This post was meant to be a well-reasoned, thought-provoking
analysis of Live and Let Die. Alas, as it has been more than a month since
I screened the film, this quick run-through of my thoughts on what I remember
will have to do. I’ve also managed to
view four more Roger Moore Bond films in the intervening time, and I wanted to
blog about Live and Let Die before
blogging my thoughts on the Roger Moore era as a whole.
From what I have gathered over the years, Moore competes
with Connery as people’s definitive James Bond.
I have decided to withhold judgment on Moore for the time being, but I
could not let Live and Let Die be
seen without at least some sort of commentary.
With Live and Let Die
we jumped head-first into the 1970s. If
you are at all curious about the fabulous fashions, tired clichés, and general
feel of 1970s pop culture, watch this film.
Not only does it feature this amazing rainbow sequined dress (a precursor to the glamorous disco dresses that would
become de rigueur in dance clubs and on music stages just a few years hence), a
collection of flamboyant (some might say “pimpin’”) male suits and accessories such as this polka dot scarf, and a number (see 5 links here) of outstanding outfits
on a young
Jane
Seymour;
even the conservative and classic James Bond gets in on the ‘70s fashion
foppery with outfits like this powder blue leisure suit.
In many ways, the 1970s fashions and feel are rivaled in
film only by the Blaxploitation genre on which this Bond appears to be
based. Yet, one major aspect (and many
smaller ones) of Live and Let Die makes
it fundamentally different from a 1970s Blaxploitation film. Yes, the writers changed Ian Fleming’s story
about the smuggling of gold coins to one about an international Heroin ring so
as to fit with the common Blaxploitation tropes of drugs and crime in black
communities. Yes, there are a number of
scenes set in urban black communities, most notably New Orleans and Harlem. And yes, the film features a cast of larger-than-life
black characters who are empowered and violent.
But key to the grand majority of 1970s Blaxploitation films is the black
vigilante hero--be it man or woman--who is empowered to save/enact
revenge/conform his or her community/family/race from some form of evil--white supremacy, drugs,
prostitution, etc. It
is the black character who saves the day, be it from the criminals in his own community
or from the white suppression of his race. A black character is the hero. It was, and remains today, an important
anomaly in film that the black character saves the day or enacts violent
revenge, actions that are overwhelmingly relegated to white men.
The fact that all black characters in Live and Let Die are villains (save one black agent who gets
killed) and James Bond is the hero, criminalizing Mr. Big and his black
minions, makes the film an exploitation of the success of Blaxploitation rather
than a true homage to it. (Honestly, it
makes me wonder if they chose to imitate the genre only to make it somehow a more
acceptable setting for Bond to bed his first black woman.)
Yet, it seems the producers of the film were well aware of this problem when they were making it. As the director (writer? producer? I can’t recall) said plainly in the special features documentary, “Inside Live and Let Die,” with all the black actors being villains, you know they’re going to lose, so who else can we make fun of? (paraphrasing here). So they brought in the character of the bumbling redneck southern Louisiana sheriff, so poor southern whites could also take some of the racist brunt--equal opportunity racism, as my friends and I called it.
And being aware of the racism, stereotyping, and absurdity
of it all, actually makes the film rather enjoyable and humorous in its ability
to appall and enthrall. A syndicate of
black drug smugglers so powerful that it seems every black person from Harlem
to New Orleans to the Caribbean is involved?
A black cabbie who quips, “for $20 I’ll take you to a KKK cookout”? Mr. Big’s lackey, the voodoo leader,
portrayed as a constantly smiling Sambo?
The exoticism, spiritualism, and voodoo of the residents of the
fictional Caribbean island of San Monique on display throughout the film (although
it was unclear to me how much of it was supposed to be understood as genuine vs.
how much was meant for the purpose of tourism)?
And, of course, that overly long and outrageous boat chase in the
Louisiana swamps with the completely inept southern white cops trying in vain
to catch the drivers? All so absurd as
to be humorous.
There were some genuinely humorous moments in the film
as well, even if Bond’s quips and sexual innuendo were a bit out of control in this
outing. There was also plenty of action
on land, sea, and air and a variety of nifty gadgets that made the movie
enjoyable to watch. Certainly not the
best Bond film in terms of realism, structure, and general cinematic quality, but
Live and Let Die was good enough to
keep my attention and enthusiasm for almost the entire 2+ hours, which is a
major accomplishment for a Bond film so far.
I'd love to see if there were reviews of this in Ebony, Jet, et al...
ReplyDeleteGreat post. Love the idea of exploiting blacksploitation. Exploitblacksploit?
Thanks for the comment!
DeleteThere are back issues of Ebony and Jet on Google Books. All I could find in reference to Live and Let Die was this article on black actresses in the Nov 1973 issue of Ebony:
http://books.google.com/books?id=KN4DAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA144&dq=%22Live+and+Let+Die%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=hGsXUvifD4OO2AWGh4GACQ&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22Live%20and%20Let%20Die%22&f=false
and a short blurb on Gloria Hendry (Rosie) in Jet, Aug 9, 1973:
http://books.google.com/books?hl=En&id=BVsDAAAAMBAJ&q=live+and+let+die#v=snippet&q=live%20and%20let%20die&f=false