Licence To Kill screening and discussion

Last week I hosted a screening of Licence To Kill (1989) at the University of Bristol and talked about its divergence as the first gritty Bond film. It was a lot of fun as me and my friend put on a bit of a performance by dressing as Miss Moneypenny and the man himself, James Bond, as well as running a roulette table for all attendees (see photographs above).
I also got the audience to think about the film in terms of its anomalistic nature by talking about some of the institutional and socio-politcal factors, which, I believe, had a hand in steering the film and its main character into more gritty territory. I also explained that despite the film's attempts to update the Bond franchise so that it reflected more of the trends and real-life matters of the time, Licence To Kill is not really regarded as a success and it was definitely back to basics when the next film, Goldeneye (1995) went into production. I asked the audience to consider these issues while watching the film so that we could discuss them at the end. Some interesting points were made.

I always wondered why this film did not perform so well at the box office even though it appears to be the perfect money-making combination of a well established popular franchise and the 1980s trend for one-man-army action movies and graphic violence. One audience member at the screening suggested that the time the film takes to explain how Bond goes from being the conventional smoothie we are  used to seeing to the bitter, twisted, revenge-seeking vigilante is simply too long and it makes the film feel slow.

There also seemed to be real issues with the female characters in the film, one of which has the promise of representing some sort of female power, but this hope is quickly lost when the two women begin competing for Bond's attention.

One audience member also commented that there was a lot of wooden acting and some awkwardly staged scenes, making the audience (and me!) laugh at several points throughout the film.

These aspects may not be helping Licence To Kill in terms of its credibility amongst the other films of the franchise but I think its things like this which have caused me to maintain such a soft spot for this film and what it was trying to achieve.

I'll leave you with some Licence To Kill treats:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugiGaYggRro  - After sleeping with her, using her to complete his mission and pretty much dumping her thereafter, Pam still cries for Bond (why??) until he FINALLY notices - what follows is probably the cheesiest set of closing lines of any film ever!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKhgGUpMTEc - Q turns up to save the day with his suitcase of high-tech gadgets! Fastforward to 1.39 and Q appears to be programming the highly technical signature gun with one of those calculators you get given in school Maths lessons???

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-t7fBHepPXU - The gory parts of the film which have made Licence To Kill the only Bond film to this day to be given a 15 certificate by the BBFC. Not for the faint hearted!

Plans for a screening of Licence To Kill

Licence To Kill (1989) is the Bond film which first got me interested in the series. I remember channel hopping on my TV one evening when I was around 14 and coming across ITV's Bond film marathon, of which they were up to number 16: Licence To Kill. I saw a man's head explode, another man fed to a shark, I spotted a very young-looking Benicio Del Toro and in Timothy Dalton was a Bond, who looked so emotionally chewed up (due to a revenge plot) that I wasn't sure if I could trust him to make the right decisions or if he was going to, or even wanted to, get out of the fight sequences alive. I was hooked. Licence To Kill became even more interesting to me as I watched the 20-odd other films of the series: as I took note of the Bond conventions I realised how divergent this 16th adventure was. However, it is Licence To Kill's straying towards more gritty territory, which effectively ensured its negative reception with traditionalist Bond fans and it didn't do wonders at the box office, spelling the end of Dalton's career as Bond. With the recent appraisal of Daniel Craig's gritty revival of the character, I have found myself looking back to Licence To Kill and making comparisons. It seems now that audiences are finally ready to see a man's head exploding and a Bond who gets it wrong and bleeds during fight sequences. I am currently in talks to host a screening of Licence To Kill at the University of Bristol so that I can bring this rather neglected gem to a new audience of budding young film students. I also plan to give a brief talk about its status as, arguably, the first divergent Bond film: the first to convey a much grittier storyline and hero.

Licence To Kill trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qAFVTpWz90

The Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington

I recently visited the Lilly Library http://www.indiana.edu/~liblilly/ part of Indiana University in Bloomington, as it holds unique items related to James Bond creator, Ian Fleming. The library bought Fleming's book collection shortly after his death in the 1960's: it includes his original copies of the Bond books, complete with handwritten notes. More unique items have been added to this collection over the years including original manuscripts of interviews conducted with Fleming's friends and family. I visited the Lilly Library in the hope of finding out a bit more about the Bond creator and why he wrote about this hero in the way that he did. Certainly the unrelenting excitement which surrounds the character of Bond as he completes his various missions is an experience that was craved by Fleming and my future research may delve into the writer's psyche and the origins of the Bond conventions, which we take as a given today.

South West Popular American Culture Association Conference

On Wednesday 19th February I presented my paper, For Queen and Country: James Bond and National Identity in the Daniel Craig era, as part of the James Bond, Espionage and Eurospy section at the South West Popular American Culture Association Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA - http://southwestpca.org/ 

As well as receiving positive feedback I also had a great time meeting fellow Bond enthusiasts and learning about their research into the field and I am now following the blogs of the panel chairs: Michele Brittany http://spyfi-superspies.blogspot.co.uk/ and Nicholas Diak http://heiligetod.blogspot.co.uk/

I was very honoured to be able to participate in debates about Bond issues with scholars who are in the process of publishing their work in book form or who have already done so, most notably in James Bond in World and Popular Culture: The Films are Not Enough, edited by Robert G. Weiner, with whom I also met. I am now looking to publish the paper I presented so watch this space!

Published work: Nostalgia, Nationalism and Notability: The Success of Skyfall

I am very pleased to be able to provide a link to the Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association's (MeCCSA) online Journal, Networking Knowledge, which features my first published piece of work. I presented this research at the annual MeCCSA conference in July 2013 and was very honoured to have it accepted as an article in the Volume 6, No. 4 edition of their journal. It is now available to read at the following link, along with some other fascinating papers from the 2013 conference. I have also included the abstract below:

 

http://ojs.meccsa.org.uk/index.php/netknow/issue/view/32/showToc

 

Nostalgia, Nationalism and Notability: The Success of Skyfall

 

SARAH KELLEY, University of Bristol

ABSTRACT

2012 saw the release of what has since been branded ‘the most successful British film to date’:

Skyfall broke box office records by making £94 million in the first 40 days of its release. The

positive reception from film critics would have undoubtedly gone some way to attracting patrons to

its cinema run, however, the overwhelming commercial success of Skyfall indicates that there were

more hooks at play here, amongst the promotional campaign for the film. This article argues that

strong themes of nostalgia, nationalism and notability (of the cast and crew), present throughout the

marketing and preview literature for Skyfall, played a significant part in generating audience interest

for the film. Through textual analysis of a variety of artefacts circulated in anticipation of the film's

release, this article aims to explore how these three themes engaged with the audience and helped to

ensure a successful box office run for Skyfall.

KEYWORDS

Analysis, film, promotion, Skyfall, success.

SWPACA Conference Schedule Confirmed

I am currently working on a presentation version of my most recent James Bond study into the national identity of Daniel Craig's 007. This is for the SWPACA conference in Albuquerque this February at which I will be speaking in the James Bond, Espionage and Eurospy section. I am very excited about presenting my work to fellow Bond scholars and hearing their research into a similar subject. The conference schedule has now been confirmed: I will be presenting on Wednesday 19th Feb, between 2.45pm and 4.15pm.

http://conference2014.southwestpca.org/ 


Here's hoping my presentation goes down well and that I am, pardon the pun, neither Shaken nor Stirred when all eyes are on me!

Latest Bond Study Completed!

I have just finished writing a dissertation, entitled 'For Queen and Country: James Bond and National Identity in the Daniel Craig Era', which explores the evolution of Bond's Britishness over the course of Daniel Craig's 3 films. I will be presenting this work at the Southwest Popular/American Culture Association's annual conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA this coming February.

http://southwestpca.org/

Here is the abstract for this study:

The most recent James Bond adventure, Skyfall (2012), sees Daniel Craig proudly flaunting his character’s British nationality with many a carefully placed union jack, chase scenes on the London Underground and a climax set in the Scottish highlands. A segment of the London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony, involving Craig as Bond and the Queen, had already gone some way in representing Bond’s Britishness even before Skyfall was released. However, not so long ago, in Craig’s debut outing as Bond, Casino Royale (2006), he was defying the British spy protocol, displeasing his nation’s representatives and generally downplaying his nationality. The aim of this paper is to explore why and how the British aspects of James Bond have shifted so dramatically within the Daniel Craig era alone. The research methods, which form this investigation, include looking at marketing and preview literature for all three of Craig’s Bond films in order to identify the themes and values attached to each one. This is followed by textual analysis of the films themselves and a summary of their reception by reviewers. This paper presents and evaluates the findings of this research in order to identify the various factors that have shaped Craig’s Bond’s Britishness and how the relationship between these factors has worked.