In the ’60s, Sean Connery was the supreme symbol of manhood who was never questioned as 007. Then came Roger Moore in the ’70s and ’80s, who was more a relic of the British gentility and louche nightclub sexuality, till the movies became parodies of themselves, reaching a height of comedy with Octopussy.

Then followed years of confusion and James Bond movies became jokes of women in bikinis moaning “James” or “shaken not stirred Martini vodkas”. Whereas a new, gloomy yet stunningly violent character called Jason Bourne had emerged from Ludlum, played to the hilt by Matt Damon. Also, Tom Cruise had created a new and rather exciting franchise called Ethan Hunt.... Bond had faded into just plain boring, old-fashioned nostalgia.

Then suddenly came Daniel Craig in 2006, my best Bond ever. Who kept all the cliches intact, yet utterly reinvented it all. His brooding, almost doomed coldness, battered yet truly loving face. His stunningly sexy highly thoughtful nature. A man who listens when women speak, but is seriously dangerous, ruthless and selfish. In total, the most vulnerable, complex Bond ever. Bond became real and not a cipher for adventure. Bond was no longer just wisecracks, ugly looking baddies, sexy girls, gadgets, gears and cheeky quips with a smile. Daniel was human, who fights with his fists not gadgets, and kisses with his heart. 

Bond was reborn in 2006
When his name was announced by Eon Productions, the Internet and media were ablaze with indignation: “Too short, too blonde”.... In the minds of those who cared Bond was still the man who bedded sexy girls, had licence to kill at will, smoked 60 custom-made cigarettes a day, gambled, travelled and spent as much money as he liked, was disengaged, urbane, eyebrow-raising and spoke in punchlines only. A man best suited for a Savile Row suit. 

But one must remember that in the books Bond was a suburban orphan, born out of privation and not luxury. And Daniel took him as a serious character and made him real. The actor who was first recognised for his brilliant performance in Sam Mendes’s Road To Perdition, came ablaze with alarming maturity and gave Bond the sheer grit and dirt which was missing.
Paul Haggis joined Neal Purvis and Robert Wade to rewrite Casino Royale, Ian Fleming’s first Bond novel, and created just the right gloomy predicament required for a man who is licensed to kill. They gave him stunningly attractive yet deceptive women who were equally doomed as Bond. They gave scope for Bond to be violently brutal and lonely simultaneously. Director Martin Campbell pulled it off from the opening black-and-white scene in Prague where Bond coldly kills an MI6 traitor, then shifts to a long, outrageous, stunning chase-and-fight sequence in Africa. Daniel, with a florid Hawaiian shirt and loafers, hammered his way through the action and Bond was reborn with Casino Royale in 2006. 

Throughout the film, his battered, beautiful face created a certain magnetic charm never seen in Bond before as he fought the financier of terrorism Le Chiffre, played magnificently by Mads Mikkelsen. The most superb sequence in the history of Bond catalogue ever is where Le Chiffre whips a naked Bond tied to a chair. Only Daniel could have carried it off unabashedly. The utterly doomed relationship with a deceptively vulnerable Eva Green’s Vesper Lynd clearly denotes the emotional loneliness of 007’s life. The superb shower scene between the two will remain as soul-stirring as the almost magical death scene of Vesper with a helpless Bond underneath the Venice waters. Judi Dench’s M becomes a mother figure for Bond. $599 million was collected.

Fated to be a 007, nothing more
Then came the more emotionally scarred and violent Quantum of Solace in 2008. Daniel stormed with director Marc Forster and the same group of writers. This time with more brutal force and violence. Again the outstanding action-packed opening sequence in Italy amidst a bullfight. This time Daniel challenges Mr Wright’s Felix Leiter and the murderous environmentalist Mathieu Amalric’s Dominic Greene. 

Once again the 007 movie proves that the villains of Bond are attracted to Bond and vice versa. They are as fated as Bond’s sexual encounters or love life. Olga Kurylenko’s Camille Montes and Daniel Craig is again a strange combination of powerful sexual tension, deep love, which is doomed. Here Bond cannot forget his past love Vesper Lynd, but in the end, given the choice by M to come back, he says, “I was always there,” and drops Vesper’s necklace in the snows of Warsaw streets.…

Bond is fated to be a 007 and nothing more. A man who will even disobey MI6 for his craze to seek the truth and find them up against him. A misunderstood secret agent forever. $586 million was collected.

Has to lose the one he loves
Enter the famed Sam Mendes as director in 2012 and Skyfall grosses $1.1billion. The villain Silva is the brilliant Javier Bardem. Two new characters, Ben Whishaw as the gadget expert Q and Naomie Harris as secretary Moneypenny. Again Daniel rocks. I notice for the first time that the Savile Row suit fits him only too well. That despite high-voltage action his coat remains buttoned. His dry lips hide a battered, lonely heart. After Road to Perdition the Craig-Mendes combination was magical. Shanghai, Macau, Scotland to where Bond spent his childhood, the ravishing scenario again gives ample scope to a Bond movie that ends with the defeat of Silva but the death of M/mama. Once again Bond has to lose the one he loves.

Here is a Bond who does not make love on silken bedsheets with champagne. Neither are there bikini-clad sexy legs on the beach or in the swimming pool. Rather they are torrid, passionate affairs in tumbledown hotels, bathrooms, battered train coaches. The watch remains Quartz but often gadgets fail and he is left to his fists and feet. His suit is sleek but his face is scarred. He is not a smart talker but someone who says the truth because he has to.   

Behind the cloak of heroism
Now this year comes Spectre by Sam Mendes again, with a high-voltage action sequence in Mexico City amidst the Day of the Dead. Shot like a single shot a la De Palma to a crazily violent mid-air action, Spectre immediately sets the pace. Daniel is again the hard-boiled emotionally-devastated James, who will again go against his bosses to settle the score of M’s death. 

This time Christopher Waltz’s Ernst Stavro Blofeld (the old Ian Fleming character) is threatening the world with surveillance terror. Bond fights for the rights of the individual. In a superbly acted scene between Ralph Fiennes (M) and Andrew Scott (a senior government employee and traitor) the basic question of the right to “kill and not kill” is raised and argued out with brilliance. Despite stupid and atrocious Indian censorship, the foreplay scene between a tempting Bond and a treacherous succumbing Monica Bellucci is stunning. From Mexico to Rome to the Alps to Morocco... this final Craig Bond is a summing up of the last three. 

The tales of Le Chiffre, Dominic Greene, Silva, Vesper Lynd are all brought together in the final climax. Mr White returns, dying of thallium poisoning, to blow his head off with James’s gun and put Bond on the trail of Blofeld via his daughter Madeleine Swann (Lea Seydoux). As Bond falls for her and fights Blofeld’s torture, we realise that this Bond is tired of being 007. Given the choice he would quit this doomed life of killing for the good cause. Here is a man who prefers adultery to sex with ordinary women. He feels betrayed by his superiors. A real person behind the cloak of heroism.

Though there is a similar farewell scene between Swann and Daniel, where she leaves a Bond who has to go on and take down Blofeld’s devious plans, reminding us of Quantum of Solace, the ending on Westminster Bridge, where Bond decides not to kill and walks away with Swann, is a fabulous farewell from Daniel Craig.

Symbol of real people
Now I know there are those who like James Bond to be all brawn, sexy and no heart, for the pure fun of it. Or there are those who are stuck in the suave nostalgia of Sean Connery and his punchlines. But re-look into Ian Fleming and consider our world today. There are at least two million Americans, and a significant British, Canadian, Asian, Arab, South Asian people who have been fighting actual shadow war against actual madmen with actual dreams of global domination. They have been ousted from their home, drifted to various states of brokenness. Daniel Craig’s Bond is the symbol of these real people. He is that deprived suburban orphan who is a figure of confidence in an age of anxiety. Redemption in an age of degradation. Reliable in our unreliable times.

Now that he will no longer be back as 007 (something Daniel Craig has hinted in interviews but not confirmed), I say with gratitude that he shall always remain as that uncompromising, magnetic, brutal psychology that hides the vulnerability of a child. His rakishly handsome, sculptured face and sad, blue eyes will remind us of a modern, lonely knight. He is the only one to redeem the exhausted often disgraceful figment of male fantasy we have given the name James Bond.

Is Daniel Craig’s 007 the suitable Bond for our times? Tell t2@abp.in