Sean Connery and his screen character James Bond Essay

Sean Connery and his screen character James Bond - Essay Example I choose Sean Connery as the actor who best portrays the British as a person and institution. He has won an Academy Award and has been knighted, which tells us that he is recognised in the U.S., as well as his homeland, the U.K. He is the first actor to play the role of James Bond on film. Connery has a distinctive Scottish accent which adds to his popularity as a British actor. Although he only found fame when he started acting as James Bond in 1962 at the age of 32, Connery was admired for his good looks. His fan base has remained loyal to him throughout his James Bond film career from 1962 – 1983. At his last unofficial Bond film, Never Say Never Again, he was older than most male movie star sex symbols but he still commanded great screen presence. Fans from all over the world were introduced to Britain, and all things British because of James Bond.Connery is a world icon in his representation of the British Secret Service agent/ In accordance with the screen image of Bond as the world’s super intelligent British Intelligence Secret Service agent, the scripts were written to include locations world-wide. I have chosen to examine From Russia With Love in detail because the bulk of the setting was located within Britain, namely, its capital, London. The producers of the Bond films started with a very small budget for their initial Bond movies so this second Bond movie was filmed mainly at their home ground, Britain. ... Ian was an active serviceman during World War II. He worked in the intelligence division. He put his skills and experience to good use in writing his James Bond novels. The British world of Britain's top British fictional character had such a realistic and elaborate architecture that there have been many writers who have cashed in on reconstructing this fictional and yet realistic world in books. One such writer is Griswold. (Griswold 2006). It was because of Fleming's careful construction of his fictional world of Bond and its relative realism that made Bond so successful as a fictional character. Whenever we think of Bond, we think of the British too. The public identify the image of Bond with the image of the British. Connery came under the tutelage of British film director, Terence Young, who took great pains to teach him how to move gracefully to polish up his suave image for the Bond role. Connery, Fleming and Young are all British and they have put in great effort to present Bond as a British character worthy of praise. However, after the fifth Bond film, Sean called it quits from playing the Bond character. He said he was tired of the repetitive similar plots, the seeming lack of character development for Bond, the overwhelming violation of his privacy from the public and his fear that his career was stalemate being stereotype cast as Bond. In a way, he was so entwined with the Bond character that Connery feared he was being taken over Bond. EON Productions then hired another actor, George Lazenby, for On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969). The continuity of the Bond character was severely disrupted when George quit even before the movie was officially released. There