Connery’s 007
Bond, Nietzsche, and Sartre: Double 0s of “the Future”
Sean Connery’s 007 stood astride the abyss of the 1960s, the fears of nuclear annihilation of the Cold War and the rising technological fetishism of the Space Age—between man and Superman, between rockets and sleek cars, between now and the future. That abyss is still present in the 21st century, for tomorrow always comes, but “the future” never arrives.
Sean Connery was a sexy and uber-masculine megastar, an icon of 20th century cinema. But, he symbolized much more as 007 in the 1960s. Embedded in the sleek cars, sexy assassins, evil super-villains, and immortal cinematic imagery were the deep existential challenges posed by the Space Age, Cold War, and two great philosophers—Friedrich Nietzsche and Jean-Paul Sartre, the double 0s of “the future.” These challenges are still here, a growing spectre haunting the 21st century.
Cool Style, Chill Vibe
Sean Connery’s 007 expressed a chill vibe that was utterly new, shaped by TV, cinema, and the simultaneous rise of existentialism and the techno-consumerism of the Space Age—sleek cars, Lear jets, HiFi stereos, and host of other technology-inspired designs for modern living. Precisely as Bond films exploded on movie screens, Connery’s 007 embodied a sexy masculinity, along with a detached cool style that reflected the peak moment for existentialism — the Space Age and Cold War of the mid-1960s. Facing the heat of nuclear war and future oblivion, one can only remain chill and drive a sleek car.
As if a secret agent trapped between the pages of Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathrustra and Sartre’s Being and Nothingness, Connery’s James Bond is the being that confronts nothingness — the would-be Ubermensch in a future filled with double 0s. Of course, the James Bond films have been critiqued from many angles, including technological fetishism, misogyny, and hyper-masculinity. This essay focuses on the deep symbolic meaning of 007 as a mirror of the philosophical issues and anxieties of the 1960s.
007 and SPECTRE
In the initial Bond film, Dr. No, 007 is introduced in an exclusive and elegant club named “Le Cirque” (The Circle). That’s appropriate, because inside every circle is the zero, the nothingness that confronts all being, the secret agent at the heart of all universes. As Sartre explained, it is against nothingness that all human activity exists, that all meaning is constructed, and that all futures are dreamt.
That’s why Bond’s “007” code name means he has a “license to kill,” to destroy the enemy—an enemy with special meaning beyond mere “super-villain.” For 007, the enemy is the secret global organization called “SPECTRE”-an acronym for Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion. The name SPECTRE also evokes a menacing apparition haunting our world, overshadowing our future with visions of nihilism and apocalypse.
As 007 lights the cigarette during his famed introduction, we can almost visualize the slender cigarette pointing downward as the end of the rope over Nietzsche’s abyss. The Ubermensch. The would-be superman to save us from Cold War annihilation and Space Age oblivion in the vastness of the expanding NASA universe.
Nietzsche famously saw the “spectre” coming in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Writing in the wake of Galileo, Darwin, and the scientific revolutions that removed our species from the center of the universe and from the center of life on Earth, Nietzsche knew that humanity faced a massive philosophical challenge—yet to be met, even in the 21st century. We are nowhere near developing or having a widely embraced narrative to integrate our species into the NASA universe of two trillion galaxies stretching across 100 billion light years. The Hubble Space Telescope is no challenge for the iPhone.
Beginning in the 1960s, NASA’s mastery of space was emblematic of what was happening on Earth, the technological mastery of daily life—from mundane refrigerators and central air-conditioning, to the sexier items, such as HiFi stereos, sunglasses, sleek cars, jet travel, and modern architecture. The mastery also featured malls packed with mass-produced goods and fashions, as never seen before on Earth. It’s all still happening, on epic scales.
Counter to NASA and the scientific understanding of life, America now has a warrior “Space Force,” a fascist reality-TV star as president, an avowed creationist as vice president, and just added another creationist on the Supreme Court. Pseudoscience, anti-science, conspiracy theories, and religious fanaticism are on the march, in America and many parts of the world. That’s a spectre of intellectual collapse right before our eyes, an outright war against reason, science, and the future.
Connery’s 007 saved the Space Age and prevented nuclear oblivion in Dr. No, You Only Live Twice, and Diamonds are Forever. Connery’s 007 was saving the future. For Daniel Craig’s 007, there is no future to defend, only the status quo. So he is left to battle punks who merely want to foment terrorism and disrupt the world order. No wonder Craig’s 007 is more of a brute, a rough hothead, in contrast to Connery’s chill style.
“Rope Over an Abyss”
Nietzsche speculated that since humans are the superior species that evolved from apes, there might be an equally greater species that would evolve from humans. This species is what he termed the “Overman” or “Ubermensch.” Nietzsche wondered:
“What is the ape to man? A laughing-stock, a thing of shame. And just the same shall man be to the Superman: a laughing-stock, a thing of shame ….man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman — a rope over an abyss.”
What comes next? What will emerge in the next stage of human evolution, especially our intellectual evolution on a tiny planet in a Hubble universe of trillions of galaxies? What philosophical rope will span the abyss, traverse the voids to provide our species with a narrative of hope and meaning in a universe in which we are neither central nor particularly significant—yet still wage tribal warfare all over the planet and maintain nuclear arsenals that could destroy civilization in a few hours.
James Bond never dies, but he remains poised on the rope over the abyss, a would-be Ubermensch who can’t turn back and can only step forward on a tightrope stretched toward the infinite.
007 and Sartre
Sean Connery’s 007 films appeared at the height of the Cold War and Space Age, which also coincided with the peak influence of Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialist philosophy.
The first Bond film, Dr. No was released in 1962, the same year as President Kennedy’s immortal “moon speech” (which proclaimed the USA would land a human on the moon by the end of the decade) and the Cuban Missile Crisis, which almost triggered a nuclear war. Two years later, Goldfinger coincided with Sartre’s 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature. Sartre wrote many plays that expressed his existentialism, but his great philosophical text was Being and Nothingness, mostly written during WWII and the Nazi occupation of Paris.
For Sartre, the human being is always confronting the zero, the void, the nothingness from which all freedom and human possibility emerge. In Being and Nothingness, Sartre details the voids and emptiness ever-present in the three “lacks” we face in the world, as individuals and a species. There’s the material lack of food and shelter, the intellectual lack of knowledge to successfully navigate the world, and the future lack — the absence of knowing what tomorrow should be in a quest for a meaningful and joyful existence. That’s the three zeros we all face.
For Sartre, there is no God, only existence and we’re in it, forced to face the future with eyes open. It’s the same with 007. There is no religion, only a secular existence and the “spectre” of chaos and domination that seeks to prevent civilization from finding its true meaning and purpose in the future. For Sartre and Bond, there is no exit. But there are sleek cars.
Sleek Cars: Crashing Into the Future
The most famous Bond car is the silver Aston-Martin, which debuted in Goldfinger. As one of the great “futurist” cars of all-time, its fate in the film is not without meaning.
After being caught spying on Goldfinger’s metallurgical facility, 007 tried to escape in the Aston Martin. While being pursued by Goldfinger’s men and racing throughout the industrial labyrinth, Bond sees another car’s headlights coming directly toward him from the vanishing point in the narrow passage ahead. Bond fires the hidden machine guns at the oncoming vehicle, but to no avail. Partially blinded by the fast-approaching headlights, Bond is forced to veer the Aston Martin into a brick wall to avoid the oncoming car, which turns out to be the reflection of the Aston Martin in a large mirror-like surface. So, the most modernist icon of the film, and one of the most famous futuristic cars ever built, is destroyed by avoiding a crash into its own image — the future crashing to avoid its vanishing point.
What might be that vanishing point? All-out nuclear war or the nuclear terrorism of Goldfinger, who plans to nuke Fort Knox and destroy the US gold reserves.
Three years later, another sleek car of the future appears in You Only Live Twice (1967), though Bond is merely a passenger. Driven by Akiko Wakabayashi, the Toyota 2000GT rivals the Aston-Martin as the coolest sports car of the future. Complete with surveillance technologies and a TV screen, the curvilinear convertible is clearly meant to reference the future—the 2000GT is a reference to the year 2000.
The 2000GT was not crashed, but here we are 20 years after 2000, and the issues are still the same. The sane, secular, sleek future is still struggling to break free, now facing massive resistance and outright reversals all over the planet—best personified by the Trump-Pence White House and the naked abandonment of science, reason, evidence, and truth by almost 50% of Americans. America remains astride the year 2000, with science and technology accelerating forward in the 21st century, while the White House and 150 million Americas embrace the creationism and medievalism of the 15th century. Maybe Dr. No was on to something.
Dr. No(thing)
Released in 1962, Dr. No was the first James Bond film. The villain is “Dr. No,” an agent of SPECTRE and the first face of nihilism in the 007 films. From his secret base in the Caribbean, Dr. No topples NASA test rockets in hopes of triggering a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. Why? So SPECTRE can rule the world.
Dr. No might as well be Dr. Nothing, for not much would be left of modern civilization or the Space Age in the aftermath of nuclear war. Dr. No correctly sees the ultimate futility of nationalism and its endless tribal warfare. Armed with 60,000 nuclear weapons in the 1960s, the Pentagon and the Kremlin were the agents of atomic annihilation. Today these two asylums watch over nuclear arsenals of 12,000 each, still enough to wipe out civilization and much life on this planet.
For Dr. No, there is no nation worth supporting, no belief in any political system beyond sheer power, no higher systems of logic and reason. For Dr. No, there is nothing beyond conquest and domination. No meaning, no purpose, no significant future. And that’s the future that 007 keeps crashing into across six decades of Bond films.
Connery’s 007: Saving The Space Age
In the 1960s, nothing symbolized possible futures more than the Space Age and nuclear annihilation. Side-by-side, future visions of apotheosis and apocalypse. Kennedy’s speech, satellites, spacecraft, NASA, Apollo, Star Trek and 2001: A Space Odyssey—and 007 saving the Space Age by preventing nuclear apocalypse.
Bond saves the Space Age for the first time by killing Dr. No and destroying his control center for toppling rockets. The NASA launch goes off as scheduled and the future of space exploration stays on track. In the Connery-Bond films, SPECTRE is always involved in something with Cold War or Space Age technology — toppling U.S. rockets in Dr. No, stealing Soviet message decoders in From Russia With Love (1963), attempting nuclear terrorism in Goldfinger, making off with NATO nuclear missiles in Thunderball (1965), and hijacking U.S. and Soviet spacecraft in You Only Live Twice.
Bond saves the Space Age again in You Only Live Twice and Diamonds Are Forever, while also preventing a nuclear war between the USA and USSR. Against the heat of nuclear apocalypse, Connery’s 007 saves a future that seems “cool” and chill in more ways than just surviving a Cold War.
The Spectre of the Future
For Sartre, we have no choice but to hurl ourselves into the future, a future which we make meaningful in the universe as we understand it. We must step on the rope out into the terrific unknown, and make a new destiny, free from Gods, superstitions, nationalism, and warfare. Or we can continue the bad faith of making excuses for our actions, believing in Gods to save us and justify our wars, and pretending there is an exit from our responsibilities toward ourselves, society, and the rest of the lifeforms on this planet.
The future is the spectre that haunts humanity the most, for between now and tomorrow is the gaping void that gives us the freedom to remake ourselves, our world, fill our species with joy and meaning — but we don’t appear to have the courage or wherewithal to ever really do it. Why else the continual proliferation of self-help books and TED Talk therapy sessions?
So, in the quest for joy, happiness, and purpose, our species fills the future void by falling back on meaning found in ancient rituals, sacred texts, astrology and pseudoscience, raising families and building careers, endless consumption and entertainment, and continuous tribal warfare (be it racist, nationalist, or religious warfare, all of which we see in America in 2020).
Here, 007 remains trapped between SPECTRE and Her Majesty’s Secret Service, battling to preserve the myth of “Queen and Country” because no better narrative seems available. In other words, Bond can never get to the future he saves. As best I can tell, 007 makes no excuses, worships no Gods, and always takes on the responsibilities to act. Yet, facing Sartre’s voids while on Nietzsche’s rope over the abyss, Bond is trapped between the double 0s of the future.
So why not have a martini and drive sleek cars amid the madness? Personally, I prefer tequila, but still like the sleek convertible as a temporary escape into the future.
Sex, Martinis, and Sleek Cars
Sean Connery’s 007 suggested that preventing the apocalypse is not only sane, but can also be sexy, stylish, and cool. The nihilism and apocalypse had to be stopped, if only to momentarily preserve the martinis (“shaken, not stirred”) and sleek cars.
All of the above is why 007 is single, sexy, drinks martinis , and drives sleek futuristic cars, almost always shaken and wrecked in the films. No family values for this would-be Ubermensch, astride the abyss of yesterday and tomorrow. Though he never dies, 007 can’t quite get to “the future.” He keeps crashing into it. The “spectre” of another meaningless tomorrow haunts him. Tomorrow always comes, but “the future” never arrives.
There is no exit for 007 or us.
That’s the lesson of Sean Connery’s 007. We can revel in the pleasures of life—sex, martinis, and sleek cars—because there is no valid meaning or greater purpose found in the narratives of the nations, religions, corporations, and mindless-endless consumption. It’s all baggage from yesteryear. For now, there is no exit. The 21st century existentialist is trapped in the madness, trying to remain chill, preserving and improving the world as much as possible, while awaiting a more meaningful future. Until we get a widely accepted philosophy that embraces the challenges of Nietzsche and Sartre, we can only live, enjoy, and die. And play it cool.
Connery’s 007 gets it.
