Bond, Le Bond

June 24, 2016 / by Charles Oliver

Whether it’s in the books or the movies, British secret agent James Bond is no stranger to France. In A View to a Kill, he scales the Eiffel Tower, then visits the villain Hugo Drax in the majestic Château de Chantilly; the opening of Thunderball is set at the Château d’Anet near Dreux; he’s on the beach in the south of France in Diamonds are Forever. Numerous Bond girls have been French, including Carole Bouquet as Melina Havelock (For Your Eyes Only), Sophie Marceau as Elektra King (The World is Not Enough), Eva Green as Vesper Lynd (Casino Royale) and Léa Seydoux as Madeleine Swann (Spectre).

In fact, in the very first scene we ever see Bond on screen, in 1962’s Dr. No, he’s sitting at a gaming table playing a French card game. Chemin de fer was the original version of baccarat when introduced to France; Bond plays the game in Dr. No, Thunderball, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, GoldenEye and Casino Royale.

Behind the wheel, Bond drives the iconic French Citroën 2CV in For Your Eyes Only, in a car chase after his own vehicle, a Lotus Esprit Turbo, explodes. Bond and Melina are later pursued by evil henchmen in Peugeot 504s over hairpin roads, then through an olive orchard and a village. He’s also followed by villains in a 2CV on the drive from the Hotel Splendide to the beach in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. In From Russia with Love, Spectre assassin Donald “Red” Grant steals a Citroën 11 Légère and follows Bond through Istanbul. And in Casino Royale, the evil Le Chiffre makes his escape in a Citroën Traction Avant, hotly pursued by Bond’s more traditional Bentley. 

Then there’s the commercialisation, the products, the lifestyle – a love of gourmandise and libation that’s equally shared by Bond and the villains he pursues. “Maybe I misjudged Stromberg,” says Bond in The Spy Who Loved Me. “Any man who drinks Dom Pérignon ’52 can’t be all bad.” But 007’s certainly not brand-loyal. In From Russia with Love, he’s drinking Taittinger. When Bond has a late dinner with Vesper Lynd in the novel Casino Royale, he asks for a bottle of Taittinger ’45, only for the sommelier to suggest “Blanc de Blancs Brut 1943 – the same mark without equal.” Bond agrees and tells Lynd that Taittinger, although not that well-known, “is probably the finest champagne in the world.” 

That might be, but by Moonraker he’s calling it “only a fad of mine” and is back on the Dom Pérignon. There’s also the glorious fight scene in Dr. No between the villain and Bond; the agent threatens to break a bottle of champagne and Dr. No says, “That’s a Dom Pérignon ’55; it would be a pity to break it.” (Bond says he prefers the ’53.) Despite all the bravado, his most-drunk champagne is Bollinger, which writer Ian Fleming first references in Diamonds are Forever when Tiffany Case sends a quarter-bottle to Bond’s cabin on the Queen Elizabeth. 

France occupies a privileged place among the usual allies of James Bond and MI6 – it represents the pathway to the rest of the European continent and stands for ideological values that complement those of the United Kingdom, which together make up a century of European enlightenment. Bond’s lifestyle even contains a cultural binary opposition between England and France, in a preface to contemporary globalisation. Bond may be inseparable from M, MI6 and Her Majesty (albeit on his own terms), but 007’s appreciation of food and sex is closer to French than English culture. 

Consider the very first instalment of Casino Royale, which not only takes place in an imaginary French resort but includes French in the text. “Mais n’enculons pas des mouche,” 007 tells the barman while advising him that vodka made with grain is better than with potatoes. The barman grins. “That’s a vulgar way of saying ‘We won’t split hairs’,” explains Bond. The expression is certainly vulgar (it directly translates as “Let’s not copulate with flies”) but denotes a surprisingly accurate grasp of French slang for one of Her Majesty’s subjects, let alone a government employee. It’s no accident that Casino Royale has four French chapter headings: L’Ennemi Écoute; Rouge et Noir, La Vie en Rose and Fruit Défendu. 

It seems especially appropriate then, that until September, the main hall of La Villette in Paris – a former slaughterhouse built in the 1860s and now a cultural centre in the 19th arrondissement – welcomes the exhibition 50 Years of Bond Style, which presents more than 500 original objects for a fantastical exploration of the most famous spy’s world. The exhibition, a collaboration between film production company Eon Productions and the Barbican in London, is a multisensory experience, immersing audiences in the creation and the development of Bond style over the last half-century.