Geopolitics, Gender, and Genre: The Work of Pre-Title/Title Sequences in James Bond Films

Abstract

IntroductionAlmost since inception of Bond series, one of most recognizable features of films has been opening sequences. From now iconic images of a male figure (Bond) seen through barrel of a gun to un- dulating female bodies, pre-title/title se- quences mark screen in ways that are both familiar and enticing to viewers. The pre-title sequence of Cold War classic From Russia with Love (1963), for example, second film in James Bond series and first to deploy pre-title/title formula, opens with a shot of Bond seen through a gun barrel that then gives way to figure of 007 walking guard- edly through a formal garden in dead of night. A man sneaks up on Bond and strangles him to death with a thin wire. At this moment, exterior lights illuminate garden to reveal a large mansion with many people standing around. The agent is congratulated for his rapid kill, and then a mask is peeled from dead body to reveal that it is not Bond who has been slain-the exercise was simply a practice ses- sion for agent. The scene then cuts to title sequence, where credits are projected onto shimmying bodies of women in belly dancer costumes.1 In almost every subsequent Bond film, sequences function similarly, introduc- ing film's hero and its broader gender poli- tics as well as security threat that Bond will thwart. In each new installment of series, these high-impact, fast-moving pre-title/title sequences refer back to previous Bond films, forging intertextual linkages. At same time, pre-title/title sequences serve both di- egetic and metonymic functions, re-presenting real international politics and global security threats within a normalizing male hegemony.Despite their obvious relevance to Bond series viability, curiously little has been written on pre-titles and titles.2 This article seeks to fill this gap, exploring multiple functions of sequences in three of most recent Bond films, Die Another Day (2002), Casino Royale (2006), and Quantum of Solace (2008).3 These particular films are interesting because they mark (at time much-publicized) shift from Pierce Brosnan to Daniel Craig in role of James Bond and because they also signal changing risks presented by a turbulent international security situation. Taken together, these films not only provide a window into ways in which pre-title/title sequences anchor Bond series, they also offer a template for understanding power of genre in structuring filmic articulations of contemporary geopolitics and gender politics and discourses. After a brief discussion of title and pre-title sequences and role of genre in Bond films, we turn to an examination of geopolitics and diegetic contemporaneity as found in Die Another Day, Casino Royale, and Quantum of Solace. We then look more particularly at pre-title/title sequences and their generic, diegetic, and met- onymic functions, arguing that sequences, like films as a whole, telescope contempo- rary geopolitics and gender politics.Pre-Titles, Titles, and Generic ImaginingsIn Reading Title Sequence, Georg Stan- itzek points to complexity and multiple functions of title sequences. These functions are economic and legal (i.e., production and distribution credits), aesthetic (49), and spa- tial, facilitating transition from outside to inside and thus allowing viewers to engage film. This opening then is both integral and semi-autonomous (45) because of its struc- ture and because of extra-diegetic informa- tion that it provides. As Stanitzek writes, the title sequences come into being as an eminent space of cinematic intermediality (45). The title sequence of first Bond film, Dr. No (1962), acts as Stanitzek's article suggests, al- lowing audience to leave mundane ev- eryday and enter world of Bond. However, beginning with second film in series (From Russia with Love) title sequence is preceded by an action sequence that is inte- gral not only to threshold experience of viewing but also to establishing diegesis. …