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Then there is the character of Madeleine Swann, who also has forgotten memories of Oberhauser's relationship with her father and the denial of the monstrous child that both men conceived that seems to her almost like a changeling sibling that she can only run from. The parallels here between Swann and Tracy Bond are obvious in that both women have a father that has created a monster alongside them and all they can do is run into the arms of denial.
I read part of Swann years ago, when I was doing my degree in French literature.
You are lucky then to have read À la recherche du temps perdu (In search of lost time) in the original French, because it contains some of the most wonderfully crafted language in French literature.
I think it's appropriate to SP because Bond is searching for his lost past and however much he denies it and refuses to talk about it (eg the "shrink" scene in SF), it catches up with him like a chicken coming home to roost.
Well, it's true to say the earlier ones didn't. They were pure entertainment, full stop. However, the boundaries between "arty" movies and "entertainment" movies has greyed a lot over the years, thanks to movie pioneers like Hitchcock, who elevated the thriller way above its pulp roots.
Certainly, the last four Bond movies have significantly more depth than their predecessors as regards theme, allusion and characterisation. This, in my opinion, makes for a more satisfying movie that will tend also to please those there just for the eye-candy and the excitement because they perceive the depth on a subliminal level.
I read Swann, not À la recherche. But to be honest, while I recognize that Proust is an amazing writer, I never managed to enjoy his novel. Not yet anyway. I will need to get back to him one day.
Well, Proust takes a bit of getting into. As long as you're not expecting too much in the way of plot, the revelations of the inner workings of the human mind more than make up for it. I just like the sheer poetry of the language.
http://www.mindswork.co.uk/wpblog/the-spectre-of-memory-psychoanalysing-bond/
It's a truly interesting article that I suggest to each fan and the reasonings done don't seem to me forced at all for not making believable the connections (overall considering Mendes' Arthurian references already mentioned for Skyfall).
In my opinion Spectre is already a good and entertaining work but a such matter adds definitely more depth to the movie and its themes.
EDIT: About the memory/repetition theme, I would like to add that Madeleine's conversation with Bond about the presence of a choice in following or less his life as a spy resembles too much the same words of Vesper during the intimate dinner after the poker's victory in Casino Royale; more, both the 2 women made their first meeting with Bond just through a mutual discussion of their past and persona: taking in consideration the article it's still more hard think that it's just a coincidence.
https://boojum.fr/proust-james-proust-laffaire-de-madeleine
In my opinion, the analysis could even be taken further, the organization of SPECTRE could appear, by its simple name, as the much more tangible embodiment of this allegorical reinterpretation of Bond's beginnings, of his cinematographic past, much more than Blofeld himself. It is in any case an interesting analysis.