OCCULT HOLLYWOOD: James Bond in 'Brazil'—007 Is Dead and Has Been for Years
Will the new 'No Time To Die' make it official?
“The Dead Are Alive.”
This piece has been a long time coming. I originally wrote the vast majority of it about six years ago, after reading Darren Franich’s intriguing hypothesis in Entertainment Weekly. It touched upon a bunch of the incongruent incidents already rattling ominously around my head after seeing Sam Mendes’ Spectre, the 24th “official” James Bond film and Daniel Craig’s 4th (and arguably 4th best, at least until the new one) entry as the legendary British MI6 secret agent 007.
I already mostly disliked Spectre, thought it a disappointing frustrating mess once you get past the bravura pre-credit sequence and its long spectacular single tracking shot. But after reading Franich’s piece, I went back and watched it again at a bargain matinée, implementing his supplemental perspective. I liked it both more and less, because I recognized Spectre as a great example of Occult Auteur Cinema, where the subtext proves more interesting than the text. The movie itself still just kinda rattles along in mildly entertaining fashion before going badly off the rails in the last half hour or so.
Franich’s basic point is that at the end of the second act of Spectre, Bond is captured and tortured into traumatized brain-death by Christoph Waltz’s supervillian Blofeld, who pushes a pair of six-inch drills into Bond’s skull. Though Blofeld claims this is going to make Bond’s brain go bloody blooey, it oddly seems to have very little effect at all.
Unless, of course, there’s been catastrophic effect. Franich suggests that what we see in the film's last half hour is a broken Bond's disassociated desperate hallucination/fantasy to deal with the excruciating pain—exactly like what happens to the damned, doomed tragic hero of (dark?) Occult Auteur Terry Gilliam’s masterful mind-fuck Brazil (so controversial back in the day it nearly didn’t get released).
This “pain induced hallucination” explains why the last half hour of Spectre suddenly becomes a ridiculous action fantasy, with terrible cliched dialogue and all the hack action movie tropes the Daniel Craig Bond films had previously (mostly) eschewed.
My second look (and later third, believe it or not, with my son) at Spectre supported this subtextual supposition.
Once you’ve got “eyes to see,” there is a ton of circumstantial creative evidence to back up Bond’s awful ultimate predicament—it made many of the things I didn't like about the movie gain a lot more sense.
Here’s the rundown. Consider watching Spectre (again?) after you read this and tell me what you think:
1- As previously mentioned, the very opening moments of Spectre feature a caption on the screen that reads: "The Dead are Alive." Brain-dead, yet physically alive?
2- The first time we see Bond, he is literally dressed as a Dead Man Walking: a skeleton in a skull mask, parading in Mexico City on the Day of the Dead! What more could you ask for ominous foreshadowing?
3- Right before Bond blows up a pair of bad guys in a building, the two men toast: "To Death!"
4- Franich the film critic (not a movie reviewer) makes a point I won't over-reiterate about how Blofeld speaks of “a dying man is two men, caught between two worlds.”
5- Meanwhile, earlier, while drunk, love interest/psychotherapist Dr. Madeleine Swann says she sees "Two James.”
6- One of my complaints about the film when I first saw it was Hoyte van Hoytema’s shadowy cinematography—very dark, full of sepia-tones, Bond always in shade. Watching the film again, I noticed not only is it dark, you never see the sun…at least you don’t before the torture session. Much of the movie takes place at dusk or at night, but even daytime shots are cloudy, overcast…right up until…
6-b….Until Bond & Dr. Swann (“Swan Song”?) escape Blofeld’s torture chamber. Once they're outside and Bond is suddenly a cinematic superman, successfully shooting every nameless red-shirt henchman on sight, the sky is bright blue and sunny. In fact, the whole movie gets brighter, takes on a sunnier hue. Like a conventional action movie fantasy flick.
7- Following the drilled torture sequence, the dialog gets ridiculously hackneyed. I counted two "It's not over yet!" a "Glad to have you back 007," and a bunch of other action movie clichés.
8- The shitty Sam Smith title credits song is called “The Writing’s On The Wall” (the Radiohead Spectre offering was much better and EON should’ve used it instead. Sam Smith is a plagiarizing flash in the pan). After the torture session, Bond gets back to London and sees the tribute wall inside MI6 inscribed with the names of all dead agents, killed in the line of duty; he discovers his name was recently added, by hand, written on the wall. [P.S.: The new movie’s plodding dirge from creepy Bille Eilish sucks as bad as shitty Sam’s].
9- Years later, I get to add this: In an April 2020 interview, No Time to Die’s director Cary Fukunaga said: “I swear to god, I had an idea that this movie could all be taking place inside the villain’s lair from the last film [Spectre]. There’s this scene where a needle goes into James Bond’s head, which is supposed to make him forget everything, and then he miraculously escapes [emphasis added] by a watch bomb. And then he blows up the place, and goes on to save the day. I was like, ‘What if everything up until the end of act two [of No Time to Die] is all inside his head?’”
What if. What if indeed.
I could go on but instead I recommend going back and seeing Spectre (again?) with new eyes, asking yourself if the direction and mis-en-scene of the movie is full of portents of death. Look for other dialogue and visual references to being caught between two worlds, shimmering between life and death, etc. They’re all over the place. Death, Death, death.
Remember, too, that Spectre’s director Sam Mendes also helmed the prior Bond film Skyfall, and is an Oscar winning auteur for American Beauty. He also directs Broadway and London theatrical productions. He is not some action movie hack. Mendes has true artistic sensibilities that were very much brought to bear for the better on Skyfall. Mendes didn't want to direct a second Bond movie, but was made an offer he couldn't refuse—maybe the Queen ordered him?—so perhaps he feels resentment or contempt towards the character.
Likewise, Daniel Craig very much considers himself a serious actor, and he clearly wanted out of the franchise at that point. He had to make Spectre directly after Skyfall, James Bond was the ONLY professional role he'd had for five years straight. D.C. sure sounded like he was full of contempt for the character and producers at the time—he busted up his leg and got pressured to continue making the movie despite the injury. Craig was quite open about how he’d “rather slash my wrists than play Bond again.” Yet he did.
So is it more likely the franchise just threw in the towel for the last half hour of Spectre after three-and-three-quarters of the Craig films took a more realistic narrative bent? Or is it more likely a few artistically minded talents did something truly daring and are waiting for the rest of us to catch on?
And, if that's the case, what is the artistic statement, actually? Is it merely a narrative one? Or is it saying that in this age of surveillance, the iconic spy on the ground is pretty much dead? Or that the world of espionage is now so dark, the good guy spy is dead? Or is it simply that the character is played out?
Orrrrrr…is this about Hollywood’s hell-bent efforts to manifest the destruction of the White Patriarchy? Was the “death” of James Bond in Spectre part of a larger esoteric through-line to destroy all Good Heroic White Men in some kind of sinister globalist Great Reset purge of Capitalist/Western/American Icons? Let’s count:
James Bond: Dead. Iron Man: Dead. The Terminator: Dark Fate’s messianic J.C. stand-in, John Conner: Dead. Superman in Batman v. Superman: Dead. Star Wars’ Luke Skywalker & Han Solo: Both dead. Wolverine: Dead. He-Man: Dead. And coming soon, Indiana Jones: Dead!
So now, years later (September 27th, 2021, to be exact), rounding out the finishing touches on this esoteric dig disguised as halfway film criticism (not a movie review), I’ll add a few maybe not-so-wild guesses about the new, actual final Daniel Craig movie, No Time To Die, which hits theaters October 8th.
My Big Hypothesis: If they killed Craig’s Bond esoterically in Spectre, but it didn’t really work, they’re going to kill him exoteric-ally in No Time To Die. Here’s my not-so-random reasoning:
1- In the Occult world, something is imagined esoterically before it is embodied in our material existence. Thoughts always precede deeds. It would make total sense to kill James Bond once for “those with eyes to see,” then kill him again for the mainstream, the normies, the masses, the muggles. You know, like how they kept showing you the WTC getting destroyed in movies and then it happened IRL? Or like how there have been tons of movies and TV show plotlines about a global pandemic orchestrated by the power elite to “cull the herd,” and now it’s happening? Or like how there’s been a ton of “entertainment” centered around a giant EMP that causes a world-wide blackout, and that’s almost surely gonna happen before 2030? Juuuuuust sayin’.
2- The immensely over-rated man-hating writer/actress/castrating shrew Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Wall-or-Bridge? Shit, her name screams symbolism to the Hollywood occultists) is co-writing No Time To Die’s script. Ugh. That gal’s a creative cancer in my book, a hired-gun for woe and wokeness. I bet she salivated like a succubus at the chance to kill James Bond, and I bet the current corporatized entertainment-bubble-world power structure was happy to give her the chance.
3- Craig clearly dislikes the character and has gone out of his way to turn Bond into an effeminate clown. His “Jimmy Bond” pastiche on SNL was unwatchable and unfunny. An admittedly clever Heineken commerical that turned every Bond cultural touchstone into a joke was literally titled “Daniel Craig vs. James Bond.” Craig showed up at the U.K. premiere for No Time To Die in a loud and ugly fuschia pink jacket that Sean Connery would’ve never been caught dead (or alive) in, looking like a Nickelodeon Channel art director, not the movie’s star or a Movie Star. Like Artemis Wall-or-Bridge, I bet Craig would get his fuschia rocks off killing James Bond, no matter what he tells the lapdog corporate media. Actions speak louder.
4- Massacring the Heroic White Patriarchy and destroying all classic Western and American iconography is literally the #1 motivator in Hollywoke and the “entertainment” business right now. Far more than turning a profit, let’s note. Literally billions of dollars are being left on the table because “We are in a place in time where the industry is not giving audiences what it thinks the audience wants. They’re actually giving the audience what they want to give the audience,” to quote No Time To Die co-star Lashanna Lynch. Do you think “the industry” wants to give the public a James Bond who is alive or dead?
5- Which brings me back around to the title: The exoteric title is No Time To Die. But is it? Or is it really supposed to be a yet another satanic inversion, a sly rejection of Bond’s resurrection after Spectre was supposed to be Craig’s last film? Like: “No. Time to die.” I bet it is.
You’d think EON producer Barbara Broccoli would have more loyalty and affinity for the legendary iconic character she’s spent her entire life with, not to mention carrying on and honoring her late father’s legacy. But my wild guess is that she’s actually taking marching orders and had little choice.
Pustule goon with freakshow genitals Harvey Weinstein may be gone, but whoever runs Hollywood now is apparently even worse, like how Krazy Kat Lady Kathy Hochul replaced Andrew Cuomo. This new King (or Queen) of Hollywood—harpooned Oprah? “Operator” David Geffen? Nepotist Chuck Schumer?—whoever it is, wants White Men (and redheaded Irish lasses, for some reason) dead or otherwise out of the (motion) picture. A dead James Bond would be right up there with a dead Luke Skywalker on the pop culture murder scale.
Perhaps I’m wrong. But I sense I’m not. I say that the hellacious hounds of Hollywood tried to kill James Bond in Spectre and almost pulled it off, but couldn’t quite. Other than Darren Franich (and me), nobody could put the esoteric pieces together, because, as I’ve oft-mentioned, corporate “journalism” nowadays is full of movie reviewers but almost no film critics.
This time, I bet, the filmmakers will leave zero doubt about James Bond’s death. If You Only Live Twice, I guess that means they’ve got to kill you twice, too.
