The whole 'licence to kill' issue is up and running again...but misses the point by a country mile, which is Bond was never a traditional intelligence office, nor meant to be
And also takes a very narrowly British view of espionage and assassination, which is not followed by all, and no, not just the Soviets/Russians
And misses the legacy of Bond's military, para-military roots
*officer
Owes much to the development of para-military and SFs from 1950s on, especially in the CIA
And of course there's
But Bond's origins owe far more to the quasi-para-military-espionage milieu of the wartime Special Operations Executive than simply to SIS.
It's in that nexus between intelligence agencies and para-military operations in which he is based, and always has been
Ignoring this murky overlap, or perhaps being ignorant of that interaction and Fleming's deliberate conflation of these spheres of operation isn't being pedantically accurate, it's getting Bond wrong
And yes it is left hanging in many of the books and films, but Jeffery Deaver addresses it directly in his Bond novel Carte Blanche with the creation of the Overseas Development Group – a covert operational unit of British security controlled by the FCO
And yes, I take this with a very big fist-full of salt...but still
So is the 'license to kill' real?
No. But there are examples that come close and Fleming was well aware of those blurred lines in the 2ndWW, which was the birth-place of Bond, not the Cold War as many seem to think.
The End.
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Alexander Haig was a board member of MGM/UA Entertainment Company in the early 1980s, which released Red Dawn (1984).
'He called it “one of the most realistic and provocative films that I have ever seen,” adding that it offered “a clear lesson to all viewers, and that is the importance of American strength to protect the peace we have enjoyed throughout history.” '
He arranged a private screening in Washington for prominent figures in the defence and intelligence establishments
Mark Weinberg, Movie Nights with the Reagans, pp. 167-8
Rewatched Skyfall last night in advance of seeing NTTD today.
Must admit I wasn't a massive fan of the film on the first viewing, and maybe I've now seen it 2-3 times, but having seen it again I think it's a lot better than I thought.
Above all else what stands out is the sheer quality of Roger Deakins's cinematography.
Not sure I really appreciated how extensively the shot composition, framing and centring shaped what we see on screen
Quite simply there's not 1 sloppy or duff shot in the entire film.
Really struggling to think of another Bond that comes close to that.
Not to suggest they're poorly made, although I can think of 1 film which is at best shot like a TV show