The name is absent

Appendix 3.2: Saunple films - synopses and character lists

THE SEARCHERS US 56

GOLDFINGER dir Guy Hamilton UK 1964

This is the third film in the hugely successful James Bond
series based on the novels of Ian Fleming. It is fantasy,
spectacle and thriller. As fantasy it operates much like the
classic fairy tale in which the essential nature of the
characters is known to the audience in advance of the
characters’ engagement with any specific plot events. This
information - the Signifiers of the particular stereotype to
be called upon - is communicated to the audience through the
dress, deportment and/or location of the characters. There
are few surprises here; audience pleasure derives not from the
shock of the new but from the satisfaction to be had from
watching the unfolding of the expected against a background of
the spectacular. The spectacles offered are those of luxury
living: the best hotel in Miami, the private Lockheed jet, the
interior of the gold bullion vaults, and so on; of cars,
planes and the latest applications of 'modern science' to
gadgetry of various kinds from the industrial laser to the
tranquilliser gun, from the sinister car crushing machine to
the remote controlled death dealing gas canisters, not to
mention Bond's Aston Martin with its plethora of hidden
secrets diligently described to the audience before being
shown, one by one, in use. Finally the representation of
various sports is an important ingredient: here we have
horses, golf, and various martial arts.

A relatively insubstantial and certainly unbelievable
narrative thread binds these elements together to form a
specialised type of thriller. The hero, James Bond (Sean
Connery), is a British secret agent - no. 007. He is briefed
to observe the activities of the arch villain, Auric
Goldfinger, also British, whom the Bank of England know to be
manipulating gold bullion reserves to the detriment of the
British (and American) national holdings. If possible Bond is
to produce evidence showing that Goldfinger is illegally
exporting bullion, in order that the Bank of England may
'institute proceedings to recover the bulk of his holdings'.
In the course of his assignment Bond is pitted against two
adversaries: Goldfinger, who has exceptional wealth and the
mind of a master criminal, and his 'valet' the Korean Oddjob
who has exceptional strength. Mind and body are thus opposed
to the single, also exceptional, figure of the hero who is
also handsome, brave and courteous. Bond is captured and held
prisoner by Goldfinger for most of the second half of the film
but nevertheless succeeds in foiling, at the very last minute,
Goldfinger¹S plan.

Operation Grandslam involves breaking into the gold bullion

245

<<   <   242   243   244   245   246   247   248   >   >>