Casino Royale

The new Bond movie, Casino Royale, is emblematic of our society, where we are now, and where we might be headed. There were some fascinating scenes, in exotic and dangerous places, like Madagascar (who knew?), but in this case (and many others in Casino Royale) the fantastic scene, which probably cost a hundred thousand to make, is quickly left behind. What follows the opening is a prolonged chase and brutality scene, in which one protagonist is black and fleeing, and the other is white and chasing, both are brutal and take any unfair advantage they can in the fight, and you know bupkes about either of them, except that you think the white one must be the new Bond, and therefore the "good guy."

Again and again in Casino Royale there are lavish scenes, either of beauty, or of exoticism--Prague, the Bahamas--but in each case there is far more time spent on the chase and brutalization scene than there is on establishing who this guy is and why he's doing this, although this is pieced together over the course of the flick. Except for the violent scenes, each scene passes, oh so quickly. It's as if the film maker thought that longer scenes--unless they were violent--would tax the viewer's attention span.

Is that how our minds work in this twenty-first century America (and Britain)? We can linger on the violence, but we're impatient with mere relating to other people, or with understanding another place?

Casino Royale reflects the US's relations to Iraq, and to all those other ancillary wars that seem to be going on all over the planet. In a way, Casino Royale is even about that; it gives the impression that there is a world war going on out there, under our noses. The film is pro-western all the way--of course. The "bad guys" are attempting to finance a terrorist group through various criminal enterprises: realistic and timely. According to a recent New York Times article this is how the Iraqi Sunni insurgents are financing themselves right now. (The terrorist group in Casino Royale is never actually identified.)

But only Bond is good. Even his Love Object turns traitor--as a victim of extortion.

And this is how we view the world. It's why we have to have victory in Iraq. We are Bond. Everyone else, including squishy Liberals (the girl?), are either against us, or will betray us, but we are Right! We must fight on. I'm not sure how many times Bond escapes death by millimeters, but the message is: fight on.

It doesn't matter that we don't really know what we're fighting for, and we don't really know who we're fighting, or even why, except that we're good (and clever) and they're bad.

So. We have to stay in Iraq. Probably we'll need a draft--never give up--and we'll send so many American soldiers over there that there will be no unemployment over here. And Halliburton and Exxon will haul in the profits. The I-raqis? They'll just have to learn Amurrican ways.

Think how Casino Royale parallels the Roman Colloseum. There, the Roman crowd was treated to unbelievable shows of brutality. The only difference between the Roman and Bond cases, was that Roman brutality was real; gladiators and beasts and bestiarii were all meant to die horribly, for Roman entertainment. With the marvel of film, we can stage these things so that they seem even more real, up close and personal, even if we use special effects and not real sliced flesh and gore. I read that Apocolypto will make Bond look like an amateur, that it is much more violent than Gibson's Passion, itself more graphically brutal than Bond. Is violence what viewers crave?

Roman circuses reconciled the Roman Populi to Rome's continuous adventures, to the empire spreading everywhere. Most Romans didn't have to fight the wars, they just were required not to rebel against them, or against the high taxes needed to maintain them. What few people know is that the games also reconciled the plebeians to their powerlessness and poverty, made bearable by the dole and the circuses, while the rich became more and more fabulously rich, and powerful.

The dole was the plebeians' small share of the profits of empire (like Walmart, today)--even while they were driven from their farms and skilled labor by the slaves of the wealthy. With empire, slaves were cheap.

Could it be that movies like Casino Royale are intended to do something similar to those Imperial games? No, no, of course not.