Instructor: Olga Pressitch Dept. of Germanic & Slavic Studies, UVic / Fall 2012 Bond, James Bond  Captain Ivan Danko was an Eastern European visiting the West; Commander Bond in GoldenEye (1995) is a Westerner going to Eastern Europe.  Post-Communist Eastern Europe, although the Cold War is still in the background. In fact, the film begins with James Bond’s previous trip to the country when it was still the Soviet Union; the enemy defined very clearly as the Red Army.  Filmmakers miss a clear Cold-War binary of us- against-the Soviets. In older James Bond movies, the confrontation of two superpowers was always in the background as a looming threat.  Beginning in the late 1980s the “dangerous” Russians are increasingly the mafia types and not the Communists. Still a Russian threat, just no longer from the Red Army. The “Real” Bond  The character of James Bond actually based on a Russian Jew by the name of Shlomo Rozenblium, who grew up in what is now southern Ukraine and left for the West in a search of adventures when he was in his 20s.  Known in Britain as Lieutenant Sidney Reilly, he was nicknamed in the mass media as the “Ace of Spies.”  In 1918, Reilly participated together with the British diplomat and fellow spy Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart in a plot to assassinate Lenin and overthrow the Bolshevik regime. The “Lockhart plot” did not work, but both of them managed to escape.  In 1925, the Bolsheviks finally lured Reilly into the Soviet Union again on an invitation from a fictitious underground organization and executed him  James Bond has inherited from Reilly his taste in clothes, love of gambling, success with women, and facility with languages. Bond as the literary and film character  James Bond is the embodiment of the modern West projecting its power into the world  Orientalism: The “other world” is represented as backward, exotic, and feminine – and open to a conquest by the (masculine) West that is both romantic and ideological  In the second Bond film, From Russia with Love (1963), regardless of the title, most of the action takes place in Turkey and fist-fighting Gypsy women serve as an exotic backdrop  TWO Russian women in the film: The evil Rosa Klebb (who can only be killed) and the cipher clerk Tanya Romanova, who falls in love with Bond and is thus “converted”  It is actually the evil global terrorist organization SPECTRE that is setting up the Soviets and the West against each other. The concept of the “enemy” is thus suitably ambiguous GoldenEye (1995)  Compare the two Russian women in the film – Xenia Onatopp and Natalya Simonova. What sides of “Russia” in its relation to the West do they represent?  Why does control over military technology continue to play such a major role in the film, even after the end of the Cold War?  Discuss the significance of the fact that the same “evil” Soviet colo.

1. Instructor: Olga Pressitch
Dept. of Germanic & Slavic Studies, UVic / Fall 2012
Bond,
visiting the West; Commander Bond in
GoldenEye (1995) is a Westerner going to
Eastern Europe.
-Communist Eastern Europe, although the
Cold War is still in the background. In fact, the
film begins with James Bond’s previous trip to
the country when it was still the Soviet Union; the
enemy defined very clearly as the Red Army.
kers miss a clear Cold-War binary of us-
against-the Soviets. In older James Bond
movies, the confrontation of two superpowers
was always in the background as a looming

2. threat.
Russians are increasingly the mafia types and
not the Communists. Still a Russian threat, just
no longer from the Red Army.
The “Real” Bond
Russian Jew by the name of Shlomo Rozenblium, who
grew up in what is now southern Ukraine and left for the
West in a search of adventures when he was in his 20s.
nicknamed in the mass media as the “Ace of Spies.”
diplomat and fellow spy Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart in a plot
to assassinate Lenin and overthrow the Bolshevik regime.
The “Lockhart plot” did not work, but both of them
managed to escape.

3. Union again on an invitation from a fictitious underground
from Reilly his taste in clothes, love of gambling, success
with women, and facility with languages.
Bond as the literary
and film character
West projecting its power into the world
backward, exotic, and feminine – and open to a
conquest by the (masculine) West that is both
romantic and ideological
(1963), regardless of the title, most of the action
takes place in Turkey and fist-fighting Gypsy women
serve as an exotic backdrop
a

4. Klebb (who can only be killed) and the cipher clerk
Tanya Romanova, who falls in love with Bond and is
thus “converted”
SPECTRE that is setting up the Soviets and the
West against each other. The concept of the
“enemy” is thus suitably ambiguous
GoldenEye
(1995)
– Xenia
Onatopp and Natalya Simonova. What sides of
“Russia” in its relation to the West do they represent?
l over military technology continue to
play such a major role in the film, even after the end of
the Cold War?
“evil” Soviet colonel from the opening scene set in 1986

5. reappears later in the film in post-Communist Russia
motivation is explained through the history of the
Soviet-Western relations. Is it a metaphor for the
historical fate of Eastern Europe in the 20th century?
racterization of the Russian mafia,
what former Soviet organization is it being linked to?
Questions to think about
while viewing the film:
-Communist
Russia being portrayed
(setting, people, cars,
culture)?
implicit references to the
Communist past