Michael Armstrong vs. James Bond
- Similarities
- Differences
- The Women
That Arresting Rhythm: Opening Credits and Murders
Michael Armstrong and James Bond
In a fold to studio pressure, Hitchcock cast Paul Newman as his leading man, partially in an attempt to create a new protagonist, one more like Bond than Roger Thornhill, someone who is active and dynamic and who chooses danger 18. The connection to Bond is made almost explicitly when Michael first lies directly to Sarah about going to Stockholm (he is really going to East Berlin) and he deflects a question by asking her, “Aren’t you going to try your martini?” Martinis are obviously associated with Bond and so the drink suggests espionage, connecting Michael back to the coded book and the mysterious Pi.
Furthermore, the leading actors of both films were cast for their masculine appearance; Paul Newman was known for a “stoic athleticism” while then unknown Sean Connery was cast for his sex appeal and cross-class identification 19. As if to emphasize the masculinity and appeal to women both men possess, both Hitchcock and From Russia With Love director Terence Young choose to initally present their hero in bed with a woman. In Torn Curtain Michael is first seen beneath the covers with his fiancé Sarah Sherman; in From Russia With Love, Bond is first seen lounging shirtless in a banked rowboat with a girl in a bikini. Additionally, later in each film the men are presented in ways that contribute to the idea of the male body on display: Bond initiated a trend away from the dominant heterosexual male gaze and Torn Curtain seems to have followed 20. Michael is seen nude in a shower, blurred by the translucent shower door; both Bond and Michael are seen in nothing but a towel; and Michael is later open-shirted on Dr. Koska’s table while she probes his abdomen for bruised ribs.
Though Bond becomes an object of the gaze, there is no doubt about the objectification of women within the films. In Torn Curtain, however, the objectifying gaze rests often on Michael but Sarah is rarely presented in a situation where she is the object of anyone’s gaze, hardly even Michael’s. Indeed, during the opening post-coital scene, only Michael arises from the bed, allowing the audience to see him naked from the waist up, while Sarah remains entirely beneath the covers. This seems to work conversely to the idea that the man is “reluctant” to become the object of the gaze and that only he can move the narrative forward. Normally the spectator identifies with the man and then projects his/her gaze onto the female object of the male protagonist’s gaze but in Torn Curtain, and to a degree in From Russia With Love, the spectator is forced to look upon the men, instead of the women, as fragmented objects of the gaze. Such a reversal is quite odd for Hitchcock who usually delights in placing the woman as the object of a sadistic or voyeuristic gaze 21.
