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Kingsley Amis, Drax's Gambit and the Reform of the Action Sequences in the James Bond Films
Dragonpol
https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
Please find posted below an article on Kingsley Amis, Drax's Gambit and the Reform of the Action Sequences in the James Bond Films:
http://thebondologistblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/kingsley-amis-draxs-gambit-and-reform.html
Please stop by and read some of the other articles on The Bondologist Blog - The Safe House of David Dragonpol. This is the first new blog article for 2013.
Please leave your comments in this thread - I do hope that you enjoy the article - t'was a labour of love!
http://thebondologistblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/kingsley-amis-draxs-gambit-and-reform.html
Please stop by and read some of the other articles on The Bondologist Blog - The Safe House of David Dragonpol. This is the first new blog article for 2013.
Please leave your comments in this thread - I do hope that you enjoy the article - t'was a labour of love!
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Comments
Shouldnt that be for the reader to decide? You can say this about an article by someone else but not when youve written it yourself.
Anyway I'll let you off as it was actually quite interesting. I do think you could do with an editor though (you repeat the same paragraph about the far side of Mercury about 4 times).
It seems to me that the thrust of what you are trying to say is that Bonds started out as tight thrillers with logical action, gradually they became Moore and Moore (do you see what I did there?) preposterous peaking with TSWLM and MR where the action is over the top and nonsensical before being brought full circle back to Flemingian roots with the Craig era and particularly SF which you state is 'hailed correctly as the greatest James Bond film ever.'
Firstly I somewhat reject the second sight theory in the TSWLM car chase. Yes Stromberg does have a lot of goons coming after Bond, seemingly knowing that the previous ones are going to fail but the gadgetry on the Lotus is there simply for Bond to make use of as he wishes and depending upon the situation. Let me address the points one by one (along with some theories refuting the second sight hypothesis) for the sake of clarity:
1. The sidecar - This is the primary weapon to kill Bond. The guy fails thanks to some nifty driving by Bond. No mystery there.
2. Jaws in the car - Jaws as chief henchman (see Strombergs line to Sandor 'you will obey him' and the way he directs the guys in the car) arranged the motorbike guy then waited up the road to see the outcome. When the Lotus drove by Jaws knew the bike had failed and he had to do it himself. The Lotus was fitted with the squirty thing by Q because he knows Bond is likely to get into chases with people so thats that one sorted out.
3. Naomi - This is the one that requires most second sight and the only (tenuous) theory I can come up with for this is that Stromberg sent her to oversee the hit as he realised Bond was a dangerous customer/had doubts about Jaws and his team. But yes there is no real reason for her to be there. Unless of course the chase is not as relentless as it seems and there is, say, a 15 minute gap between Jaws landing in the house and Naomi showing up during which time he telephones Atlantis and says hes botched the job so Stromberg sends Naomi?
4. The Lotus sub - Bond was investigating Stromberg who has an offshore lab so Q fitted him out with a gadget that may be of use. Presumably Q didnt intend you to enter the sea as Bond did (probably the idea is to drive in off the beach in the same way that the sub later resurfaces) but that was born out of circumstance.
5. The sub missiles - I find no need for second sight that if Q is giving Bond a sub he shouldnt arm it with both vertical and horizontal firing missiles. The vertical ones could be used to take out a vessel above you and Bond merely adapts them to use on the helicopter.
6. Strombergs sub - this is simply underwater security. Stromberg wouldnt really want people snooping around and being obsessed with the undersea world of course he would have underwater security which is tooled up to deal with intruders.
In conclusion the only real second sight that is not readily explainable is Naomi showing up out of nowhere.
I have to go out now but let me just quickly refute your final ridiculous conclusion that the SF tube sequence harks back to Fleming and Drax's Gambit. Utter balderdash Sir.
The SF tube sequence is actually the worst offender of second sight syndrome in the series.
1. Silva letting himself be caught in the first place- Silva is able to forsee exactly what cell they will put him in along with a guard so inept he is standing 10 feet from the cell but still lets Silva get the jump on him. If MI6 had simply put him on a plane straight to Guantanamo or the guard had been on the ball and shot him the moment he tried anything his plan would've failed. And his entire plan hinges on Q going straight to his hard drive and opening his cell door. If Q has the flu that day or a long lunch and a better guard takes over or whatever Silva is doing life. Just too many variables outside his control for him to put himself in that situation.
2. The tube through the wall - Silva's Gambit? Nothing like it. Silva's clairvoyance more like. He needs to place this bomb (years before - unless one of his men maybe did it once he was captured?) and then know hes going to be chased down that tunnel and Bond will shoot half a dozen rounds at him which all conveniently hit the ladder and then when he detonates it a train will be coming. Considering the frequency of tube trains is at best every 2 mins its seems rather fortuitous for Silva that he only has to wait about 3 seconds as surely in another 1 min 57 secs Bond would have slotted him?
3. And then of course he knows precisely where M is despite this only being mentioned 10 mins earlier when he was incarcerated. OK I can wear he has MI6 bugged if he has bombs rigged everywhere so I'll let this one go.
Le Chiffre sticking Vesper in the road is a valid Drax's Gambit where the villain uses his ingenuity to attack Bond. You could even theorise that Graves melting the edge of the cliff in DAD is a also a valid Drax's Gambit as he is just using things he has to hand in the circumstances unlike Silva who has the tube bomb rigged for no other apparent purpose than the off chance Bond might chase him down there (although I could argue with myself that he was planning to set the tube bomb off anyway to cause chaos and so that the police would be preoccupied and he could go for M without hindrance).
Anyway thanks for a stimulating read Dragonpol however much I refute your findings.
Thanks for your comments - I suppose highly critical ones are better than no comments at all, but only just. I feel a bit deflated after your words as you've picked apart much of my thesis which drew on Kingsley Amis' thoughts about the James Bond films of the late 1970s. I had thought that my argument was fairly strong, but evidently not strong enough for you. You are very bravely going against the grain of Amis' very astute comments and views about the Roger Moore James Bond films and their habit of 'second-sight contingency planning'. I must say, I prefer Amis' arguments to your own there and I've made my reasons for this clear. Silva's Gambit still stands, I think - uysing the environment around you rather than a veritable litany of James Bond henchmen everywhere! The links are fairly clear to see, I think. As you may have guessed, I'm not a big TSWLM fan. I'm more of a Fleming purist, hence my article, and how I think that Drax's Gambit has finall;y been brought full-circle in the Daniel Craig era series of James Bond films.
I'd really love to hear some other different views on this article?
Martin Amis has actually replied to it on the blog comments box!
It's hard to imagine how anyone could take Skyfall if they were new to Bond, though I concede most of us aren't new to Bond.
Well, the Craig era seems to like redefining elements from previous (mainly Roger Moore) James Bond movies, doesn't it?
See QoS for example - chock full of references to TSWLM and GF especially, more so than any real fidelity to anything written by Ian Fleming!
[It is interesting to note that, as a child, I first came across the word “outlandish” in a film review of Moonraker published in a newspaper – “one of the most outlandish entries in the series.”]
I don't think Dragonpol means 'interesting' in the same way most of us usually do!
Yes, that's a given. I can go on a bit - but this article has already been heavily edited!
I'm sorry if you only want people to praise you I thought the idea was to have a debate? If you just want people to say you are spot on and a great writer then I'll just leave you to it.
This I presume is the paragraph you are referring to where Amis makes his argument:
'What nobody could have cut out is the element of second-sight contingency planning (or negligence) that gets by in a film, indeed is very much part of the style of these films, but intrudes in a book. Your enemy has an explosive motorbike sidecar ready to launch at your car in case he’s forgotten to kill you for certain and in secret a few minutes before. In case that misses, he has already aloft a helicopter fitted with jets and cannon. Your car is submersible in case you meet such a helicopter while driving on a coast road. In case you submerge your car he has a submarine waiting. In case he has you have underwater rocket-launchers.'
Now whilst I think there is some merit in this 'second sight' argument I don't really see why Amis and your good self single out TSWLM and the car chase in particular.
The series is littered with it - practically every gadget relies on it. Take the DB5 chase in GF - Q relies on a goon getting into the passenger seat of Bonds car for the only time in the series. And TB is even worse - what possible function does fitting the DB5 with high pressure water tanks serve? And I like the way Bond is issued with fake fingerprints for the only time in the series just for the occasion someone checks his fingerprints for the only time in the series. Or are we to assume Bond wears fake fingerprints all the time and we only see this in DAF because this is the only time someone checks them?
And to claim it to be just a problem of the films and the Moore era I find a little hard to take seeing as its there from the very start in Fleming. It's convenient to say the least that Le Chifffe has a stinger in the boot of his car to cover the eventuality that he might be chased.
I couldnt disagree with you more on Silvas gambit. He is not improvising and using his environment as Drax did. He has already rigged a bomb in anticipation ages before for FFS! That's second sight in extremis for me. Even if you class his knowledge that there is a bomb in place and his leading of Bond down there is somehow 'using his environment' without second sight how does he know that Bond won't shoot him on the escalator or on the ladder (we're talking Doris Stokes levels of supernatural ability for Silva to know that all Bonds shots will hit the ladder).
In conclusion I think there is certainly some truth in Amis' argument about Bond villains having this second sight (although I would say that Q has a worse case of it) but this is part of the action film vocabulary - you might as well bitch about goons not being able to hit a cows backside with a banjo or villains refusal to just shoot Bond in the face when he has the opportunity. TSWLM just happens to be the worst offender but it happens to a greater or lesser degree in every film.
However the only way Silvas gambit can be classed as coming full circle in a Flemingian sense is in terms of being guilty of the second sight syndrome started by Ian himself in CR the novel and Le Chiffres spiked carpet in his boot.
My only thinking on the subject is.. wouldn't it have been better to ask us first, and then write this up? That way you get only the true mysteries, and would be able to go in depth on the multiple possibilities discussed for each situation.
Well, don't worry, given the rude and cool reception of an article I thought some people on here might be interested in, I doubt I'll post another thread like this in the future. In fact, I'm not sure why I even bothered writing it at all...
I think that you misrepresent what I said - I just don't get all the negativity here - the Bond films have moved on and we should move on. Perhaps you would feel dejected if you had something you worked on for a long time ripped apart in a few seconds, too. At least try to engage with the criticisms of the Bond films that I've made. And yes, I know there are thriller conventions that these novels and films comply with, but still, TSWLM (and YOLT) are rather gratuitous examples of this, hence the subject matter of my article in question!
The scenes along the coastal road in TSWLM are preposterous, for the reasons stated in my article, which, despite a fewv minor post-publication alterations, I still stand over. I have Amis on my side and that's a tough nut to crack...
Just because I dont automatically agree with you doesnt mean I am not grateful for you attempting to raise the level of debate around here and that I didnt find the article interesting.
I dont consider that I ripped into you needlessly but that I have tried to outline my reasoning for disagreeing with your conclusions.
For what its worth I do tend to think that there is some merit in the whole second sight argument; I was merely trying to offer some coherent theories to disprove the idea (which is actually what an enquiring mind does when testing a hypothesis rather than just assuming that their desired outcome is automatically correct).
I do disagree entirely about Silvas Gambit and I've already explained my reasons for that and we're not going to agree. As you say, the Bond films have indeed moved on in the Craig era (and for the better), but using Silvas Gambit as an illustration of how the plotting has gone back to Fleming rather than the ludicrous second sight of the Moore era really doesnt stand up in my humble opinion.
But suit yourself.
Two small points you may want to consider though:
1. If you are going to post your work on the internet for all and sundry to read you really ought to prepare yourself for criticism as there will always be someone who hates what you do - and most of them wont be as civil or articulate as me.
2. Simply because you agree with Kingsley Amis doesnt automatically validate your argument.
I will continue with the 30 articles I have left to post this year - perhaps we will agree on some of them. Until then, thank you for your comments and hopefully we discuss things again when the next article 'The Strange Death of Colonel Sun' is uploaded. Perhaps Martin Amis will comment on it, too!
Snipped for brevity...
I disagree that Silva had planned his escape so exactly. In another thread I responded to concerns that a poster had regarding Bond's fitness in SF and he said something to the effect of "I'm amazed at what people will read into a script to defend it". As I pointed out to him I'm hardly reading something in to the script if I'm seeing it up on the screen.
There are two things that happen in SF that help to explain Silva's escape. The first is that when his virus affects MI6's system the grates in the floor where Q and Bond are open up. So Silva didn't need to have psychic powers to predict which exact cell he would be in; no matter where in the MI6 bunker he was the cells and floorboards would be opened. As going through any of those grates would lead down, it's a pretty safe assumption that all paths would lead in the same direction.
Regarding Bond following him, Silva's reaction is an obvious expression of surprise and delight - in other words, he was not expecting Bond to be following him. So this renders the idea of him "knowing" that Bond wouldn't be able to hit him with his shots when he's on the ladder to be completely moot. The explosion was not meant to kill Bond, but to block off anyone pursuing him from being able to follow him (and, presumably, to tie up emergency services). As the path of his escape was clear no matter where his starting point in MI6 he knew that he would be heading for the tube station. As trains come so frequently during "rush hour on the tube" it was a safe bet that a train would have come through the hole within two minutes of him detonating the explosive. This also shows Silva's psychotic side; it was pure luck that the train that crashed through the hole was out of service. He easily could have killed and injured a huge number of people in his quest to get to M.
There are a couple of issues with Silva's escape but I don't think that having second sight to plan it to the second was one of them.
I can buy the fact that he just had the bomb there to confuse the authorities etc and it just so happens that Bond chases him past it so he might as well kill two birds with one stone.
The fact that really annoys me about his escape is seconds before Q opens all the grates we see the guard at least 15 feet away from the cell door and its not like hes having a fag with his back turned – he realises that Silva is up to something.
Yet in the next scene Silva has apparently covered the distance and killed him without the guy being able to draw his gun? I suppose its just about credible that Silva is on his toes and the moment the door opens he sprints at the guard who in the 3 seconds of confusion it takes for him to realise whats happening doesn’t have time to draw his gun or get the safety off (although come to think of it isn’t he cradling a machine gun so all he needs to do is take the safety off? I cant quite remember). The whole sequence is vaguely conceivable but why not just have the guard standing a lot closer and not paying much attention? Then I wouldn’t have an issue with it.
My big problem with all this is we are expected to believe that the whole affair is meticulously planned by criminal genius Silva but he leaves too many things to chance and relies on a lot of luck for everything to go in his favour. Surely you don’t let yourself get caught like he did unless you have every little variable covered?
All it takes is M to decide on a whim that hes such a high profile figure that she will station two guards, one either side of the chamber, and then no matter how brilliant his hacking skills he doesn’t even get out of the cell chamber because the second guard guns him down the moment the door opens.
He can know the architecture of the cell and know that at some point Q will open the door for him but are we to believe he also hacks the guard duty rota and knows theres only one on that day and hes particularly gormless on the draw? Why does he need to put himself in such a position? M is already being humiliated by the security breaches. If he wants to have a tete a tete with M before he kills her then he could just kidnap her on the street with a lot less effort than this whole charade.
I presume the easy get out for all this is he is totally mental and thinks it all just a bit of fun in his game to kill M. But IMO he endangers himself and his scheme by pointlessly putting himself in a position where, although he has a few aces up his sleeve, he cant possibly control every single variable.
Why not just go to London and get "caught" trying to kill M? In fact why not just go to London and kill M? If he knew she was at the inquiry then why bother getting himself captured, etc. Hell he didn't even have to wait for the inquiry. If he managed to plan an escape route out of MI6 I'm sure he could've found Ms adress. And the place wasn't guarded, Bond broke in twice! So Silva could've turned up, waited for M to come home then he can kill her.
If he really wanted to kill her at the inquiry he still didn't have to be so elaborate. If he somehow knew Bond would be sent after him why not just get his goons to kill Bond on his island while he's miles away hiding out in London waiting for the inquiry to begin. That way when he does get there he can shoot the place up without Bond strolling in and saving the day.
Although to be fair maybe since he's dead he couldn't get into the country but surely a man of his talents and power could've got a disguise and some fake passports for him and his goons.
Maybe as Wizard said he wanted to capture Bond, etc, because he's mental but I don't think Silva was one of the smartest Bond villians really.
Interestingly, Martin Amis, no less has replied to the 11,000 word article. I'd love to hear more of your views on the article either here or via the comment box function on the blog article itself!
http://thebondologistblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/kingsley-amis-draxs-gambit-and-reform.html
I've made a few very minor amendments to the article, post-publication.
I think it raises some pertinent issues on the James Bond films and I'd really love it to be the basis of conversation on here!
article and your excellent weblog!
Thank you very much for your post, DrunkIrishPoet. Glad that you enjoyed the article!
Any further views on this Amis article, at all?
I'd realyy love to hear from you...
Not exaggeration - Amis calls it "second-sight contingency planning" and I have to say that I'm with him on that one - but if you're read my article you'll know that I don't really share your views!
I say this having never designed a website myself, of course...
Yes, the piece is rather long at 11,000 words - Martin Amis notes this on the website comment box function. I repeated the quotes to make it easier for the reader to recall the points I am commenting on. Perhaps this becomes repetitive. I have rewritten parts here and there since its online blog publication on 29 January 2013. As you mention it, I will look at further rewriting/editing, with more sub-headings. I had the article blocked out in my head and I will endeavour to make it a tad more readable. It was thoroughly edited prior to publication, of course, but things may have been missed. I suppose it's a work in progress rather than a totally finished item. That aside, thanks for reading it and feel free ton add comments on the blog itself. There are some other articles that might be of interest to you, too!