The Death of Immortality (RIP Sean Connery)
Today, Sean Connery died.
The
man who defined machismo for the generation before mine and probably the one
after me. The original 007*, the father of Indiana Jones, Robin
Hood**, King Richard the Lionheart….the list goes on.
Sean Connery was always cool.
From when I was a little boy watching Bond movies on ITV, he was always the guyI preferred to Roger Moore or George Lazenby. There was something reassuring
about Sean. He looked like he meant business and was just as likely to
smack a woman as a man if it meant he was closer to fulfilling his latest
mission as a government-sanctioned assassin. His 007 was cruel, snarky and
looked like the kind of person who’d probably been a bully at school. But that’s
what made him so much fun. We were rooting for what should have been a bad guy.
As I got older Sean Connery was consistent
the way the seasons are. You could always guarantee that he would liven up a
movie and I remember always looking forward to seeing a film if he was in it.
When writing Time Bandits, Terry Gilliam wanted “someone who looks like Sean Connery” to play King Agamemnon. Sean got word of this and offered to play the role. I remember seeing this wonderful film as an 11 year-old boy and noting that Sean’s portrayal of the king was as if he was a kindly but strict schoolteacher and not the figure of history and that this interpretation rocked.
Outland, A Bridge Too Far and
Meteor were all fairly average films, raised to being awesome by having Sean in
them. When he came back to unofficially play James Bond in 1983 at the age of 53,
MGM had to entice the 55 year-old Roger Moore back to the franchise, believing
that keeping the current face of 007 was the only thing that could compete with
having the original actor portray him once again in a duelling movie.
There was always something
undefinably wonderful about Sean Connery. Even his films that I don’t like are entertaining
for the bits that he’s in. Diamonds are Forever in 1971 has him as an overweight
007 and visibly not the handsome, svelte killer of Dr No or Goldfinger. He
still carried the film though. Bits I noticed as a kid were the utter glee with which he kills Blofeld (by
pushing him head first into boiling mud no less) at the beginning and the
regret he briefly shows just before he attacks Peter Franks in the elevator.
Sean was a great actor, even when he couldn’t be arsed or the material he was
working with wasn’t up to much.
Something that has been noted is
that his accent didn’t change. A British gentleman, a Turkish/ Egyptian prince,
an Irish American, a Russian soldier or an English king…he still had the same
tones. Thing is he had charisma, something that, years later Arnold Schwarzenneger
would excel in in a similar way.
As time moved on people accepted
that Sean was great and this went without question. The acid test for anyone
claiming to love the 007 franchise was to ask “Who’s the second best James
Bond?” it being an unspoken fact that Sean was number one. If they answered
with his name, the conversation was done.
I remember going to university
in 1990 to study Law and an 18 year-old girl on the same course had a massive
crush on Sean Connery, who at this point had just turned 60 and was distressing
gussets globally in the Hunt for Red October as a Russian turncoat. In 1996 while
watching The Rock I heard a woman aged about 23 say loudly “Oh God! He is so
fucking hot!!!”
And so to the death of immortality….
James Bond has always
perpetuated the myth that men can remain between 35 and 50 permanently. Such a
man can speak about 5 languages, shag loads of women without getting the clap,
enjoy good food, be incredibly clever and kill people (who deserve it) with a
smile and a witty remark***. The Bond movies I dislike are the ones where Bond doesn’t
fit this trope (Diamonds Are Forever for Sean and the fucking awful A View To A
Kill for Roger Moore) because they are meant to entertain, not remind us of the
fragility of our own existence and the ceaseless march of time.
Sean Connery in real life, took
this a step further. He got sexier the older he got. As James Bond at the age
of 32 he was hot and women swooned. As a middle-aged and later elderly man he
was for some inexplicable reason, even hotter and caused the knickers to catch
fire of women young enough to be his granddaughter.
He carried the film The Rock, despite
the odious presence of shit actor and all round gobshite Nicholas Cage. Many
people regard this as an unofficial sequel to his tenure as Bond, because his character
John Mason is 007 by a different name. The film is tremendous because he is in
it. Without him it would have been an average thriller.
He made Indiana Jones even
cooler by putting a character as iconic as Indy in with an almost-as-cool dad. Hell,
Henry Jones even got to shag the same woman as his son and not one person
thought that was icky!
When Roger Moore died in 2017 it
was sad but he looked crap in the years before he passed on and the
inevitability of his death was something we could see coming and accepted. The
once handsome Saint, Persuader and Bond was almost unrecognisable when he
shuffled off the mortal coil at age 89.
Sean Connery looked good as a septuagenarian
and an octogenarian. He made us believe that we could age well, be shaggable to
women 50 years younger and still be healthy well into our twilight years. He
also made us almost believe that we could live forever. Now that he’s gone that
bubble has burst and mortality seems a little too real again.
Thank you Sean for the films you
made. I loved them as a kid and I liked them as a man. I just hope I can age as
well as you you did.
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* Yes, I'm well aware of
the radio and TV versions so shut up!
** Also his dad but lets not go there. Michael Praed, I hate you for quitting to do Dynasty.
*** Sean's best was undoubtedly saying "Bon Appetit!" after throwing a guy into a tank full of piranhas.
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