Physiques/Physics Over Figures Some Thoughts on James Bond’s Nostalgia JUDITH ROOF ● ● ● The identifying three dots. Brief theme music. James Bond enters an apart- ment and fnds another MI6 agent shot and dying. In constant contact with MI6’s screen-flled headquarters, Bond on the instructions of M, abandons the dying agent and in a car dri"en !y female agent #"e, begins pursuing the culprit who, it seems, has stolen a computer dri"e with a complete list of $%T& agents. Thus ensues a twel"e-minute action sequence that begins with a car chase through the crowded streets of Istanbul a car wreck and gun fght with the malefactor and the police who ha"e also !een chasing them, and a motorcycle chase across the tiled roofs of the city (again all tracked !y the location ser"ices on headquarters screens). Then the pursued "illain leaps onto a train pulling out of a station and Bond subsequently leaps onto the mo"ing train from his motorcycle. *isticu+s on the roofs of speeding train cars ensue; the "illain uncouples the cars in which Bond is riding from the front of the train. Bond then deploys a steam sho"el on the disconnected car to reconnect the back part of the train to the front crawls o"er the sho"el head into a car he has used the steam sho"el to crash into, and catches up with the "illain. There are more fst fghts on top of the train cars, as the train wea"es through mountains and goes in and out of tunnels. -uring this protracted railroad battle, #"e has continued to chase the train in her "ehicle, which headquarters still tracks. Beating the train to a .unction with a bridge, #"e Judith Roof is (he Willi0m S.01espe0re 2ro3essor o3 4ng lish 0( Ri5e Uni6ersi(78 Tex0s$ Volume 3 · Issue 1 · Spring 2020 ISSN 2514 21!" DOI# 10$24"!!%&bs$5! Dis(ribu(ed under ** +, 4$0 U- tells headquarters she can see the two men fghting, !ut that she does not ha"e a clear shot. /eadquarters orders her to shoot anyway. She fres and hits Bond who falls into a deep la'e. Title sequence. The 1231 James Bond flm Skyfall continues the Bond tradition of elaborate opening chase sequences that depend primarily upon the physical capabilities of humans and associated machines (cars, motorcycles, trains, airplanes, boats). -e- spite headquarters’ quaint trac'ing of Bond in Skyfall’s opening sequence, Bond’s talents still consist mainly of his rapid physical responses, his ability to discern accurately relati"e speed and space, his physical strength, his hand-to-hand com- bat s'ills, his in"enti"eness with machines’ capabilities (using the steam sho"el to re-hook the train cars, for example) and his general ability to withstand physical punishment. There is really nothing new here 5 in fact it quite openly resurrects the old Bond aura e"en though the now computer-festooned headquarters has that !usy post-92s wallpapered-with-screens look that is supposed to suggest immensely calculated control. But screens do not necessarily signal impro"ed efficiency or .udgment, as orders from that algorithmically-managed centre ha"e nothing !ut perhaps a negati"e bearing on the outcome of Bond’s battle: M gi"es #"e what turns out to be the wrong command, to shoot at the "illain as he battles Bond on the train. This typically elaborate and prolonged opening sequence, along with the rest of the flm, makes decidedly "isible one of the persistent dynamics of the James Bond flm tradition8 nostalgia for a time when humans go"erned ma- chines; nostalgia for past Bond ad"entures. But e"en the earliest Bond flms, Dr. No (3661) and From Russia With Love (3669) are nostalgic, already staging these human battles with (albeit primiti"e) calculating machines and other electronic :technologies;. And the human ad"antage, in the end is always an in"enti"e physicality a <exibility that can thin' beyond and outside of calculation and that fnally rests on the talents and courage of an agent capable of operating him- self !eyond the capacities of calculation. The word :nostalgia; originally meant homesickness 5 a desire to return to a pre"ious time and place. By the time the James Bond series gets to its most re- cent additions, Skyfall and Spectre (123=) this nostalgia erupts o"ertly and repeat- edly not only in direct reference to the agent’s preferred :physical; methods, !ut also to characters and e"ents from the past as well as the pre"ious flms’ style, pace, episodic quality and multiple, e4otic settings. In Skyfall although MI6’s headquarters ha"e mo"ed underground as a result of >aoul 0il"a’s computer at- tack the new creepy unfamiliar setting stylistically anticipates the nostalgia of the flm’s long fnal battle that takes place at Bond’s desolate childhood manse in 2 In(ern0(ion0l Journ0l o3 J0mes +on) Studies · Volume 3 · Issue 1 · Spring 2020 the wilds of Scotland. &nly the temporary headquarters, which now displays a proliferation of apparently-informati"e screens on its dingy walls, has mo"ed energetically into the age of calculation. This shi? in the headquarters’ appear- ance and now-stolid dependence on algorithmic machines, howe"er reprises what had been in the pre-1662s Bond flms, the computer-enabled ambitions of humanity’s enemies 5 from -r. $o’s missile control in Dr. No and @oldfnger’s computers and lasers in Goldfiner (366A), to BlofeldBs computer-controlled oil rig and satellite in Diamoids !re Forever (36C3). Skyfall and Spectre together consolidate what has been nostalgically e"ident in the Bond flms all along: the battle between human heroes who rely on human skills and the power-hungry ambitions of computer-dependent demagogues for world domination. These two flms not only make this earlier pattern e"en more defniti"ely e"ident they also locate computing machines themsel"es as the en- ablers of such ambitions. Just as the "illains of these two flms ha"e amplifed their power exponentially !y expanding both the deployment and the range of their computers, so Bond faces e"en more threatening, inhumane, and appar- ently omniscient opponents that ha"e become encompassing systems that in their permeation of informational networ's, are now omnipotent. And other :networ's; do not defeat such networ's 5 only human ae is only human talents, only human fortitude, only Bond can. The computer-aided enemy that has long been a feature of Bond flms is, alas, no longer a mere specter 5 a science-fction potential in diegeses in which megalomaniac criminals employ calculating machines to aid their attempts at world domination. Before the wide distri!ution of computers to consumers and the a"ailability of the internet to commercial use, calculating machines connoted a 'ind of elite specialisation a'in to something li'e the space programme. In fact space programmes were Bond’s computer "illains’ frst targets, as the potential for such systems to control human beings is present in the earliest Bond flms 5 such as -r $o’s missile toppling plot. Although ofen employed in the flms as a tool for the "illains, calculating machines, originally deployed as support for mis- siles, satellites, and other control mechanisms operating from space, become themsel"es a means of direct control o"er human acti"ities. The idea of informa- tion-controlling entities who manage systems in their own interest may be cur- rently more a condition of contemporary life than a species of heroic-fction ad- "ersary as Skyfall and Spectre both feature "illains whose modus operaidi are en- tirely algorithmic, manifesting a deep nostalgia for a time before calculation ma- chine control. In Spectre &berhauserDBlofeld organises a criminal conspiracy to J. Roo3 · Some T.oug.(s o3 J0mes +on):s Nost0lgi0 3 control all of the world’s information-gathering agencies 5 a project in which the duplicitous go"ernment official :E; not only participates !ut has con"inced the British go"ernment to .oin whole-heartedly to the demise of the traditional -ouble-O agent. In Skyfall Bond’s battle with the technocratic >aoul Sil"a openly re"eals the deep nostalgia for a more human time that subtends all Bond flms. If Spectre culls the elements of the Bond tradition in a stand-of between man (Mallory) and computing machine (E) in a future manipulated !y criminal machinic control and a past of human heroism, Skyfall has already staged this battle in explicit and nostalgic terms. Fith Skyfall the battle of human and ma- chine is more o"ert and literalised, this sense of nostalgia leads Bond to take M :home;, back to 0cotland where physical strength, endurance, and a touch of hu- man psychology triumphs o"er the resentful psychotic criminal and his "arious machines. The battle is a human one; though Bond deploys certain machinic aids, ultimately the course of action he takes is human. Mallory whom Skyfall presents as the enemy of old-fashioned tactics, becomes the head of MI6. By the time we get to Spectre we e"en become somewhat nostalgic for Mallory himself whose "ision of human tactics, though much more restricted than the pre"ious M’s, is much better than the tactics ad"ocated !y the computer-in<ated E. Mem- ories of pre"ious Bond flms always animate subsequent Bond flms 5 a certain nostalgia for loss that moti"ates Bond’s continued battle for human dignity.