Figures of Postwar Sliding: Utopia and Violence in the Extreme Sport Performances of James Bond

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I thought the article was an engaging and thought-provoking conceptual look at extreme sports and its connection with James Bond films.

Other than a tidy up in terms of punctuation, I have few comments about the literature review and conceptual overview (sections 1, 2, 3), but I do have reservations about the findings and discussion (sections 4 and 5). I think these could be much more strongly integrated to create a more active discussion of the underlying concepts in those examples from Bond films. At it stands, section 4 feels more descriptive, and I didn't get a clear sense of the critical threads that had been set up being pulled through clearly from the earlier sections. Thus, it seems a relatively simple re-write of sections 4 and 5, to integrate them and define more explicitly 'the literary, naming and synthesizing aspects of the figures of thought of the glissade' in the analysis of those examples from Bond films. 

Furthermore, the question of the real and artificial nature of these sequences could be more defined, since these sequences play on a kind of 'spectacle of the real' that both emphasises their spectacular nature and sometimes negatively defines them as constructed (process shots, as in the earlier films, and the later CGI in Die Another Day). Their 'extremeness' is defined in terms of their spectacle (visually and through editing), while it seems that the integration of more visible artificiality negates this effect.

Author Response

I thought the article was an engaging and thought-provoking conceptual look at extreme sports and its connection with James Bond films.

Thank you for your thorough and generous reception of the article!

Other than a tidy up in terms of punctuation, I have few comments about the literature review and conceptual overview (sections 1, 2, 3), but I do have reservations about the findings and discussion (sections 4 and 5). I think these could be much more strongly integrated to create a more active discussion of the underlying concepts in those examples from Bond films. At it stands, section 4 feels more descriptive, and I didn't get a clear sense of the critical threads that had been set up being pulled through clearly from the earlier sections. Thus, it seems a relatively simple re-write of sections 4 and 5, to integrate them and define more explicitly 'the literary, naming and synthesizing aspects of the figures of thought of the glissade' in the analysis of those examples from Bond films.

We have made the major revisions requested including a restructuring of the analysis and clarifications of certain themes such as technology, cinematography, artificiality. You wanted the results to be less descriptive and more integrated with the theoretical departure. In order to make the Findings-part more relevant to the rest of the article we restructured the analysis to form three new sections in which each Bond, relevant to the analysis, is placed in chronological order.We discarded the natural/elemental disposition and let two Bonds transgress the sections in that they belong to different logics and eras: Dalton and Brosnan,

Furthermore, the question of the real and artificial nature of these sequences could be more defined, since these sequences play on a kind of 'spectacle of the real' that both emphasises their spectacular nature and sometimes negatively defines them as constructed (process shots, as in the earlier films, and the later CGI in Die Another Day). Their 'extremeness' is defined in terms of their spectacle (visually and through editing), while it seems that the integration of more visible artificiality negates this effect.

Throughout the article, we have clarified conceptual pairs such as artificial/real, nature/technology, cinematographic/dramatic dimensions. We have also made a greater point of the development of computer special fx in the 21^st century. In the last findings-section, we have baptized the climax when Brosnan combines all elements and extreme sliding sports towards the CGI-background as a new event in the history of extreme sports. We name this ending point of Bond’s sliding the “CGIssade” in order to meld the figure of thought of the glissade with the expectations on Bond to exponentially extremize sliding, and the technological “advances” of the film medium. We see the developing of this theme as a way to more poignantly follow to the theoretical/methodological model.   By finding a new name to conclude the analysis we have made justice to the original figures and found a place where we can both endorse and critically evaluate them in relation to our aim and purpose.

We have tracked changes in the revised manuscript.

Reviewer 2 Report

I liked this article – it makes an original contribution, exhibits intellectual qualities, and it’s also very well-written, and quite witty in places (a good match for the ludic nature of the material), which I appreciate.

The approach belongs to a particular school of thought which will always prove divisive, to an extent, in that it pursues a philosophical idea (linking it to an item of popular culture: the Bond franchise) as a kind of intellectual exercise. There’ll be readers to whom this is simply an unnecessary theoretical jigsaw puzzle, while other readers (myself included) will appreciate its merits.

The author traces the idea of extreme sports in post-war culture, particularly how French philosophy deals with it, reading encounters with fluid elements (esp. water/air) as a subject/(material) world encounter. The analysis is introduced quite compellingly, and I have no doubt that the author exhibits a thorough expertise.

I’m torn between suggesting minor/major revisions. I opt for the latter, but this is mainly because I’m suggesting a structural change that will require a rewrite; it’s not because I think the argument is flawed.

What I think should be improved is the presentation of the results. Once the theoretical premises have been established, the article segments Bond’s sporting endeavours into a tripartite structure (snow, air, water). The case studies in themselves works well, but it becomes a bit tedious to have the Bond films checked off one by one, and categorised according to these elements (it also means the analyses stop as soon as Bond leaves one element in favour of another in one film). The conclusion then leaps to a different narrative (p. 13), one that I feel would make for a much more successful structure: not to deal with the individual elements one after the other, but to offer a narrative of the Bond films, from Connery (who does not achieve ‘glissade’) towards the Bonds who successfully glide and transition, culminating in Die Another Day’s “double synthetic excess of hybridity and artificiality”, and the regressive physicality of the Daniel Craig era. This would also allow make the case studies more substantial, as they could accommodate all the individual elements included in them.

Additional hints:

• I don’t think the title is well chosen. The Cold War hardly features in the article, and the headline implies that James Bond is the main subject of the article (my impression was that Bond rather acts as an example to highlight the larger points on extreme sports/gliding/French philosophy that the author is making).

• The author seems to take it for granted that Bond is an exclusively cinematic phenomenon (cf. introduction to the Bond canon on p. 6). I don’t think the article necessarily needs references to Fleming’s novels, but the author should at least comment on the reasons for just focusing on the films, and whether or not extreme sports feature in the source material at all.
• One glaring omission in the Works Cited list:
  David M. Pegram, “The Hero with Mad Skills: James Bond and the World of Extreme Sports”, International Journal of James Bond Studies 1.2 (2018)
  Pegram’s article has a totally different focus, but it should at least be name-checked, given the overlap in subject matter.

Minor nit-picking:

• p. 1: Connor’s book title should be in italics
• p. 1: close parentheses after Latin explanation
• p. 8: I feel compelled to point out that A View to a Kill does not use the Beach Boys’ original recording of “California Girls”, but a cover version.
• p. 8: add full stop at the end of the chapter 4.1
• p. 9: At the beginning of The Living Daylights, only one of the three 00-agents is killed by the KGB agent, not two.
• p. 10: Die Another Day accidentally named Die Another Die (and should be put in italics).
• p. 10 and 11: correct the years for Spectre (2015, not 2016) and Casino Royale (2006, not 2007).

Author Response

Thank you for your thorough and generous reception of the article!

What I think should be improved is the presentation of the results. Once the theoretical premises have been established, the article segments Bond’s sporting endeavours into a tripartite structure (snow, air, water). The case studies in themselves works well, but it becomes a bit tedious to have the Bond films checked off one by one, and categorised according to these elements (it also means the analyses stop as soon as Bond leaves one element in favour of another in one film). The conclusion then leaps to a different narrative (p. 13), one that I feel would make for a much more successful structure: not to deal with the individual elements one after the other, but to offer a narrative of the Bond films, from Connery (who does not achieve ‘glissade’) towards the Bonds who successfully glide and transition, culminating in Die Another Day’s “double synthetic excess of hybridity and artificiality”, and the regressive physicality of the Daniel Craig era. This would also allow make the case studies more substantial, as they could accommodate all the individual elements included in them.

We have made the major revisions requested including a restructuring of the analysis and clarifications of certain themes such as technology, cinematography, artificiality. In order to make the Findings-part more relevant to the rest of the article we restructured the analysis to form three new sections in which each Bond, relevant to the analysis, is placed in chronological order, based on your suggestion. We discarded the natural/elemental disposition and let two Bonds transgress the sections in that they belong to different logics and eras: Dalton and Brosnan.   Throughout the article, we have clarified conceptual pairs such as artificial/real, nature/technology, cinematographic/dramatic dimensions. We have also made a greater point of the development of computer special fx in the 21^st century. In the last findings-section, we have baptized the climax when Brosnan combines all elements and extreme sliding sports towards the CGI-background as a new event in the history of extreme sports. We name this ending point of Bond’s sliding the “CGIssade” in order to meld the figure of thought of the glissade with the expectations on Bond to exponentially extremize sliding, and the technological “advances” of the film medium. By finding a new name to conclude the analysis we have made justice to the original figures and found a place where we can both endorse and critically evaluate them in relation to our aim and purpose.  

• I don’t think the title is well chosen. The Cold War hardly features in the article, and the headline implies that James Bond is the main subject of the article (my impression was that Bond rather acts as an example to highlight the larger points on extreme sports/gliding/French philosophy that the author is making).
• We changed from Cold War to Postwar and then we added the dimension of the figure, but we retained B. in the subtitle.
• The author seems to take it for granted that Bond is an exclusively cinematic phenomenon (cf. introduction to the Bond canon on p. 6). I don’t think the article necessarily needs references to Fleming’s novels, but the author should at least comment on the reasons for just focusing on the films, and whether or not extreme sports feature in the source material at all.

• • We have made a reference to Ian Fleming’s novels.
• One glaring omission in the Works Cited list:
  David M. Pegram, “The Hero with Mad Skills: James Bond and the World of Extreme Sports”, International Journal of James Bond Studies 1.2 (2018)
  Pegram’s article has a totally different focus, but it should at least be name-checked, given the overlap in subject matter.
• We have included Pegram’s article in the argument throughout the article, in the form of details, definitions and lacunae. Furthermore, we have included a new article to be true to the ambivalence of the figure of Bond. Cox (2014) who writes about Craig as a new form of masculinity, which is decently in line with major events in our chronology.

Minor nit-picking:

• We have adjusted the minor nit-picking points.

 

 

• • We have tracked changes in the revised manuscript.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

I think the structural revision works much to the article's advantage. The presentation of the findings is very well framed, the author's expertise is quite significant, and the overall proposition of the article becomes clear.

I recommend a final round of proof-reading; there is but the occasional typo (Roger Spottiswoode).

A few really minor, final hints:

- the first mentioning of Fleming's novels (unlike the later, more substantial explanation) strikes me as a bit superfluous, in that it does not say much: "In film (in contrast to Ian Fleming's novels), Bond is often seen practicing a variety of adventurous forms of sport". I'm not entirely sure what that line is saying: After all, Bond DOES practice adventurous sports in the novels (the author cites the skiing chase in the novel of On Her Majesty's Secret Service). Or are we meant to understand that, indeed, Bond cannot be 'seen' practicing sports in the novels (because they are not visual media)?

- Daniel Craig is cited as "our hero in her majesty's secret service for no less than four films": that's FIVE now, even though the last one has yet to be released.

- the article still claims that Bond is the sole survivor in the pre-credits scene of The Living Daylights ("two agents are quickly eliminated"). I double-checked this - only one of the three parachuting agents is killed.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

 

Thank you for your patience and encouragement, once more.

 

We have adjusted all of your remaining queries by adding the correct number of Craig films (line 129), removed the incorrect parts about The Living Daylights (lines 531-532) and the superfluous mentioning of Ian Fleming’s novels (lines 90-91) in the beginning of the article. Note that numbers can vary depending on whether you are viewing the "track changes" option. Furthermore, we have performed a final spell check/proof reading.

 

All the best