Abstracts & Papers
The James Bond Novels and Films - The Creation of an Upper-Class Gentleman
Throughout all the Bond novels and films, an upper class, gentleman hero is being created. (Ian Fleming's life itself is the account of such a curriculum). James Bond can be distinguished from others through his clothes (he talks with Felix Leiter about his tailor in London; now he wears Brioni), his swift cars, his elegant appearance, his language, his manners, his title (he is Commander of the British Empire), etc.
In From Russia with love his opponent orders fish with red wine and thus betrays himself, as a person who has a certain culture would never do such a thing. When Bond talks to Ms. Goodnight (in The Man with the Golden Gun) about a car, he just says: "A Rolls."
She doesn't understand: "A Rolls?" - "A Rolls Royce", he explains. People like him would have understood immediately what is meant by "A Rolls". Numerous examples of such a kind can be found in the the novels and films.
I also intend to speak about the latest evolution of the Bond films and why they undergo a crisis at the moment: It is not primarily the lack of the former East-Block, Soviet Communist who is no longer there as the arch-enemy - there will always be other villains that James Bond has to protect the world from. It is rather the fact that the films have moved more and more away from the original novels by Fleming which offered intelligent thrill. Producers
(thinking of an audience that becomes younger and younger) have turned the Bond films into ordinary action movies with little genuine characters, plots and settings. And in such a case, James Bond has indeed a hard time competing against normal action heroes like the barefooted Bruce Willis in his undershirt
(Die Hard) or Nicolas Cage with greasy hair (Con Air), as he is bereft of what makes him so precious: his exclusiveness.
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