woman walking by
A drop in the water, a look in your eye
A phone on the table, a man on your side
Or someone that you think that you can trust
It's just another way to die
Another tricky little gun giving solace to the one
That'll never see the sun shine
Another inch of your life sacrificed for your brother, in the nick of time
Another dirty money heaven-sent honey, turning on a dime...
"You're nothing to me," she "says", but is that true? Increasingly, for his very loose-cannon tendencies, Bond is probably the only person M can trust--trust to go the wrong way, to do the opposite, to do what he isn't told to, go further and hit harder than anyone else. And in Skyfall, again from the trailers, it appears that as M moves quickly towards the end of her own career--as the villain calls force-quit on her usefulness, making sure Britain will disown her and withdraw their protection/support--she's headed into a place where Bond, the resurrected dead man walking, will be her only ace in the hole.
Does this mean that Bond will be manoeuvred into completing his training, getting past his issues, "growing up" enough to take on her old job? I think it unlikely. He wouldn't even want that. But he'll be there for her, nevertheless. The song--"Skyfall"--says so:
This is the end
Hold your breath and count to ten
Feel the earth move and then
Hear my heart burst again
For this is the end
I've drowned and dreamed this moment
So overdue, I owe them
Swept away, I'm stolen
Let the sky fall, when it crumbles
We will stand tall
Face it all together...
Skyfall is where we start
A thousand miles and poles apart
When worlds collide, and days are dark
You may have my number, you can take my name
But you'll never have my heart...
Where you go I go,
What you see I see
I know I'll never be me, without the security
Are your loving arms
Keeping me from harm?
Put your hand in my hand
And we'll stand
Asked and answered: The conversation, closed. I almost don't have to see the film, but I will.;)
