An excerpt from “A Close
Look at ‘A View to a Kill” (2015)
Ordinary bad people aren’t even worth Bond’s time. [Zorin] is
very, very bad.
CHRISTOPHER WALKEN1
[With A View to a Kill,]
I did not go to ‘rushes’ every day … to see what we shot the day before, which
I normally did [with the Bond films]. So it came as a surprise to me when I saw
the premiere … to see so much violence. It seemed to me a much more violent
film than any of the Bonds I’d done up till then. I preferred the old style
Bond – not so many people were killed at the one time.
ROGER MOORE2
‘It seemed to me a much more violent film...’3 The sadism has
definitely been taken up a couple of notches, and this can impact on how
violent a film is perceived as being. The force of the water bursting through
the tunnels, and the resultant collapsing structures, is vividly portrayed. The
sound design is fantastic. You could be forgiven for initially thinking Zorin
and Scarpine’s machine-gunning of the scampering, petrified men is a merciful
gesture, salvation from the horror of drowning. However, such thought is dashed
when we see Zorin in medium close-up, unable to contain his laughter at the
crazy spectacle of it all. What a grand opportunity to live out childish dreams
of omnipotence. Dubious as it may sound, Zorin’s joyful amusement at the
destruction he has orchestrated is one of the most memorable elements of A View to a Kill.
As Jeremy Black puts it, ‘Zorin [at this point] is a satanic figure, rather
like Jack Nicholson’s portrayal of the devil in [1987’s] The Witches of
Eastwick’.4
Roger Moore’s reservation towards this sequence was also
reflected in some critical notices.5 For instance, in
writing about the film’s PG (parental guidance recommended) rating in the
United States, The
Bulletin’s Gene Barton cautioned, ‘[A View to a Kill]
contains the most wanton Bond violence ever … a PG-13 rating [parents strongly
cautioned] would have been more proper’.6 Such reservation
is understandable: even within an escapist context, the sequence is a
disturbing one, with surely fifty or more men (and two of the three henchwomen)
losing their lives in Zorin’s double cross. And yet while it represents a
toughening up of the Bond formula, for the regular attendee of Bond films (or
the attendee of any number of films in the action-adventure genre), the
sequence clearly turns a Bondian – and action-adventure – staple on its head.
The details that accompany Zorin’s betrayal – the poor souls
caught in the spray of machine-gun fire, the electrocutions, bodies falling
from great heights – immediately quote the famous large-scale set pieces from
Bond films such as The
Spy Who Loved Me, You Only Live Twice
and Goldfinger.
But those sequences depicted a confrontation between allied forces and the
super-villain’s private armies. Given that A View to a Kill
delivers the trappings of a Bondian battle sequence, but does so to depict a
one-sided, cold-blooded betrayal, there’s inevitably a subversive quality to
the action. The violent details that were once the consequence of a clash of
ideologies (and formula dictates that one side must be spectacularly misguided)
are here the result of egotism and a warped pragmatism. Therefore, the sequence
cannot help but force us to appraise those past death-ridden ‘spectacles’ from
a new, more sobering perspective. (That is, if we haven’t already rejected the
filmmakers for spiking our drink.) There’s no glossing over the human cost
here. The sequence is one heck of a metaphor for business-like cruelty, capped
off with Zorin’s cool observation: ‘Good. Right on schedule.’ Had the film been
directed by Oliver Stone (highly improbable, yes), we might have viewed the
sequence as a sledge-hammer ‘fantasy-based’ invocation of the worst of the
capitalist spirit: the ever-growing appetite and entitlement of the
individualist, the dearth of empathy in the greed-driven, the lives of workers
of minor consequence beyond the profit motive.
Perhaps we can take solace in our knowledge of Zorin’s steroids
heritage. No ordinary person could do this. Interviewed in 1989, writer Maibaum
was at a loss as to why he and Wilson felt the backstory was necessary. ‘Maybe
we loaded that part with too much,’ Maibaum mused.7 Of course, if we
remove the steroids references, we might be left solely with the unappetising
possibility that Zorin had been driven crazy by capitalist zeal. (Whoever suggested
the Bond universe was fanciful?) On the other hand, the discourse reassures us
that those who exploit the fragile interdependency of the Western economic
system will not escape unpunished. We could also take solace in the discourse
of an ex-KGB man cursed with the inability to self-regulate his capitalistic
fervour. Except we know this sickness extends to Westerners as well.
There’s something about A View to a Kill:
the ambitions of the super-villain typically denote a perversion of the
capitalist ethos, and Zorin is no exception. It is just that the perversion of
this film – the jolly arrogance, airships emblazoned with company logo, the
disposable girlfriend, the workers past their use-by date, the dead-eyed stare
at the suffering of others – strikes a little closer to home than one might
wish for this type of escapist fare.
Does the sequence belong in a Bond film? Does it belong
alongside Roger Moore-Patrick Macnee double acts and crumpled police cars? An
admiration for the blending of tonal elements has already been stated; the Bond
film genre is a largely accommodating one. A View to a Kill
keeps some of the fun elements, but it doesn’t overbalance itself with them, á la Moonraker, and it
moves into some darker territories. Given earlier scenes and images – the
pilots awash in the flare’s wake, the dark figure rising behind Tibbett and
Chuck Lee, the murders of Klotkoff and Howe – there is the sense that we have
reached the place the filmmakers have been leading us towards.
We might even forget for a moment that we are watching a Bond
film; until, that is, we are delivered another example of offsetting the
violence with humour. In this case, the camera zooms in on the lone fisherman,
standing, ever so mystified, in a wide, empty lake. And true to form, the
sequence does not fall into what The Spokeman Review’s
critic Richard Freedman described as the ‘lip-smacking sadism of other [1980s]
action adventures’.8 It overwhelmingly conforms to the level of graphic detail shown
in previous Bond films, which is to say, the detail is minimal. The one
exception would be Klotkoff’s death; but while that moment is chilling in its
clinical presentation, you could hardly accuse the filmmakers of lingering.
1 Colin Dangaard, ‘Moore returns as
Bond, ‘saving the world again’’, The Ottawa Citizen,
1 March 1985, p. D26.
2 Quoted from Roger Moore’s audio commentary (Chapter 23) in A View to a Kill,
ultimate ed. DVD, directed by John Glen (1985, Santa Monica, CA: MGM Home
Entertainment, 2006).
3 Ibid.
4 Black, The Politics of James
Bond, p. 172.
5 ‘Roger Moore’s reservation towards this sequence was also
reflected in some critical notices.’ e.g. Rubin, The Complete James
Bond Movie Encyclopedia, p. 434; McKay, The Man with the
Golden Touch, p. 252-253; Paseman, The Register-Guard,
p. 7D.
6 Gene Barton, ‘New Bond film provides sense of déjà vu’, The Bulletin, 7
June 1985, p. 8.
7 Quoted in Mark A. Altman, ‘Writing Bond’, Cinefantastique,
vol. 19, no. 5, July 1989, p. 56.
8 Richard Freedman, ‘‘A View to a Kill’ is the best Bond in
years’, The
Spokesman Review/Spokane Chronicle, May 24, 1985, p. 11.
