THE SPECTRE OF SKYFALL: Or What Does 007 Prove to al Qaeda?
Skyfall: directed by Sam Mendes, 2012
The passage below is from Barry Vacker's new book, The End of the World — Again, published December 21, 2012.
Click on poster to view trailer.Since the passage below was completed just prior to the release of Skyfall, it is technically not a review of the film. However, the passage compares and critiques the roles of 007 in the Cold War (Sean Connery's era) and Terror War (Daniel Craig's era). The intellectual corruption of Skyfall is that the terrorist (played by Javier Bardem) is clearly a stand-in for Julian Assange, the leader of WikiLeaks, the hacker group that made available leaked documents indicating that war crimes were committed by U.S. soldiers. In this sense, Skyfall is propaganda for an audience ignorant of the fact that the First Amendment clearly protects the actions of whisteblowers like WikiLeaks. [See, New York Times v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971); this is the famed Pentagon Papers case.]
The conclusion of the passage below offers a prophetic view of Bond and the destiny of western culture, for near of the end of Skyfall, a weary 007 is on his knees in a church holding a dead "M" — suggesting the secular west is not only shaken and stirred, but spiritually finished. That is the new "spectre" facing the West.
________________________________________________________________________
From Chapter 7 of The End of the World — Again:
The theme song for Skyfall (2012), the latest James Bond film, begins with Adele belting out the following apocalyptic lyrics: (to listen, click here.)
This is the end
Hold your breath
And count to ten
Feel the earth move
And then
Hear my heart
Burst again
For this is the end
I’ve drowned and dreamt
This moment
So overdue I owe them
Swept away
I’m stolen
Let the skyfall
When it crumbles
We will stand tall
Face it all together
Let the skyfall
When it crumbles
We will stand tall
Face it all together
At skyfall
At skyfall
Skyfall is where we start
A thousand miles and poles apart
Where worlds collide
And days are dark
As of this writing, Skyfall has yet to be released in the United States; thus I cannot comment on the film or on its plot. However, Peter Debruge reports in Variety that the customary Bond opening-credits sequence for this flick features “tombstones, skulls and other deathly totems” rather than the usual mix of beautiful women, weaponry, and striking symbolic imager. [1] On one level, perhaps the lyrics and tombstones refer to the death of 007 — the secret agent who repeatedly defies death — and thus the personal apocalypse. On another level, perhaps the lyrics and deathly totems refer to the end of the world, the apocalypse that has been dreamt of billions of times in darkened movie theaters across the planet. (Of course, in the Bond films, 007 is usually trying to prevent the end of the world, especially the end of the Western world.)
As with many apocalyptic memes, the lyrics for Skyfall promise not only ends, but new beginnings — “Skyfall is where we start.” The lyrics also sense the existential challenges faced by 007 and the modern world in the Cold War and terror war; worlds and worldviews are colliding, and days are dark. In fact, the terror war is “poles apart” from the Cold War.
In the Sean Connery/James Bond films of the Cold War, 007 was most often trying to prevent world domination and the nuclear apocalypse, both of which symbolized the end of the modern world. The Cold War was largely a battle for the future, a war waged between two global systems born of the modern world, the democratic capitalism of the United States versus the socialist communism of the former Soviet Union. Both sides claimed to have a better model for moving into the future and thus competed in terms of science, technologies, consumer goods, Olympic gold medals, and nuclear weapons. Though both sides disagreed over the origins of the world (theism versus atheism), the Cold War generated fears of the end of the world via a nuclear apocalypse — the terror of the apocalyptic sublime. To prove their ideology and cosmology correct, each side built thousands of nuclear weapons. That’s why 007 had to save the world and preserve the future.
Click on poster to view trailer.In Goldfinger (1964), Bond prevents Auric Goldfinger from nuking the U.S. gold supply and thus wreaking havoc on the Western financial system. In Thunderball (1965), Bond discovers the location of a nuclear bomber hijacked by SPECTRE (Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion), which makes off with two nuclear warheads. Filmed as the space age was nearing its penultimate moment in popular consciousness, the plot of You Only Live Twice (1967) has Bond uncovering the identity of a hijacker of American and Russian spacecraft. In so doing, 007 prevents a nuclear war between the two superpowers. By the 1970s, the space age was in decline. In Diamonds Are Forever (1971), Bond thwarts a SPECTRE plan to take control of the global satellite system and arm them with lasers to destroy the nuclear weapons of the superpowers. Of course, this could have also triggered a global nuclear war.[2]
Click on poster to view trailer.Though on the surface, SPECTRE was a terrorist organization run by megalomaniacal industrialists, it also symbolized the Soviet Union and the fear of global domination and nuclear war for most Americans. SPECTRE also represented authoritarian modernism, at least in terms of fashion and architecture. As if hijacking the future to destroy it, the megalomaniacal villains were often attired in minimalist uniforms and resided in headquarters designed with modernist architectural styles (see Dr. No [1962], Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, and Diamonds Are Forever).
That Bond attempts to prevent an apocalypse and preserve the future is why his resourcefulness is always complemented by more advanced and clever technologies. As personified by Connery, Bond was usually elegantly tailored and a smooth master of technology, precisely because the capitalist-democracies were competing with the communist-socialists as to who had better science and technology, more and better consumer goods, and provided an overall better society for the masses. That competition was at the heart of the most famous debate of the Cold War — the so-called “kitchen debate” between Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev at the 1959 American National Exhibition in Moscow. The exhibit featured the “typical American house,” including refrigerators, washing machines, and a RCA color television (considered a technological marvel then, not unlike an iPad or iPhone today). Nixon and Khrushchev debated which system delivered better kitchens and consumer goods, with Nixon defending luxury and Khrushchev defending functionality, before the debate then moved to cover the power of each side’s nuclear arsenals.[3] The Cold War competition over nukes and better goods is why 007 had to prevent the apocalypse while enjoying better martinis and more beautiful cars. How could SPECTRE or the communists top the Aston-Martin in Goldfinger? Simply put, 007 had better and more beautiful stuff than the Russians, at least in the Connery-Bond movies.
As fun as the Connery-Bond movies were, they masked the deeper rivalry between the Americans and the Russians, which involved the struggle over theism versus atheism. The space race between the USA and USSR made visible what seemed obvious — the two great nations should have given up their gods and become allies in building a more sane, global, and cosmic civilization. Maybe the madness of nuclear weaponry alone suggests humanity should come to terms with its true place in the cosmos, for it seems that when societies disagree on cosmology, disputes are not usually resolved via human reasoning but fought through war, terror, and potential apocalypse.
Thankfully, Sean Connery and 007 reminded us that preventing the apocalypse is not only sane, but can also be sexy, stylish, and cool. The apocalypse had to be stopped, if only to preserve martinis; the Aston-Martin; and the Toyota 2000GT, the coolest sports car of the future (driven by Akiko Wakabayashi in You Only Live Twice). Note that the 2000GT is a reference to the year 2000 as a sign of the future. These two cars blow away anything driven by 007 in subsequent Bond films.
Since the Cold War and cool cars were in the previous millennium, we can fast-forward to the terror war of the new millennium, where we find a strange predicament for 007. Who is the real enemy? What should 007 do to show the virtue of Western secular democracies? What is the apocalypse 007 must prevent?
Daniel Craig’s James Bond takes on a faux environmentalist in Quantum of Solace (2008) and an arms dealer and funder of terrorism in Casino Royale (2006). But if 007 wants to stop the arms flow, he would best start by taking on the Pentagon and corporations in the United States. World military spending was almost $15 trillion in the first decade of the new millennium. An estimated $1.5 trillion was spent in 2009, with the United States spending $661 billion, or 43% of the world total.[4] U.S. military spending exceeds the next 10 nations combined. World arms sales equaled $384 billion in 2009, with the United States accounting for $229 billion, or 60% of the total.[5] These totals mean America is the world’s dominant military empire by far. But it’s not America’s fault completely, for the world is populated with many tribes and humans who yearn to kill each other or have soldiers do the killing for them. With so many resources consumed via military spending, the apocalypse is inevitable, be it through war, economic bankruptcy, or the end of civil liberties.
The terror war is the new endless war, except it comes with a twist in time and destinies that are “poles apart.” If the Cold War was a struggle over the modern future, the terror war is a battle for the premodern past. In Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the End of Utopia, John Gray writes: “The danger that goes with the death of secular hope is the rebirth of something like the faith-based wars of an older past. A renewal of apocalyptic belief is underway, which is unlikely to be confined to familiar sorts of fundamentalism. . . . Interacting with the struggle for natural resources, the violence of faith looks set to shape the coming century.”[6]
In essence, the terror war is an economic and religious war fought over energy empires and sacred texts, each promising premodern metamemes that are believed to be sacred, divine, and eternal. It is personified by Christian and Islamist fundamentalists, both of which are practitioners of cosmic doublethink and have nearly identical ideologies, including the belief that a deity is on their side, insuring mastery of the world before the end of the world, which they believe is near. While waging war against each other, both sides wage war against the (perceived) cultural apocalypse of modernity and postmodernity, the breakdown of “traditional” values and loss of meaning in the sinful, secular world. Thus, both yearn for a cultural and spiritual cleansing organized by their prophets, claiming to channel the creation myths of the past.
Indeed, as Adele exclaims, this is where “worlds collide.” But this is not about building a better secular world; it’s a battle for a post-secular world.[7] And that means a more premodern world. Perhaps it’s a future past of “dark days” for a dark age.
High technologies and expanding political power will accompany this reversal, especially in America. Filled with apocalyptic religious fervor and armed to the teeth, America is on a steady slide into an entertainment-imperialist-corporate-theocratic-warfare-welfare-surveillance state that has already exterminated privacy and eroded civil liberties.[8] Silicon Valley and the Pentagon are developing technologies for total planetary surveillance. For example, the National Security Agency is building a supercomputer center to surveil and store the entirety of the information transmitted via the internet and mobile media.[9] Lest we forget Orwell’s insights, such power can be abused, has been abused, and will be abused. It’s only a matter of time. Of course, humans could modify their memes to end the terror war and other tribal wars and thus prevent any possible war apocalypse, such as terrorists detonating a nuclear bomb (or a “dirty bomb” with nuclear materials). As with the Cold War, the terror war is not sane, although it can appear sane through the lens of doublethink. How can this not signal a cultural reversal?
In the Cold War, 007 had a clear existential mission: prevent the nuclear apocalypse, thwart SPECTRE, and save the modern world. In the postmillennial terror war, what is 007’s existential mission? How does he stave off the philosophical apocalypse when it is already happening and the philosophical sky is falling around us? Why save the future when the battle is for the past? What would James Bond do to show that the post-secular West is philosophically better than al-Qaeda or any evangelical version of SPECTRE? Show which side has the best prophet: Mohammed or Jesus? Best spiritual center: Mecca or megachurch? Would 007 drinking a martini be replaced by 007 leading a prayer? If that happens, then you know the secular West is not merely shaken and stirred but spiritually finished.
[1] Peter Debruge, “Skyfall,” Variety, October 13, 2012, accessed September 20, 2012, http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117948556/.
[2] Jean Baudrillard, America (London: Verso, 1988). Despite all the inanities in Diamonds Are Forever (1971), the screenwriters did get one thing right about post-Apollo culture — the space age would be followed by the simulation age, an age of copies and clones, replicas and reproductions, exemplified by Las Vegas, the setting for much of the film. The evil Blofeld is copied, fake diamonds are reproduced, voices are artificially replicated, past eras are also reproduced in hotel simulacra, and moonwalks are simulated on stages in the desert. There is even a “Whyte House” in Las Vegas, the headquarters of Willard Whyte, the fictional entrepreneur specializing in industrial- and information-age technologies, the very technologies that invite humans to journey into outer space or cyberspace or theme parks. If Jean Baudrillard is right, Las Vegas has long been the technological “Whyte House” for America, the capitol residence for the age of simulation, the era that’s overtaken the space age in the “virtual apocalypse.”
[3] William Safire, “The Cold War’s Hot Kitchen,” New York Times, July 23, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/24/opinion/24safire.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3.
[4] Perlo-Freeman, Ismail, and Solmirano, “Military Expenditure,” 11.
[5] Susan T. Jackson, “Arms Production,” Stockholm International Peace Research Institute Yearbook 2010 (Solna: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 2010), 12–13.
[6] John Gray, Black Mass, 209–210.
[7] Philip Blond, Post-Secular Philosophy; Gray, Black Mass; and Habermas, An Awareness of What Is Missing.
[8] To prosecute the terror war, the U.S. government passed the USA Patriot Act in 2001, which effectively provides the laws necessary for creating a surveillance police state. It’s no longer a matter of legal principle, only the degree of practical implementation, for the spirit of the Bill of Rights has been deprived of any serious meaning. Created in 2002, the Department of Homeland Security was provided with a wide range of powers regarding the Patriot Act, as were many other police and intelligence agencies in America. One doesn’t have to be a legal scholar or paranoid conspiracy theorist to realize that the Homeland Security Agency and the National Security Agency together have enough legal and technological power to create a surveillance police state far more pervasive than anything imagined by George Orwell.
[9] James Bamford, “The Black Box,” Wired, April 2012, 78–85, 122, 124.
________________________________________________________________________
If you have read this review, we welcome your feedback. If you have comments or would to submit a review for this site, please contact us at the links provided. Thank you.