The James Bond series of films contain a number of repeating, distinctive motifs which date from the series' inception with Dr. No in 1962. The series consists of twenty five films produced by Eon Productions featuring the James Bond character, a fictional British Secret Service agent. The most recent instalment is No Time to Die, released in UK cinemas on 30 September 2021. There have also been two independently made features, the satirical Casino Royale, released in 1967, and the 1983 film Never Say Never Again.
Whilst each element has not appeared in every Bond film, they are common threads that run through most of the films. These motifs vary from integral plot points, such as the assignment briefing sessions or the attempts to kill Bond, to enhancements of the dramatic narrative, such as music, or aspects of the visual style, such as the title sequences. These motifs may also serve to enhance excitement in the plot, through a chase sequence or for the climax of the film. Some of these—such as "Bond girls" or megalomaniac villains—have been present in all of the stories, whilst others—such as Q's gadgets or the role of M—have changed over time, often to shape or follow the contemporary zeitgeist. These elements are formulaic and the Bond films tend to follow a set pattern with only limited variety, often following within a strict order. A number of the elements were altered or removed in 2006 with the reboot of the series, Casino Royale.
Some of the elements involved are a result of the production crew used in the earliest films in the series, with the work of Ken Adam, the original production designer, Maurice Binder, title designer, and John Barry, composer, continually updated and adapted as the series progressed.
Opening sequences
Gun barrel sequence
All of the Eon Bond films feature the unique gun barrel sequence, created by graphic artist Maurice Binder, which has been called by British media historian James Chapman "the trademark motif of the series". As Bond walks across the screen, he is viewed by the audience through the barrel of a gun trained on him by an unknown assailant. Bond wheels around and shoots directly at the gun/viewer, followed by the assassin's blood spilling down the barrel/screen. It was originally filmed in sepia by putting a pinhole camera inside an actual .38 calibre gun barrel, with stunt man Bob Simmons playing the part of Bond. The remake of the sequence for the wide-screen Thunderball featured Connery as Bond. This is accompanied by the opening bars of the "James Bond Theme", composed by Monty Norman, orchestrated by trumpeter and composer John Barry and Burt Rhodes.
After Maurice Binder's death in 1991, Daniel Kleinman was responsible for the gun barrel sequence up to and including Casino Royale. Design house MK12 supervised the graphics for Quantum of Solace. Chapman has suggested that the sequence is a significant part of the James Bond mythos because it "foregrounds the motif of looking" that is central to the spy film genre. The gun barrel imagery sometimes carried over to the film posters used to promote Bond films, including as a familiarising element on the introduction of Timothy Dalton for The Living Daylights.
The sequence was traditionally placed at the start of each film until the 2006 instalment Casino Royale, where it appears at the end of the cold open and is incorporated into the plot; in the 2008 film, Quantum of Solace, the sequence was placed at the end of the film and incorporates the film's title in its design.
For Skyfall, director Sam Mendes had wanted to return the gun barrel to the start of the film but in editing realised that the sequence was similar to his opening shot of the film. Because of this, the sequence was placed at the end of the film fading into a 50th Anniversary logo. In Spectre the sequence returns to the start of the film and also returns to the classic Binder design. This time the barrel fades into a title card that reads "The Dead Are Alive" (a sentence which seems to be explained by the fact that the picture starts in Mexico City during the Day of the Dead, as remarked by the next subtitle/title card, but can be later explicated by the presence of the seemingly deceased character of Franz Oberhauser, alias "Ernst Stavro Blofeld"). The gun barrel remains at the opening for Craig's final film, No Time to Die, but with a difference: instead of blood following the shot taken by Bond, it instead has Bond fade into the background, possibly foreshadowing his fate at the end of the film.
Pre-title sequence In the first film of the series, Dr. No, the gun barrel sequence is followed by the main titles, but starting with From Russia with Love and in all subsequent films, the titles are preceded by a pre-title sequence or "teaser". The contents of the sequence can relate to the main plot of the film in a number of ways, including being not at all related (as in Goldfinger), loosely connected (as with The Man with the Golden Gun or The World Is Not Enough) or fully related to the plot (as can be seen in Licence to Kill and On Her Majesty's Secret Service).
From Thunderball through to Die Another Day, the gun barrel sequence segues into the pre-title sequence by having the opening shot be sighted through the barrel. Beginning with The Spy Who Loved Me, the teasers emphasised not only action sequences but stunts, a practice that prevailed until Casino Royale. At over fourteen minutes, the sequence for The World Is Not Enough is two to three times the length of most others in the series. No Time to Die surpassed this in 2021 with a pre-title sequence that runs twenty minutes.
Title sequence
The main title sequences incorporate visual elements that often reflect each film's theme, often showing silhouettes of nude or provocatively clad women set against swirling images. For example, the 1965 film Thunderball features scenes of deep-sea diving and this is reflected in the associated opening sequence; similarly the opening sequence for the 1964 film Goldfinger shows clips from Bond films projected onto the gold-painted silhouette of actress Margaret Nolan: the titles have been described by Bond scholars Smith and Lavington as "Gorgeous, iconic, seminal."
The concept for the titles came from designer Robert Brownjohn, who worked on From Russia with Love and Goldfinger, before he fell out with producer Harry Saltzman and left the series. In creating the titles, Brownjohn was inspired by seeing light projecting on people's bodies as they got up and left a cinema; he was also influenced by constructivist artist László Moholy-Nagy projecting light on to clouds in the 1920s. Brownjohn also used the effect in the poster he created for Goldfinger. Designer Maurice Binder, who had worked on the first Bond film, Dr. No, had been unable to work on either From Russia with Love and Goldfinger, but returned for Thunderball, where he retained Brownjohn's concept for the titles. Binder eventually worked on thirteen Bond films and after his death in 1991, the opening credits were done by Daniel Kleinman. This changed for Quantum of Solace, with the studio MK12 taking control. However, Kleinman returned to direct the title sequences for the following three Craig films./?p=2820 |title = EXCLUSIVE: Daniel Kleinman Joins "SPECTRE" James Bond-magasinet}}
A contemporary artist usually sings during the title sequence and an instrumental version of the main track may also be featured as a leitmotif during the film, which repeats in various moods. Writing for Rolling Stone, Andy Greene says that "James Bond title songs, as a rule, have the name of the movie in the chorus," though he notes that this is not always the case. On Her Majesty's Secret Service has an entirely instrumental credit sequence, though the film features an alternate theme, "We Have All the Time in the World", sung by Louis Armstrong. Until the Daniel Craig era, only "Nobody Does It Better" and "All Time High" served as an opening theme without sharing a title with the movie. John Barry provided the title song music on ten of the eleven films for which he composed the musical score. Several of the songs produced for the films have been nominated for Academy Awards for Original Song and become pop hits, including Paul McCartney's "Live and Let Die", Carly Simon's "Nobody Does It Better" (for the film The Spy Who Loved Me), and Sheena Easton's "For Your Eyes Only" with Adele's "Skyfall" and Sam Smith's "Writing's on the Wall" (for Spectre) eventually winning the award.
Plot elements
Flirting with Moneypenny
With the exception of the first two Daniel Craig films, Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, every Bond film has a sequence in which Bond interacts with Miss Moneypenny, the personal assistant to M, Bond's superior. Lois Maxwell was the first to portray Moneypenny and did so for fourteen Eon-produced Bond films from Dr. No in 1962 to A View to a Kill in 1985 opposite Connery, Lazenby, and Moore. She was followed by Caroline Bliss, Samantha Bond and Naomie Harris, who played opposite Dalton, Brosnan and Craig respectively. The four have arguably divergent interpretations of Moneypenny's personality, as do the six actors who have played Bond.
A running joke throughout the film series is Moneypenny's unrequited love for Bond and his playful flirting with her. She flirts back, jokes and sometimes pouts, hoping to wrangle a proposal and a wedding ring out of him. A fantasy sequence in Die Another Day marks the only occasion in the Eon film series in which Moneypenny was actually shown in a romantic embrace with Bond, although this is only in Q-branch's virtual reality machine.
Receiving assignment from M
Early in most plots Bond is called in to see M, the head of the UK's Secret Intelligence Service (also known as MI6) in his or her office to receive his assignment. In several films, Bond receives the assignment outside the MI6 offices, or at a local secret office. Bond often finds M in a subdued state of agitation over a new threat to world peace. M typically shows confidence in the service's best agent but feels a need to rein in Bond for his risky methods and often chides him for his indiscretions.
The first actor to portray M was Bernard Lee, who appeared in all eleven Bond films from Dr. No in 1962 to Moonraker in 1979. With Lee's illness from stomach cancer in 1980–1981, he was unable to appear in his scenes for For Your Eyes Only; he died on 16 January 1981 and, out of respect, no new actor was hired to assume the role for the film. Instead, the script was re-written so that the character is said to be on leave, letting Chief of Staff Bill Tanner take over the role as acting head of MI6 and briefing Bond alongside the Minister of Defence.
Lee was replaced for four films between 1983 and 1989, by Robert Brown who had previously appeared in the series as Admiral Hargreaves. Judi Dench took over the role of M from 1995's GoldenEye until 2012's Skyfall. In Skyfall, Gareth Mallory, played by Ralph Fiennes, takes over as M at the end of the film after the death of Dench's character.
In the books, "Universal Export" (later "Transworld Corporation") serves as a cover for the British Secret Service. In the films, "Universal Exports" or variations thereof are used, such as the abbreviation "UnivEx" in From Russia with Love, a brass name plate in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and Bond's helicopter in For Your Eyes Only. Academic Paul Stock argues that M's office—and Universal Exports by extension—is a metonym for England, whilst he sees M as being an iconic representative of England and Englishness.
Technical briefing with Q