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Shaking and Stirring James Bond: Age, Gender, and Resiliencein Skyfall (2012)Klaus Doddsa

a Royal Holloway, University of LondonPublished online: 30 Sep 2014.

To cite this article: Klaus Dodds (2014) Shaking and Stirring James Bond: Age, Gender, and Resilience in Skyfall (2012), Journal of PopularFilm and Television, 42:3, 116-130, DOI: 10.1080/01956051.2013.858026

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Skyfall (2012). Directed by Sam Mendes. Shown: Daniel Craig (as James Bond). Photo courtesy of MGM/Columbia Pictures/Photofest.

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Released in October 2012, on the 50th anniversary of Dr No (1962), Skyfall, the Sam Mendes–directed production, was a critical success. The film earned two

Oscars and accrued more than $1 billion at the box office. It also enjoyed plaudits from not only mainstream reviewers but also popular websites such as IMDb.com, which recorded a healthy 7.8 out of 10 rating. The New York Times, for example, paid tribute to the directorial understanding of some established generic factors (the so-called Bond formula) at play:

Age, Gender, and the

Resilient Agent in

Abstract: This article considers Skyfall (Dir. Mendes, 2012) and the rebooting of James Bond. Using feminist and geopolitical theorizing, the focus is on the aging body. No other Bond film has been so preoccupied with aging and whether Bond can “bounce back.” Bond’s resilience is critical but at the expense of M’s sacrifice.

Keywords: age, gender, geography, James Bond, resilience, Skyfall

BY Klaus Dodds Klaus Dodds

Skyfall (2012)

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Instead he honors the contract that the Bond series made with its fans long ago and delivers the customary chases, pretty women and silky villainy along with the little and big bangs. Whether Mr. Mendes is deploying an explo-sion or a delectable detail, he retains a crucially human scale and intimacy, largely by foregrounding the perform-ers. To that end, while “Skyfall” takes off with shock-and-awe blockbuster dazzle, it’s opulent rather than outland-ish and insistently, progressively low-key, despite an Orientalist fantasy with dragons and dragon ladies. As Bond sprints from peril to pleasure, Mr. Craig and the other players—includ-ing an exceptional, wittily venal Javier Bardem, a sleek Ralph Fiennes and a likable Ben Whishaw—turn out to be the most spectacular of Mr. Mendes’s special effects (New York Times).

James Bond’s latest cinematic adven-ture, Skyall, is the third film to feature Daniel Craig as the rebooted British spy, 007 (Chapman). As a number of James Bond scholars (e.g., Lindner; Funnell, “I Know”; Cox; Laucht) have observed, the Bond franchise changed the onscreen character and narrative for-mat (more explicitly serial rather than episodic) of this long running film se-ries (1962–2013). Undeterred by some unease among journalists and Bond fans about Craig’s casting as 007, the franchise launched the prequel Casino Royale (Dir. Campbell, 2006), and in-troduced audiences to Bond’s earliest kills and subsequent promotion to the 00 status, on behalf of the U.K. govern-ment’s secret service (MI6). The sequel Quantum of Solace (Dir. Forster, 2008), witnessed Bond travelling to a variety of places in pursuit of the Quantum network culminating in an explosive confrontation in deserts of Bolivia. If the first film touched upon geopoliti-cal networks and the funding of terror groups, the second addressed resource geopolitics but also highlighted how the Quantum network could infiltrate secret organizations including MI6 (Dit-tmer and Dodds). Running through both films is also Bond’s personal torment as he struggles to cope with the loss of his beloved Vesper Lynd while manag-ing his fractious relationship with his female boss, M. The latest Bond film, Skyfall (2012), moves away from the travails of the Quantum network and ad-

dresses the fiendish plans of a disgrun-tled former British secret agent, Raoul Silva, determined to cyberterrorize MI6 and later assault Bond’s boss M while wreaking havoc on London more gen-erally. Similar to the recent revival of the Batman series (Batman Begins [Dir. Nolan, 2005], The Dark Knight [Dir. Nolan, 2008], The Dark Knight Rises [Dir. Nolan, 2012]), the Bond prequel trilogy relies on many shared narrative conceits—the orphan child as recalled in Casino Royale, the death of his lover hardens his sense of purpose as exhib-ited in Quantum of Solace, the hero is hurt but rehabilitated in Skyfall, a substi-tute father figure (a gamekeeper rather than butler) took care of him when he was younger, and his sense of righ-teous purpose prevails despite losing his parents, his family home and his lover (Smith).

But this close reading of Skyfall is not directed toward detecting similarities with other serial film series; rather, it of-fers a reading of the film, which teases out the intersectionality of the male body, aging, and resilience with a spe-cial focus on Bond as he works his way through Turkey, China, Macau, London, and Scotland. No other Bond film has witnessed as much explicit attention to Bond’s body and his resilience as Sky-fall (acknowledging that critics might have picked up on, say, Sean Connery’s enlarged body shape in Diamonds Are Forever and Roger Moore’s late middle age in A View to a Kill) and these loca-tional choices are noteworthy in the way in which it allows audiences to consider

Bond’s resilience and his relationship to other bodies and networks, which are targeted by his adversary, Silva.

For British viewers, moreover, Sky-fall may well be akin to a distinctly post-7/7 movie, a chronological invention that highlights the emotive and material consequences of four near simultaneous attacks on the London transport system resulting in the death of more than 50 people, including the four British-born suicide bombers on 7 July 2005. It is interesting that President George Bush identified Londoners and British citi-zenry more generally as “the nation that survived the Nazi Blitz” and one that “will not be intimidated by terrorists.” Skyfall addresses London’s vulnerabil-ity to terroristic violence as if to sug-gest that after the so-called 7/7 attack, anything is possible; at the same time, the British have had experience of such things in the past. One nod in that direc-tion occurs early on when Bond is intro-duced to the temporary headquarters of MI6 and is told that the facilities were created by Prime Minister Churchill in the midst of the Second World War. Cinematically, colonial spaces such as The Bahamas, Jamaica, Gibraltar, and Hong Kong have functioned as Bond-like spaces of intrigue and danger. Lon-don was rarely featured for a more than a few minutes and usually focused on M’s office in London (with occasional journeying to the home counties in films such as A View to a Kill and The Living Daylights [Dir. Glen, 1987]) within the disguised building marked “Universal Exports.” The idea of export was signif-icant—Bond was dispatched elsewhere to confront dangers (Dodds,”Licensed to Stereotype”; “Screening Geopoli-tics”). Evil geniuses might threaten global destruction, but their fiendish plans rarely threatened Britain directly; British nuclear submarines and planes could be stolen and British agents could be killed, but it was not until The World Is Not Enough (Dir. Apted, 1999) that MI6 in London was actually attacked. Fifteen years later, cyberterrorism fa-cilitates a new level of destruction and emphasizes still further the manner in which globalized flows and transmis-sions appear less and less controllable (even predictable).

No other Bond film has witnessed as much explicit attention to

Bond’s body and his resilience as Skyfall …

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It is important to note that after the 7/7 attacks, the then-Blair government paid tribute to the “stoicism” and “resil-ience” of Londoners (BBC). The fiend-ish Silva shows repeatedly a well-honed field capacity to use the underground not only to disrupt the integrity of the network but also to navigate through the crowds disguised as a policeman. While travelers have clearly not been deterred by the initial attack on MI6, they are resilient citizen-subjects. Unwittingly, the presence of those citizens provides opportunities for Silva to confuse Bond and MI6 trackers; the city as network represents a near-constant security risk. There is, however, another aspect to the 7/7 quality of the film: its focus on resilience as opposed to fragility—and a form of resilience that ultimately re-wards both a flag-waving belligerence (demonstrating resolve) and a sense of restraint (not acting like the terrorists and killing indiscriminately, for ex-ample). Bond’s body connects the two strands.

As the end of Skyfall reveals, just before Bond enters M’s office to pick up details of his next mission, he is shown standing on top of a government building with a view of central London dominated by large Union flags. The lingering shots of the cityscape seem to further emphasize Bond’s rebooting and his embodiment as the lone agent ready to serve his country, using technological networks and organizational structures as and when necessary. Being resilient is as much about being a risk manager as it is having a capacity to bounce back from disaster. Such a strategy has not been without cost, however. His boss, the first female boss M has paid a high price for this strategy of isolation: She is dead, and her sacrifice has played a vital role in making Bond’s resilience possible (and, by association, Britain’s resilience as well).

Bond, the Male Body, and Intersectional Geopolitics

The decision to replace Pierce Bros-nan with Daniel Craig as the actor as-suming the mantle of James Bond/007

was as noteworthy a moment as any other transformation of this long-run-ning cinematic character. As has been the case, every actor (even short-lived ones such as George Lazenby’s sole outing in On Her Majesty’s Secret Ser-vice [Dir. Hunt, 1969]) brings to the fore debate about how the generic quali-ties of the intelligence/spy thriller are reinforced, revised, and perhaps even subverted (e.g., Black: Chapman; Lind-ner). As is well understood by schol-ars, genre plays an important role in molding the narrative arc, locations, and characterization of particular films including James Bond (Black; Chap-man; Dodds, “Licensed to Stereotype”). The spy thriller, at its heart, is preoc-cupied with intelligence gathering and the role of the secret agent often in a working relationship with an employ-ing institution that is usually indiffer-ent to his fate (Wark). Very early on in the Bond series, a generic formula was established that involved a stand-alone action mission a new mission briefing back in London, the overseas mission and a spectacular denouement (Chap-man). The mission varied, as did the vil-lains, femme fatales, and locations, but audiences mostly expected and indeed anticipated that Bond would prevail. How he did that, of course, has varied over the years as a succession of Bonds have used gadgets, allies, and personal survival skills to endure. As with other secret agents, such as Jason Bourne, this British secret agent is also a troubled figure who serves “Queen and country” but can also be deeply conflicted about his profession—he has threatened to re-sign a number of times (or actually left after marriage in the case of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service) and each time been persuaded by others to retract such a resignation with the most notable ex-ample being License to Kill. In Casino Royale (2006), Bond’s loyalty to M and to his job is again sorely tested largely as a consequence of anger after the loss of his lover, a British Treasury civil ser-vant named Vesper.

Daniel Craig’s introduction as James Bond marked a more radical departure from the generic conventions shaping these movies than, say, Pierce Bros-nan taking over from Timothy Dalton

(1986–1989). Casino Royale was re-leased some four years after Die An-other Day (Dir. Tamahori, 2002), the last of Brosnan’s four outings as James Bond (1995–2002). Die Another Day, although a box-office success, attracted very mixed reviews. Daniel Craig was formally announced as the new actor to occupy the role in October 2005, but in the meantime a great of discussion un-folded regarding the suitability of an ag-ing star continuing to play James Bond, the use of CGI technology, the improb-ability of the storyline involving gene therapy technology and invisible cars, and the excessively self-referential tone of the film for some Bond fans, with al-lusions to previous Bond films such as Dr No (Dir. Young, 1962) and Thunder-ball (Dir. Young, 1965). Geopolitically, Die Another Day, while clearly set in a post–Cold War era, remained predicated on the idea of an evil genius using an apparently remote location (Iceland) to provoke a major confrontation on the Korean Peninsula, and ultimately al-low North Korean forces to end a con-flict fermenting since the early 1950s with South Korea and its allies includ-ing the United States (Dodds, “Popular Geopolitics”).

Tobias Hochscherf is right to note that, more generally, the cinematic land-scape inhabited by spies and assassins was, and is, altering. By the time Daniel Craig’s name emerged as the new Bond, the franchise faced generic competi-tion, especially from the Jason Bourne series. The Bourne Identity (Dir. Liman, 2002) appeared in the same year as Die Another Day (2002) followed by The Bourne Supremacy (Dir. Greengrass, 2004), The Bourne Ultimatum (Dir. Greengrass,, 2008), and The Bourne Legacy (Dir. Gilroy, 2012). Matt Da-mon (the actor who played amnesic assassin Jason Bourne in the first three films) was critical of the Bond charac-ter and provoked an interesting debate about Bond’s character and demeanor but not age (Dodds, “Gender”). There was scrutiny of Daniel Craig’s screen presence (Was he too fair-haired, for ex-ample? Would he be able to match the kinetic qualities of Matt Damon’s Jason Bourne?). The character development of Bond, with particular emphasis given

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to the serial evolution of his character (including masculinity and heroism) and relationship with others such as the film noir femme fatale was also scruti-nized (Garland; Cox). Casino Royale was widely regarded by James Bond scholars as revisionist (see the essays in Lindner).

In Skyfall, Bond’s relationship with others continues to be scrutinized. As with Daniel Craig’s earlier films, Bond never acts truly alone, and his subject position continues to be shaped by inter-actions with others and relations marked by axes of difference including gender, class, sexuality, and race. Using the fem-inist concept of intersectionality (e.g., Crenshaw), the role of age and gender are examined through their interaction with specific sites to reframe how the white middle-aged body of James Bond exhibits resilience at a time of national crisis (on body and the action film more generally, see Cohan and Hark; Jeffords; Willis; Tasker). The term intersectional geopolitics is used to acknowledge that geopolitics, as feminist geographers have noted, is embodied, everyday and is shaped by intersecting identities, which emphasize multiple aspects of personal identity and relations with oth-ers (Dixon and Marston). Bond’s capac-ity to operate, let alone succeed, is never achieved in isolation.

This interest in a more intersectional geopolitics is to draw attention to what feminist scholars have shown with re-gards to geopolitics and security (e.g., Weber; Dixon and Marston), namely, addressing more directly the importance of examining various markers of so-cial difference and thinking about how they interact and intersect at a time of a national security crisis. Mark Neoc-leous’s observations about the resilient citizen-subject and connections to both post-9/11 security and neoliberalism are drawn upon to help make sense of how Bond recovers from being shot on a mission to take on a determined and disillusioned former agent hell-bent on killing M (Neocleous, “Don’t Be Scared”). Bond’s capacity to bounce back is noteworthy, especially as he is shown to be noticeably older (and even frailer). As Neocleous notes, con-

temporary societies such as the United Kingdom have increasingly valorized the connection of the individual to more widespread political resilience. As he argues, “The neo-liberal subject can ‘achieve balance’ across the several insecure and part-time jobs they have, can ‘overcome life’s hurdles’ such as facing retirement without a pension to speak of, and just ‘bounce back’ from whatever life throws at us” whether it be collapse of welfare systems or global economic meltdown” (”Don’t Be Scared” 192). The pressing demand for the resilient citizen-subject is to pre-pare the self for the insecurities that will have in the future. Resilience training then, in this critique, becomes an essen-tial accomplice of neoliberal and author-itative political orders because empha-sis is given to demonstrating resilience rather than acting in a more resistant manner.

Resilience training and the citizen subject are not homogenous categories. Some citizen-subjects may be better able to cope with such demands to ex-hibit resilience and axes of difference such as gender, age, class, and race will shape those subjectivities and peforma-tivities. As other scholars (e.g., Brown) have noted, with reference to the eco-nomic crisis (2008 onwards), there has been a growing number of films (such as The Wrestler [Dir. Aronofsky, 2008], Up in the Air [Dir. Reitman, 2009], Red [Dir. Schwentke, 2010], and The Ex-pendables [Dir. Stallone, 2010]) that have addressed the role of aging men (and some aging women) and their

lived experiences in neoliberal and au-thoritarian times (Boyle and Brayton). Through their relations with others, these films explore the subjective posi-tions that might make their rehabilita-tion as a form of resilience rather than disposability. Unlike other Bond films, Skyfall is unique perhaps for its explicit reflection on the aging process, and 007’s body emerges as a powerful site and primary locus of narrative meaning in the film—that is, how it appears, acts, copes, and endures stress and strain. My argument, however, is that to under-stand that bodily narrative (and accom-panying experiences), we also need to attend to the interrelationship between specific geographical sites and associa-tions with other characters such as M, Miss Moneypenny, Q, Silva, and Mal-lory, to appreciate the highly gendered “bodily work” rather than simply “mus-cle work” (Denning) of a resilient Bond and by association Britain.

Bond’s bodily work should not be isolated from other bodily labor and the most striking is M’s role in Skyfall. Played by Judi Dench, this female M has been a feature of Bond films since GoldenEye (Dir. Campbell, 1995). From her cinematic introduction, where she is shown sit behind a large desk in an of-fice very different in form and content to her male predecessor, M showed a willingness to travel beyond the of-fice and enter into the field, sometimes causing new security anxieties for Bond (e.g. after her capture in The World Is not Enough). Before Skyfall, she has successfully negotiated tense moment in U.S.–U.K. relations (e.g. Die Another Day), survived several attempts on her life and supported Bond when others counseled against such gestures lead-ing to accusations that she was soft on Bond. But this softness perhaps mani-fests itself in a different manner in Sky-fall, namely through her body. While Bond’s resilience appears to be strength-ening, M’s vulnerability and ultimate sacrifice seems heightened. Her body, understood as maternal (both Bond and Silva address her or think of her as “mummy”; they also hug her), and her death, unlike Bond’s injury, is due to be-ing shot in the womb.

Bond’s capacity to bounce back is noteworthy,

especially as he is shown to be

noticeably older (and even frailer).

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Bond and the Testing of Resilience

Skyfall marks a radical departure from other Bond films in a number of bodily and geopolitical contexts. Rarely has a Bond film, as noted earlier, fo-cused so much screen time on his aging and fragile-looking body. Never before has the opening sequence of a Bond film ended on such a pessimistic note. Bond’s body is shown floating down a river after being shot in the chest by a female colleague. As the audience, we suspect (maybe even hope) that he survives. Otherwise, the ensuing film’s narrative arc is likely to be rather more retrospective—how did Bond end up in Istanbul on a disastrous mission rather than how might he recover and move on from such an apparent fiasco?

Bond’s aging has never before been part of the actual narrative arc in Bond films. An aging Roger Moore, in A View to a Kill, was saved embarrassment

when the physically dominant May Day committed suicide so that Bond could go on and confront Max Zorin. And an aging Sean Connery in Never Say Never Again (Dir. Kershner, 1983) made a re-appearance in a rebooted Thunderball and somehow manages to survive vari-ous assaults on his body thanks in part to Q branch gadgets. In Casino Royale, by way of contrast, an insouciant and highly muscular Bond wades out of the water toward the beach and the camera lingers on his body in a way that used to be the preserve of so-called Bond Girls (Funnell, “I Know”; Cox). Even Sean Connery’s Bond at his pomp was never quite so insouciant and never quite so muscled. After being accidentally shot in Turkey, the new Bond’s body and mind appear to be rather more fragile than fortitudinous. His slumped posture, even after energetic love-making with an unnamed woman, is not reminiscent of a postcoital satisfaction with his lover, Vesper. She strokes his chest tellingly.

Rather, it smacks of depression, desper-ation, and loneliness. Even when Bond was being horribly tortured in Casino Royale, he still possessed the capacity to joke about his testicular pain. As he notes to Le Chiffre just as the latter pre-pares to torture him, “I’ve got an itch.” There appears to be no scope for such insouciance. Drinking and betting dares dominate his evenings, and his drunken torpor only shaken by news that MI6 was attacked. This aging hero appears unable to continue as a field agent.

How will an aging and unshaven Bond restore his capabilities in the wake of such a brazen attack on MI6? Restor-ing Bond and his body will require a series of bodily and spatial encounters, most of them informed by axes of differ-ence including age, gender, and sexual-ity. All of them are important if Bond is to prove that he is more resilient rather than fragile. Bond’s shock at what he sees on the television screen is criti-cal—he is forced to imagine the worst-

Skyfall (2012). Directed by Sam Mendes. Shown: Daniel Craig (as James Bond). Photo courtesy of MGM/Columbia Pictures/Photofest.

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case scenario—are M and others that he knows dead? If MI6 can be attacked then what next? Imaging the future as disas-trous is a critical first move and then the second move is to think about how one might prepare and recover from such a disaster. Bond’s reemergence from ap-parent obscurity is thus indicative of a more personal turn towards a resilient rather than vulnerable posture, as he de-cides to return to London.

Bond’s body, however, offers an op-portunity to link his eventual rehabilita-tion to that of the national security state as epitomized by MI6’s shift to under-ground bunkers. Shortly after his return to London, he is driven to the new head-quarters and shown employees (includ-ing, we presume, survivors from the at-tack on MI6) carrying on with their jobs. For Bond to go underground is not only reminiscent of a Cold War era in which British and American governments pre-pared themselves for a possible subter-ranean existence after a massive nuclear

attack but also inverting somewhat the Bond genre in which it is usually the adversaries who possess impressive un-derground headquarters (e.g., Dr No’s secret lair). But times have changed, and London as Skyfall suggests is no longer safe from the forces of globalization, in-cluding the communication and circula-tion of cyberterror.

So when we see Bond undergoing a new training regime to assess the state of his body and mind, we are witnessing a test—can Bond show sufficient resolve? The odds appear to be stacked against him. He may not have such resolve de-spite his initial horror at the attack on MI6. Having broken into M’s apartment earlier, their awkward conversation quickly turns to age and whether both of them are too old for their respec-tive roles. Although younger than M, Bond’s recognition of his aging is partly rebuffed by M’s dismissal of his aging and tells him to go and get washed and report for duty. Later, through separate

conversations with Mallory, the chair-man of the intelligence and security committee, both are asked to consider their positions—M is offered a presti-gious award in return for accepting early retirement and Bond is advised that be-ing a field agent is a “young man’s game.” The fact that Bond was working with a younger female agent in Istanbul barely registers in Mallory’s gendered professional imagination.

Neither Bond nor M will contemplate retirement—their relationship appears less hierarchical in the sense that both are being scrutinized by a senior intel-ligence officer. M still wants to “get the job done” and Bond, despite his injuries forces himself, however awkwardly, through a series of physical and psycho-logical tests carried out by colleagues in MI6. But things do not go well—Bond cannot shoot straight, and he stumbles over the psychometric testing; M is equated with “bitch”; and “Skyfall” oc-casions no answer. His most animated

Skyfall (2012). Directed by Sam Mendes. Shown: Judi Dench (as M). Photo courtesy of MGM/Columbia Pictures/Photofest.

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response is when asked about “murder” and “country,” which confidently elicits “occupation” and “England” respec-tively. Gone is the cheery Roger Moore delivery of “England needs me” in The Spy Who Loved Me (Dir. Gilbert, 1977) in favor of something far more menac-ing and unglamorous. As if to suggest that all those taunts in the past from villains were right, Bond is a state-sanctioned murderer and thug, but his responses are not convincing, at least to the watching Mallory and M.

How does he show a greater level of resilience rather than continued fra-gility? Three things prove critical, at least initially—he is able to laugh at his trauma, he changes his physical ap-pearance, and he remembers that his body might be unwittingly transporting a vital piece of evidence. First, Bond’s humor returns and we suspect as an au-dience that if Bond is able to quip about his predicament then it is likely that he will bounce back. Humor is one of his most well established strategies for cop-ing with stress. On being reunited with the young colleague who accidentally shot him in Istanbul, Bond teases her about her marksmanship and her ca-pacity to “take the shot,” as if to sug-gest that he would not have missed the correct target. His interaction with an-other younger male colleague Q at the National Portrait Gallery provides Bond with another opportunity to confront his aging (via a well-known, at least to Brit-ish viewers, J. M. W. Turner painting, The Fighting Temeraire), even if both Q and Miss Moneypenny exhibit a ca-pacity to rebuff his aggressive ageism towards them.

Bond’s weak performance on the shooting range, however, suggests that his capacity to “take the shot” is not assured. Unsettled by his bodily fail-ure, his attire radically changes after the testing has finished. Sensing that his performance has been less than im-pressive, he shaves and he dresses in a suit in order, so we assume, to convey a sense of renewed purpose. Bond’s cou-ture has always mattered—the button-ing up of the suit before or sometimes after an awkward encounter has always been a trademark sign of his willingness

to act but also to signal a certain confi-dence in terms of handling a particular task. As if wearing a suit, in particular, displayed more readily personal resil-ience and associated capabilities. In a slightly different context, Bond’s im-peccable appearance in a dinner jacket (sometimes equipped with cigarette) has been another kind of long-standing trademark of his gambling prowess. The final element in this transforma-tion is Bond’s willingness is to excavate some bullet fragments from his chest. In a highly poignant moment, Bond takes the knife to his body (without any kind of pain relief) and digs out those frag-ments. He then casually hands to an-other colleague the washed fragments in an evidence bag. It is worth recalling that the chest wound was not down to Miss Moneypenny; his chest injury was due to a bullet fragment acquired during his chase of Patrice on a train leaving Istanbul.

Such a moment is critical in the film’s narrative arc but also this underlying logic of resilience. Bond and his body have endured a shock, and now we have the apparent proof of his willingness to restore himself. His professional train-ing and sense of service has recovered so much so that he is able to “move on” from the Istanbul incident. Resilience is now internalized. But this dramatic in-tervention has implications for the future as well. Bond’s display allows not only the hunt to continue for those who might have targeted MI6 but also give an op-portunity for M to pass him fit for field service. He may have failed the conven-tional tests but when it really mattered Bond was prepared to hurt himself for the sake of MI6 and national security.

His chest, the locus of heroic masculin-ity (Bond was hit by both Patrice and Miss Moneypenny), stands in contrast with other bodily vulnerabilities.

The most notable of which is M’s body. Throughout the film, M’s frailty is a vital accomplice to Bond’s resilience. M’s identity was increasingly linked to her domestic environment (e.g., seen to be answering the phone in her bedroom) and her maternal femininity (e.g., fre-quent references to her children and her husband). Most striking is that M is shot in the womb toward the very end of the film in the chapel on the Skyfall estate. Bond kills Silva, but he cannot save M. The injuries to her stomach are of a dif-ferent gendered order to Bond’s chest wound. Having been taunted by Silva of his relationship with M (or “Mummy”), it seems doubly poignant that M as a maternal figure rather than professional woman dies in Bond’s arms. The death of his “professional mother” recalls poi-gnantly the very reason why he became a professional agent in the first place; as a way of coping with the death of his own mother and father. And unlike his father’s old shotgun (and globe in his study), there is no apparent mate-rial trace of his mother in Skyfall itself. What ultimately this suggests is that M’s body and personal/professional identity has been transformed suggesting that the female body is not redeemable and ultimately sacrificial.

Redemption and Resilience

Bond’s body is redeemable—he has passed those initial tests—some for-mal and some informal. But as the film suggests, this reformation might not be entirely straightforward. His body does threaten to let him down. In Shanghai, for example, his lack of upper body strength means that he was unable to hold on to the assassin (Patrice) as the latter fell from a high building—the implication being that he might be too fragile and too old for the job despite his best intentions. Although Patrice suc-cessfully completed his assassination mission, Bond’s failure to apprehend Patrice is mitigated by a chance discov-

Throughout the film, M’s frailty is a vital

accomplice to Bond’s resilience.

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ery of a gambling chip, which takes him to Macau. Once on location, his former colleague (who we later learn is Miss Moneypenny) from Istanbul joins him, and it is she who promises to “watch his back” in the casino and later saves him from almost certain death at the hand of several henchmen in Macau. But before she does so, she very carefully shaves him before he dresses in his dinner suit. The shaving incident is not only a dis-play of trust on Bond’s behalf (she is holding a cutthroat razor) but it is also an opportunity to rejuvenate; a younger and fresher looking Bond duly appears (a throwback to his appearance in a din-ner jacket in Casino Royale).

He proves that his new resilient self is no proverbial flash in the pan by re-turning to his old self. And resilience is as much embodied in practice as it is narrated or imagined. No more so when dealing with women but also later when dealing with his archenemy. In Macau, he encounters Severine—the lover of his arch-adversary later to be named as Silva. Puffing nervously on a cigarette, Severine explains to Bond that he is unlikely to leave the casino alive while Bond parries the warning with an astute analysis of a tattoo on her arm (signify-ing that she was a trafficked sex slave/prostitute). Recalling his old skills, he manages to convince her, up to a point, that he can “protect” her, a promise he has made many times to countless other women (for example, The World Is not Enough, and on this occasion she choose to commit suicide). Bond sub-sequent sexual encounter is critical to his in-field redemption. It is like other aspects of this film deliberately remi-niscent of earlier Bond films (e.g. From Russia with Love and Thunderball) in the opportunities it presents for Bond to prove he still has his mojo. His steamy shower encounter with Severine firmly roots this Bond in a wider Bond-like tradition of sleeping with your enemy’s lover. Unlike Lynd in Casino Royale, there is no sense of love or affection. It is, as Bond has tried on multiple occa-sions, to “turn her” in favor of his mis-sion and like previous women (such as Andrea Anders’ character Maud Adams in The Man with the Golden Gun [Dir.

Hamilton, 1974]) she is later shot by his disgruntled adversary.

His adversary tests his in-field resil-ience. Tied to a chair, Silva taunts him about his heterosexuality. The defiant “How do you know it is my first time?” has a more desperate quality to it in comparison with the naked Bond tied to a chair and tortured by Le Chiffre in Ca-sino Royale. Silva’s challenge to Bond is unsettling—he does not threaten him with extreme violence. He does some-thing worse—he challenges his resil-ience by probing his heterosexuality. Can Bond endure a hetero-normative challenge—one in which he is caressed by Silva where his restrained body can-not protect him. This is made worse, per-haps, by a context, in which he cannot demonstrate a bodily capacity to endure physical pain (as in Casino Royale). The scene in question reinforces a well-established tradition within the James Bond series of vilifying homosexuality and the homosexual body (see the es-says in Comentale, Watt, and Willman). In From Russia with Love, Colonel Klebb’s caressing of the young Rus-sian female colleague is framed as en-tirely predatory and unwanted (Black). Bond’s sexual advances are rarely re-buffed. They are usually depicted as either encouraged and/or accepted after

an element of reluctance (most notably involving Pussy Galore in Goldfinger). Silva’s caressing of Bond’s chest is all the more invasive because we know, as viewers, what that chest has recently en-dured, and indeed, revealed. Bond’s het-erosexual credibility (and ongoing resil-ience) is later restored, or so it appears, when he not only escapes his bondage but also reveals to Silva that a secret tracking device has enabled British military helicopters to rendezvous with him for the expressed purpose of captur-ing and detaining Silva. While we may wonder where these helicopters came from (given Bond’s location somewhere off an island in Chinese waters), Bond has not been distracted from the job in hand. What we have before the film shifts decisively to London is, therefore, a series of staged encounters involving physical trauma, tentative recovery, and highly sexualized encounters.

Ostracizing ResilienceAs an audience, it is not until that we

learn of Station H that it becomes clearer why Silva has deliberately targeted M and MI6. Barely able to speak of Hong Kong by name, this former British colony/dependent territory was handed over to China in 1997. Within the Bond series, Hong Kong was a prominent setting in You Only Live Twice (Dir. Gilbert, 1967) and The Man with the Golden Gun (Dir. Hamilton, 1973) as well as a more fleeting moment in Die Another Day (2002). In each case the city performs a slightly different narra-tive functions—in the case of the earli-est representation Bond is buried at sea by the Royal Navy (as if to remind us that Hong Kong was a strategic asset of the United Kingdom) and in the case of the Roger Moore production, the British colony’s proximity to Macau acts as a transit zone for Bond as he struggles to discover the prominence of a gold bul-let. In Die Another Day, Hong Kong was a place of reassurance for Bond as he returned to a favorite hotel after mak-ing good an escape.

Silva’s experiences in Hong Kong and M’s grudging recognition of her com-

What we have before the film shifts decisively to London is a series of staged

encounters involving physical trauma, tentative

recovery, and highly sexualized

encounters.

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plicity are pivotal in the narrative arc and, as this paper suggests, contending views of resilience. Silva on the face of it has exhibited an impressive bounce-back, having endured a considerable trauma. As M acknowledged, “He was operating beyond his brief, hacking the Chinese. The handover was coming up and they were onto him, so I gave him up. I got six agents in return and a peace-ful transition.” Clearly M had not given a second thought to Silva and his fate. He was simply “collateral damage.” As she warned Bond, in GoldenEye, “I’ve no compunction about sending you to your death, but I won’t do it on a whim.” Likewise, as she demonstrated, she had no compunction of “giving up” Silva in return for other agents.

Their face-to-face encounter in Lon-don forces her to reassess her role in his incarceration and his unwelcome resil-ience. She refuses to apologize to Silva or even acknowledge his real name.

Frustrated at her apparent intransigence, Silva reveals his grossly injured face (he has to remove a supportive device within his face) thanks to an ill-fated attempt to commit suicide by swallowing poison. Unlike Bond’s injured chest, which can be seen fairly readily by various audi-ences including former lovers who have traced their fingers along his scarring (e.g., Sylvia Dench in From Russia with Love), Silva’s distorted face (and rather different to Jaws’ metal teeth) invites expression of horror and distaste on the part of M. His disfigurement is rather different to Bond’s scarring.

Determined to make M remember about his treatment at the hands of the Chinese authorities, Silva’s face is an-other kind of living archive—an archive of his time in the field. Unlike Bond who was tortured by North Korean of-ficers in Die Another Day (2002), Silva is determined to use his face to unsettle M’s and MI6’s amnesia and as we see

the full extent of the damage done by the ingested poison so his transforma-tion from hero to villain is secured. M’s decision to wipe Silva’s name from the memorial wall in MI6 is a double era-sure—both dismissive of Silva and his sufferings but also of M’s complicity with the handover of Hong Kong and any kind of secret deals affected with the Chinese authorities.

Unlike the Jason Bourne films and Die Another Day, there is no space in the narrative arc for any flashbacks (Gaine). Silva’s memories of torture in China are not apparently recallable; we see neither images of Silva being tortured nor desperately trying to com-mit suicide. Thus the status accorded to Silva’s physical injuries becomes all the more significant. While Bond’s scares reinforce his heroism (and often indica-tive of the lone hero in particular) and sense of duty, Silva is positioned within the film as physically and sexually gro-

Skyfall (2012). Directed by Sam Mendes. Shown: Bérénice Lim Marlohe (as Severine). Photo courtesy of MGM/Columbia Pictures/Photofest.

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tesque. When captured he is placed in something akin to a specimen jar as if to suggest that he invites freakish inspec-tion. This scene is crucial in pointing out two competing senses of resilience amongst Britain’s secret agents. Bond’s resilience is to be welcomed because he has not only survived torture and alien-ation but also remained physically and sexually desirable in the sense of his physical robustness and obvious het-erosexuality. And to make sure he re-mains so, Bond has been sent to health spas to ensure that his body is physi-cally resilient and heterosexualized (e.g. Thunderball).

All of this is to suggest that some re-silient citizen-subjects are to be valued more highly. As Puar and Rai in an-other, but related, context note, gender and sexuality are central to the war on terrorism. For these two authors, there were two aspects that deserved atten-tion—the enrolment of aggressive het-erosexual patriotism on the one hand and on the other hand the invocation of a queer monstrosity—strongly linked to sexual deviancy. In their judgment, the monster- terrorist is posited as a form of “failed heterosexuality” and a “marker of the non-civilized” (Puar and Rai 139–40). Silva is positioned as both a failed heterosexual (somebody who sleeps with women such as Severine but who appears a little too eager to caress Bond) and noncivilized in the sense of his body and behavior being positioned as not white, not British and exhibiting the wrong kind of resilience—a resil-ience tinged with political critique.

Testing M’s ResilienceResilience is thus shaped by the in-

tersections of age, sexuality, and gender in Skyfall. Bond films have long had to contend with accusations of sex-ism responding to overtly misogynistic qualities, at a variety of levels, from the office-bound Miss Moneypenny to the limited role for Bond Girls and femme fatales. The introduction of Judi Dench as M in GoldenEye (Dir. Camp-bell, 1995) was a significant moment in the film series. Critics seized upon M’s onscreen accusation that Bond was

a “misogynistic Cold War dinosaur” as evidence that the franchise was re-sponding to cultural critiques of Bond’s hypermasculine character and antedilu-vian gender politics. Although there was evidence of Bond being depicted as a more conflicted character (e.g. Licence to Kill), Judi Dench’s M and Samantha Bond’s Miss Moneypenny were innova-tive, by the standards of the Bond series, in depicting two women carrying out their roles with professionalism while confidently dealing with Bond’s brio.

There is also an issue here about age as well. As Hopkins and Pain note, age is in itself has a fluid, contested and situated nature. As they argue, “People have different access to and experi-ence of places on the grounds of their age, and spaces associated with certain age groups influence who uses them and how. Further, people actively cre-ate and resist particular age identities through their use of space and place” (Hopkins and Pain 288). One way in which M was shown to tackle the gen-der politics of MI6 was to be seen, quite literally, travelling into the field. She did not stay in the office. She travelled and, for example, personally oversaw the tracking device being placed into Bond in the Bahamas (i.e. Casino Royale). In Quantum of Solace, she traveled to Bolivia to oversee Bond’s detention but later allowed him to slip away from U.S. handlers. And she has been shown to be willing to defend her agents and MI6 more generally from governmental scrutiny; she can be the useful bureau-crat for Bond and other men like him.

However, enduring gendered assump-tions and aging practices do operate in

powerful ways in Skyfall. They do not simply affect late middle-aged women such as M. Bond’s treatment of Miss Moneypenny (played by Naomi Watts who replaced an older actress Samantha Bond who playing this role in the recent past) is dismissive after their joint op-eration in Istanbul—reminding her that “the field is not for everyone.” As if sug-gesting that is unlikely she will possess the necessary resilience to bounce back from the shock of shooting a fellow agent; men on the other hand can and get better with age. To make matters worse, she is shown “missing the shot” earlier in the mission the suspect before he es-caped on a train. Bond rarely misses his target when it comes to shooting. When Mallory says something similar to Bond, but framed in terms of age rather than gender, Bond visibly bristles. He does not like being told he might not be up to the job, as a field agent. Bond later revises his opinion of her, as she proves adept in Macau and Mallory revises his opinion of Bond when he performs well at a shoot out in London. Both needed the field to provide a space to test their resilience. On the other hand, M’s char-acter and body is the one that is liter-ally embodied and burdened with the responsibility of U.K. national security. She is blamed by Mallory for the loss of the disk with the secret details of the NATO agents, and she is the one showed dressed in black looking over the Union flag draped coffins of MI6 agents killed by Silva in the initial attack on MI6’s headquarters in London. The long shot of M and the coffins merely reinforces the sense of loss and potential culpabil-ity—will she have sufficient resolve to bounce back? And would MI6 and Brit-ain more generally wish her to remain in charge? All of the preceding analysis suggests that resilience, as with age and gender, is something best thought of as being shaped by relations and interac-tions between different groups; resilient identities are thus produced through such interactions.

If Bond’s body is tested, M’s profes-sional judgment is tested throughout as if to suggest that there might be a gen-dered division of responsibility. It is only when we get to Skyfall (i.e., Bond’s

Resilience is shaped by the intersections of age, sexuality,

and gender in Skyfall.

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childhood home) that her body is also tested more explicitly. Bond pursuit of Silva through London is juxtaposed with M’s appearance before an intelligence and security committee. Quizzed by a younger female Home Secretary about her professional competence highlight-ing the critical vector of age not gender here. M is “saved” by the intervention of Mallory who provides some respite from the critical questioning—the very person who had earlier questioned M’s capacity to operate at the highest level. So the public committee offers an op-portunity for the older Mallory to be-have in a chivalrous manner perhaps sensing that even if he agreed with the line of questioning this was no way to treat a senior civil servant. But what is clear from before is that M does not like being held to account, and indeed this has the affect of actually aging her still further. She dislikes being ordered to appear before ministers (Casino Royale) and intelligence figures such as Mallory. She warns, privately and publicly, of shadowy threats and her place making practices (e.g. describing the world and analyzing strategies) helps to populate the geopolitical landscape of Skyfall. And in so doing, hopes to demonstrate that her long experience of professional service should be still valued and not cross-examined.

This long experience is also shown to be double edged. M’s experience of working in “the shadows” of global geo-politics comes back to haunt her. Silva’s anger with M is deeply personal. It is she, rather than the U.K. government more generally, that is accused by Silva of betrayal. Silva reveals that M aban-doned him during the handover negotia-tions involving Hong Kong and his fate was sealed when captured by Chinese intelligence forces. Unable to kill him-self, his badly scarred face serves as a bodily reminder of M’s apparent duplic-ity. As with Bond, his scarred body also reflects the physical costs of national service. M may have aged but she does not carry the physical scars of her field agents. While the male body is shown as scarred due to the rigors of professional service (and that scarring is seen as evi-dence of endurance), M is forced to ar-

ticulate an evidence base in the absence of such a bodily archive.

If anything, M’s professional experi-ence is trivialized. In the past, M’s of-fice would have been a source of per-sonal and professional authority, the one surviving object from her original office—a British bulldog figurine—ap-pears to invite laughter. It is displayed prominently on her interim desk. Em-bossed with the Union flag, it positions her character and role as determined to persevere regardless of her age. During her appearance before the intelligence and security committee, M quotes Ten-nyson’s Ulysses, with a subtle reference to it being a favorite of her late husband, concluding “to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.” The reference to her late husband (who makes a brief appear-ance in Quantum of Solace) is poten-tially important and suggestive that in a deeply patriarchal world his absence (as protector figure and source of comfort) makes her resilience less likely. And feeding into a suspicion that her reluc-tance to go is in part driven by a sense that her family life is incomplete with-out her husband.

Her stubbornness costs lives—her resilience appears to have costs. She is told that Silva has escaped from MI6 custody but refuses to leave the intel-ligence enquiry because she fears that it will make her look weak and incom-

petent, especially in front of a younger Home Secretary. A violent exchange ensures that leads to Bond having to bundle her out of the building and into a waiting car. While M has warned about a “world of shadows” and traded in vague geopolitical abstractions, the en-emy in question was known even if she refused to acknowledge his name. Her attempts to resist democratic account-ability ring hollow, as it seems that her willingness for opacity might be linked more to her sense of reluctance to con-sider retirement.

Bond used to be her “blunt instru-ment,” but now she places her security in the hands of Bond. He insists that she travel with him to northern Scotland to his childhood home of Skyfall. Bond’s plan is a simple one. Lure Silva and his henchmen away from the confusing and congested cityscape of London to the emptier mountainous environment of Scotland with only one simple build-ing to defend. Bond’s geographical dis-placement is also a gendered one—M’s authority literally drains away as she is schooled in improvised bomb making and shooting by Bond’s former Scot-tish gamekeeper Kincaid. Unbeknown to her, she is about to make the ulti-mate sacrifice for the wider good of the nation.

As the film reaches its climax, a vio-lent confrontation ensues with M play-ing her part in killing some of the assas-sination party. She has proven that age is no barrier to “learning new tricks” as Miss Moneypenny might have noted. But she is also injured in the shooting and has to be squirreled away in a secret tunnel by Kincaid. M’s stomach/womb injuries prove fatal and she subsequently dies in Bond’s arms in the small chapel close to Skyfall—assassinated by a for-mer agent rather than the criminal net-work (Quantum) she had railed against in earlier films. Had she taken early re-tirement she might have survived, but as she told Mallory on several occasions, she was not leaving voluntarily.

The Scottish segment of the film pro-vides another opportunity for the film to engage with the nexus of age, gender, and geopolitics. M’s frailty is further ex-posed with Kincaid offering her a scarf

The long shot of M and the

coffins merely reinforces the sense of loss and potential culpability—will she have

sufficient resolve to bounce back?

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to help keep warmer in the bleak house. Bond’s capacity to shoot appeared to have recovered, after he shows Kincaid that he is able to hit a small target at some distance. And Bond and Kincaid play their part in not only protecting M but also plotting and planning a murder-ous reception for Silva and his hench-men. M is given a limited role in the sur-prise attack but it is clear that Bond and Kincaid will take the lead as aging pro-tector figures. Kincaid’s retort, “Wel-come to Scotland,” after assassinating the first intruders is well delivered and hints at a readiness to prepare and react to the threat of possible disaster.

Preparing for the Looming Attack

Resilience is all about preparing for a disastrous future. As Mark Neocleous notes, “The state now assumes that one of its key tasks is to imagine the worst case scenario, the coming catastrophe, the crisis-to-come, the looming attack, the emergency that could happen, might happen, and probably will happen, in or-der to be better prepared” (Neocleous, “Resisting Resilience” 2). There are two interesting aspects to this. First, there is the question of how the home has shaped Bond’s geopolitical imaginary—as an orphan traumatized by the death of his parents—and thus helped prepare

him for the “looming attack.” He knows that Silva and his henchmen are likely to come after him and M. Kincaid ex-plains to M that the secret tunnel under the house was where Bond retreated to for two days after hearing of his par-ents’ death. According to Kincaid, he emerged as a man as opposed to a boy. M had earlier noted, as Vesper knew as well, that orphans made the best field agents precisely because an assumption was made they were likely to be more resilient and less vulnerable to fears about leaving a family behind. Bond later shows no hesitation when blowing up Skyfall, especially after he witnesses his “beloved” DB5 being systematically destroyed by Silva. As if Silva knew that Bond’s feelings for this particular object would be piqued by such an action pre-cisely because he had no family mem-ber to threaten or take hostage—nor as it turns out a femme fatale.

There may be something else at stake when the film’s narrative and spatial arc descends on Skyfall—the isolated homestead far removed from comput-ers, mobile phones, and public transport systems. What is interesting about the final scene involving Skyfall is it physi-cal isolation –it is a sprawling house with a tunnel that only the owners and trusted staff members know about it. Al-though Bond’s is tracked, this is a place removed from those cyber-and transport networks that Silva has disrupted and terrorized. Here, at last, is a space where an aging agent can use his resilient skills—be innovative, enterprising and flexible (O’Malley). Bond as a resilient citizen-subject puts his training to good use by devising a strategy designed to inflict maximum carnage on Silva’s as-sault force. There is an underlying poli-tics of anticipation writ large; Bond ap-pears to thrive on the impending chaos.

Bond’s decision to blow up the house suggests a man with a renewed sense of purpose. Bond knows where the tunnel leads armed as he is with “home field advantage.” As if to say that defeating technologically sophisticated evil ge-niuses does not require one to “play their game” but confront them in a more pri-meval environment of heather, ice-cov-ered lake and mist. The final confronta-tion with Silva in a small family-owned chapel again gestures to what Kincaid calls “the old ways,” ways shaped by experience and only older men would appreciate them. Bond throws a knife into Silva’s back as if to reinforce the idea that this middle-aged agent may be battered and bruised, but he can still hurl a knife, use a shotgun and improvise when it comes to bomb making equip-ment. Cyberterrorism only gets you so far when faced with a rejuvenated field agent able to adapt to new shocks and use a substantial period of field experi-ence to his advantage.

Resilience and Flag-Waving Nostalgia

The film’s denouement is geopo-litically nostalgic—Bond’s bodily re-silience was critical in addressing the mounting threat posed by Silva. M is

Resilience is all about

preparing for a disastrous

future.

Casino Royale (2006). Directed by Martin Campbell. Shown in center: Daniel Craig (as James Bond). Photo courtesy of MGM/Columbia Pictures/Photofest.

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dead, however. A suited Bond is later shown standing on the roof of Whitehall building in the heart of London. Union flags are fluttering in the wind—in trib-ute, we suspect—to the late M. Bond gazes over the streets and building of London. Far from the madding crowd, and perhaps confident that Britain can still be a great power even if colonies like Hong Kong have long since been lost and uncertainty over the future of the Union remains—the Scottish ref-erendum of 2014 notwithstanding. Kincaid and Bond’s partnership seem to suggest that England and Scotland work best together, especially if these two male representatives are work-ing to protect their Queen. Earlier in the film, Silva sent M a mocking im-age of her face embossed on the Union flag. This time, standing on top of the Whitehall building, the fluttering flag is used to signify a more assertive nation-alism—Bond’s father was Scottish, but Bond’s Englishness sits well within the Union context. When Eve Moneypenny hands him the bulldog figurine (left to him in M’s will), he is quick to cor-rect her that she did not mean it to be a subtle hint that he should think of an office job. If anything, this material ob-ject was invested with geopolitical im-port—the bulldog is a signifier of Bond and Britain’s spirit to “strive and not yield” and to do so without relying on the help of allies, including the United States.

Geopolitical nostalgia in that sense works in two ways. As a series of places and routes that field agents such as Bond can return to because of an attachment to the past. Bond and M’s route to Scotland played a critical role in not only affirm-ing his resilience (rather than fragility in M’s case) but also facilitating his return to London where he started his career as an 00 agent. As a child, Bond learned to deal with the dreadful news that he was an orphan (sometimes that Vesper dis-covered in Casino Royale as she probed his personal background) by retreating into a secret tunnel in his home, Skyfall.

But some agents appear more resil-ient than others. The ending of the film rehearses another form of nostalgic conservatism, a gendered variety. After their first formal introduction, Bond fi-

nally discovers that the agent who ac-cidentally shot him in Istanbul is Eve Moneypenny. More surprisingly, she has decided to take Bond’s advice about the field. She has decided to become the personal assistant to the new M, Mal-lory. And Mallory who proved himself to Bond (and the audience with the news that he had been tortured by the IRA in Northern Ireland—and learnt to be more resilient in and out of the field) finds himself in an office that looks reminis-cent of the pre–Judi Dench M. A highly masculinized office with a picture of the old MI6 building and another depict-ing a naval battle at Trafalgar is what greets Bond on his arrival into the of-fice. Mallory hands Bond a well-worn file marked “top secret” and ask him if he is ready to return to the field. The surviving three characters have been put in their place and a middle-aged field agent is shown that he does not need to learn new tricks—he is the lone resilient citizen-agent. The “old [gendered, aged, and resilient of sorts] ways” can still work even if the location of the threats and the scope and scale of the villains change. Bond has learned to conceal his injuries and his aging. As an older Q once advised him, “Never let them see you bleed in the field.”

ConclusionJames Bond’s latest adventure, in

Skyfall, is a geopolitically nostalgic and highly gendered state of affairs medi-ated in large part by the aging process. It is also a telling commentary on the dominant discourse and practice associ-ated with resilience. Silva is right that it might well appear to be “so old-fash-ioned” in some senses. Two of the lead-ing women are dead and the other, Miss Moneypenny, gives up being a field

agent in order to become a personal as-sistant to a late middle-aged man. The field is left to a middle-aged man who had to prove that he could battle against both aching body parts and a personal journey back to an earlier childhood trauma. And M, played by Judi Dench for seven films, is no more. Her death is shown to be deeply troubling to Bond as he holds a dying M in his arms in the chapel where his parents are commemo-rated. Bond’s loss of a mother figure (as Silva recognized) is a crucial one but also an opportune one—a moment to prove to himself and the audience that he is able to move beyond the troubling loss of Vesper (which clearly encouraged a more vigilante element to his charac-ter) and focus again on what M would have wanted—a renewed appreciation of the mission and duty more generally. A new Miss Moneypenny, with her lim-ited field agent experience and intimate rapport with Bond, will provide fresh possibilities for exploring Bond’s char-acter development (Garland).

Geopolitically, the film continues to peddle an imaginary, which stresses the roles of networks and villainous individ-uals but does so in a way that continues to depict Bond and Britain as increas-ingly isolated (and thus needing to gen-erate a wider systemic resilience which prepares for a future in which the United States is not there to support the United Kingdom) from the wider world. Com-pared with Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, the locations are decidedly east of Suez, especially in the former British colony of Hong Kong and ear-lier in China. The United States is no-where to be seen apart from the briefest reference to U.S.-led intelligence sup-port in terms of tracking Patrice. There is no sign of Felix Leiter, the sidekick of James Bond on former missions. For much of the film, in a complete break with the Bond series, the action concentrates on London and then later Scotland. Reinforcing the fact that the old division between domestic tranquil-ity and external bedlam is something reminiscent of the Cold War era. Bond may have had to deal with the specter of global annihilation but until now Lon-don was relatively safe from such geo-political unpleasantness.

Bond has learned to conceal his injuries and his aging.

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There is another altogether more biopolitical imaginary informed by the logic of resilience that needs to be flagged up. What Skyfall ends up sug-gesting is that in order for Britain to be safe in these disquieting times, it needs middle-aged to late middle-aged men (wearing well-cut suits) in charge of the office and the field. Young men and women, in this nostalgic division of labor, can either be part of the tech-nological avant-garde (Q) or personal assistants (Miss Moneypenny). Earlier evidence of gender ambiguity, as noted in Casino Royale for example, appears to have been jettisoned in favor of lion-izing the aging male character (Gates; Funnell, “I Know”; Cox). The mon-strous and sexually ambivalent Silva has been put in his place as well—Bond and Britain no longer has to listen to him complaining about complicities and torture. He no longer has to endure the caressing of Silva on his scared chest. Bond’s particular brand of heterosexual patriotism is foregrounded once more just as he stands, confidentially, on top of MI6’s old office building with the Union flags gently fluttering in the background. Bond will unquestionably be back, but he will be just a little bit older.

AcknowledgmentsI offer sincere thanks to Peter Adey and

Lisa Funnell for their expert advice and to the readers of the Journal of Popular Film and Television. The usual disclaimers apply.

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