ABSTRACT
Landscapes convey and portray earthly, financial, and military power in the famous James Bond film franchise. The landscapes portrayed in Bond films, from the Arcadian to the urban, are all expressive in various ways of capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism. From the branding of commodified scenography, such as the islands of Khao Phing Kan, featured in The Man with the Golden Gun in 1974, to multiple appearances of the Scottish Highlands, from 1977’s The Spy Who Loved Me to Skyfall in 2012, and innumerable scenes of patrician London cityscapes, Bond films reinforce the association of certain landscape typologies with the expression of financial and military earthly power. There is also an equivalent de-valuing of landscapes that express customary values of the commons (where traditional technologies are upstaged by Bond’s high tech, for example). This chapter examines the uses of landscape in Bond films, the development of the landscapes themselves, and helps build a deeper understanding of the forces that dictate the form of designed landscapes.
