Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-xtgtn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-16T18:46:46.536Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - The Dead Are Alive: The Exotic Non-Place of the Bondian Runaway Production

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2020

Get access

Summary

Abstract

This chapter dissects the opening sequences of Skyfall (2012) in Istanbul and Spectre (2015) in Mexico City in order to argue that Eon's predilection for runaway productions has begun began to influence the textual composition of the James Bond film series. Eon Productions often modifies the narratives and settings of its Bond features in order to exploit the increasingly global availability of funding schemes, tax incentives, and cheap labor, and to secure, on a global scale, profitable distribution deals, enhanced visibility, and greater revenues from merchandizing. In the process, the Bondian runaway production fashions a colonial imaginary of exotic non-places, which has since long been a staple of the brand of Bond.

Keywords: runaway production; Global South; exoticism; non-place; Mexico City; Istanbul

From the outset, the James Bond film series was conceived as a runaway production. Bond-producer Harry Saltzman, a Canadian born in Quebec, relocated to the United Kingdom in the mid-1950s, where he founded Woodfall Film Productions with director Tony Richardson and writer John Osborne in 1958, famously engendering a wave of British Kitchen Sink classics such as Look Back in Anger (UK: Tony Richardson, 1959). In 1961, while at Woodfall, Saltzman secured an option on nine Bond novels from Ian Fleming but struggled to complete the financing for the films. It is at this stage that the second producer of the Bond film series, Albert R. Broccoli, an Italian-American hailing from New York, entered the picture. Broccoli moved to the United Kingdom in the early 1950s, setting up Warwick Films with Irving Allen in 1951. Warwick's base in the UK granted Broccoli and Allen the distinct benefits of a “runaway production:” it enabled the duo to circumvent the British quota requirement; to tap into the resources of the Eady Levy, a British fund that subsidized domestic film production through a tax imposed on ticket sales; to bypass tax regulations in the United States; to hire high-skilled laborers that were considerably cheaper than those available in Hollywood; and to retain creative freedom in the production process.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cultural Life of James Bond
Specters of 007
, pp. 81 - 102
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×