How 'patriotic' should James Bond (and Bond 26 beyond) be?

Comments

• Ludovico

  May 13 Posts: 15,620

  007HallY wrote: »

  I suppose there's something weirdly 'un-English' about Bond, at least in the quintessential 'posh gentleman' sense. It's there in Fleming with the description of him walking into Blades with his slight suntan and cold eyes/scar. He even calls himself 'a Scottish peasant'. Connery had his Scottish accent, and Lazenby an unplaceable one. Moore was more on the gentlemanly side, although I always say I find him more a pastiche of a David Niven type - much more tongue in cheek and ironic, and of course more overtly sexual and even tough. Dalton in LTK looks a bit haggard and even let a bit of his Northern twang slip, Brosnan had his Transatlantic voice/vibe, and Craig had a sort of Steve McQueen, harder edged coolness about him... and called his mobile phone a 'cell phone' in his early films!
  
  I'm not sure if it's possible to go into outright American and for the portrayal to still be Bond. But I don't think it's a hard rule that the actor should be British either (in the sense that it's been broken twice).

  
  Anthony Burgess said there was something continental about Bond, more European than British. He said the same thing about Sherlock Holmes.
• Gerard

  May 13 Posts: 6,141

  Well, Bond has swiss roots, and Holmes had a cousin in France, so...
• Ludovico

  May 13 Posts: 15,620

  Gerard wrote: »

  Well, Bond has swiss roots, and Holmes had a cousin in France, so...

  
  I need to reread the argument, I'm not sure Bond's mother was mentioned.