Diamonds Are Forever (1971)

     You know what I find most interesting about James Bond? Just behind Godzilla it is the second longest running movie franchise. That's not the only thing the seem to have in common: they also seem to have gotten really silly at around the same times too, and Diamonds Are Forever (1971) seems to be prime evidence of this. Although, it is worth mentioning that the Godzilla movie it most reminds me of was released two years later: Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973).

    I'm not sure how venerated Diamonds Are Forever is amongst Bond fans, but my research leads me to believe its not really hated or vilified. In fact, I get the feeling that Bond fans are surprisingly more forgiving of silliness than Godzilla fans. You see, speaking as a Godzilla fan who portends some credibility in film criticism, we tend to have an instinct to push back against the public perception that Godzilla films, especially the older Godzilla films are nothing more than campy fluff with no story, and crap effects that didn't even hold up at the time. This is of course a fruitless task because well most of the older Godzilla films are campy fluff with no story and crappy effects that didn't even hold up at the time, Godzilla vs. Megalon being a prime example and is thus often disowned by the fanbase as exceptionally bad. Anyway, long story short every fandom wants their favorites to hold some kind of credibility and prestige, and since Bond already has that in the west Bond fans probably don't have nearly as much to prove. Though they do show the same predaliction toward "disowning" certain movies because they hurt the credibility of the franchise. Yes, I'm talking about Die Another Day here.

    So, I've ruminated on the nature of fandoms and name dropped two movies, neither of which are the title of this post. I'm sure more than a few of you are asking what does any of this have to do with Diamonds Are Forever? It's quite simple really, Diamonds Are Forever is a dumb movie. A really dumb movie. Just the type to get disowned by an entire fanbase for being too silly. I don't usually give a synopsis of the movies I talk about on here unless its relevant and Diamonds Are Forever makes it's plot especially irrelevant. There was something about Blofeld creating body doubles, impersonating a Las Vegas casino owner, diamond smuggling, a diamond powered space laser, a moon buggy, and a tape of military marches? I couldn't care about anything that was going on, but really only because the movie didn't care either, and it didn't care with all of its very being, and, most strikingly, it showed how little it cared in the editing and the dialogue. 

    Even as far back as the cold open where Bond tracks down Blofeld and kills one of his body doubles. The whole sequences subordinates coherency to dramatically revealing that they got Sean Connery back for this one. He had taken a movie off and was coaxed back and they were very clearly proud the fact. They initially obscured his face during a rapid fire montage as he beats up random unnamed henchmen asking were Blofeld is. It was like watching a whole Bond movie cut down into less than five minutes by cutting together only the shots where he kills or brutalizes someone. It makes no sense and is completely incoherent from a narrative standpoint, but it does dramatically reveal first the body, than the voice, than the face of Sean Connery before he kills Blofeld and delivers a one liner. Again this takes less than five minutes. The exposition is also similiarly obscured. As Bond is recieving his briefing, and the audience is, in a typical bond film, recieving the vital exposition that lays out the groundwork for the plot, the movie, as if getting bored, cuts to the lethal antics of Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd two assassins working for Blofeld. While these assassins are related to the diamond smuggling that Bond's briefing is supposed to be, their scenes aren't related to the actual material of the briefing, took up more of the runtime, and, most importantly were more entertaining than the briefing. The whole movie proceeds this way. When Bond stumbles upon the construction of the laser satalite, he learns nothing, but gets embroiled in a chase where he commandeers a moon buggy from a lunar surface exploration simulation (honestly I don't know why it was there either, just go with it). When Bond tries to hand off smuggled diamonds at a funeral home thats a front for the smugglers he recieves fake payment, and provides fake diamonds and is captured and almost cremated. Nothing is learned nothing is accomplished except for the most important thing: those are really fun set pieces. The movie is chock full of really fun setpieces. There's a fist fight in a moving elevator that takes advantage of the sliding gates, glass windows, and movement of the elevator. Bond smuggles diamonds to America in the corpse of a man he's impersonating, whom the Bond girl is led to believe IS BOND. A car chase through Las Vegas and of course there's an explosive final action setpiece on an oil rig. It's nothing but wall to wall fun, and it even barely has any time to be exceptionally sexist or racist like Goldfinger (it is still a Bond film so it is still both just less obviously so cause it tends to ignore women and minorities).

    Perhaps this would be more annoying if the movie didn't employ some very clever dialogue tricks to clue you in to not taking this very seriously. There are the usual puns of course that clue you into the tone, but there is a far more clever trick. Bertolt Brecht called it "verfremdungseffekt" which is a very fancy and very German way of saying defamiliarization. The core idea of the concept is to draw attention to the fictional nature of a work in order to destroy the audience's immersion. Brecht intended this technique to force an audience to engage with his work on a more intellectual level to gain some kind of edification. Diamonds Are Forever employs bizarre lines like: "Listen you can drop me off at the corner. This is getting a little out of hand. No regrets, but when you start stealing moon machines from Willard Whyte goodbye and good luck." in order to remind you just how silly the movie you're watching is. Unlike Bertolt Brecht Diamonds Are Forever doesn't wish to intellectually engage or edify (how could it when there's no substence with which to do so), but rather it just wants to remind you that you're watching something really stupid and that you shouldn't take it seriously. Diamonds Are Forever doesn't want you to be immersed it wants you to have fun.

    To bring it all back, this is why it reminds me so much of Godzilla vs. Megalon. Both movies are stupid and just want you to have fun with some unique and fun set pieces. Die Another Day, for that matter, is operating on that same wavelength. In fact, I noticed both movies share more than a few plot points beyond the usual Bond formula. A Bond girl who is unaffiliated with the two primary players in the narrative, a diamond powered space laser, Bond masquerading as a diamond smuggler, and an antagonist who masquerades as a rich American. I really got the sense that Die Another Day is almost a stealth remake of Diamonds Are Forever, or at the very least tries to capture the same spirit. 

    I guess I can't say it surprises me that Diamonds Are Forever is at worst tolerated while vs. Megalon and Die Another Day are vilified. Both movies are missing that verfremdungseffekt that Diamonds Are Forever, probably accidentally, employed, but I do wish that more people would learn the lesson that it can teach: not every movie needs to be coherent or serious to be entertaining or even a good movie. If your setpieces are unique well executed, and given even the barest of context they can carry a movie.