James Bond has no time to die. That's the name of the new, 25th in a row, Bond film ("No Time to Die") coming to theaters this year.
However, secret agent 007 had enough time to move the premiere planned for April 2nd to November 12th.
And so Europe and the rest of the world distance themselves, lock themselves in home offices and voluntary quarantines, and watch old movies from the James Bond series.
Unlike football, the Olympics or cinema, Bond classics are available even now.
Bond is more than a super-agent in the service of Her Majesty - he is a pan-European myth.
Ingenious devices
Like Europe as we knew it before the corona, Bond grew up on the ruins of the Second World War.
The twelve novels in the Bond series were published between 1953 and 1964, and each reflected their author Jan Fleming's experience with the Cold War-era global espionage showdown.
Fleming was then active in the British Naval Intelligence Service and was inspired by real people and operations.
The creator of James Bond was later close friends with the head of the CIA, who was known to be a huge Bond fan. He told Life magazine that he had asked the CIA technical department several times to build ingenious devices like the Q. He was thinking of the tracking transmitter that Bond smuggled in the trunk of the villain Goldfinger, or the poison blade that Rosa Kleb drops from her shoe in From Russia With Love.
The German Lotte Lenia played Rosa Kleb in the film "From Russia with Love" in 1963, and Gerd Frebe, i.e. Aurik Goldfinger, started a small tradition in Bond films the very next year - the tradition of "bad guys" from the German-speaking world. Christopher Waltz as the eternal villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld is currently reviving that tradition in the films "Spectre" and "No Time to Die."
But besides them, there are also movie greats like Kurd Jürgens in the movie "The Spy Who Loved Me" or Klaus-Maria Brandauer aka Maximilian Lag in "Never Say Never".
The entire movie character of Blofeld with the characteristic scar across the right half of his face was modeled after the Austrian SS officer Otto Skorzenji.
His face has been a symbol of absolute evil for decades. And that in the post-war period could only be a Nazi.
There was a perfectly logical explanation for this within the James Bond universe: the agent was born in the early twenties in the German Ruhr region, where his father was part of the British occupation forces after the First World War.
At least that's what it says in the only "authorized biography" of the author John Pearson from 1973.
James inherited his aversion to Germans from his father - and it is based on the catastrophe of the 20th century.
"Evil German" was an unmistakable echo of the post-World War II era.
However, the First and Second World Wars are for Bond only irrelevant background stories compared to the Cold War.
The main conflict of the Bond universe was the international systemic conflict of East and West, communism and Western democracy.
Offense of the Soviet Union
The influence of the Bond films in the Cold War was enormous. They also led to official political reactions: After the film "From Russia with Love", the Soviet Union (USSR) was so offended that it not only banned all Bond films until the mid-seventies, but also exerted pressure in many countries to ban the film in cinemas.
And one more thing: Bond was officially declared an undesirable person in the USSR.
Diplomatic sanctions for a fictional character was a truly unique event. It is quite clear: Bond is taken seriously everywhere and has found its place in the cultural politics of both East and West.
Spy gadgets, tricks, cars, women, parties and spectacular movie locations – many viewers still enjoy the fun moments today.
What really matters are the villains and the suspense-filled scenarios. Everything revolves around that.
Bond himself changes shades and has very little room for change and play. He will always be the one to win, he will always be British and always the man.
The producers made it clear in the latest film, No Time to Die.
European myth
But that does not apply to his opponent. Because the villain and his plans always change with the times. Through the evil Germans and the Cold War, then threats to world peace ("Diamonds Are Forever", "You Only Live Twice" or "Operation Space"), nuclear terrorist groups ("Operation Thunder"), the first war in Afghanistan ("Breath of Death" ), Central American drug smugglers ("Licence to Kill"), post-Soviet arms smugglers ("Golden Eye"), conflicts over resources ("A Grain of Comfort"), all the way to terrorism and digital mass surveillance ("Spectre").
The Bond saga reflects particular threats that are characteristic of a certain time. The announcement of the new villain, Rami Malek, who plays Safin in "It's Not Time to Die", shows how exciting it is.
Many are interested in questions such as who will play James Bond next, what evil will threaten now, but also about the image of women in movies.
It's almost unbelievable how much a fictional character can spark debates.
Every time and every social issue wants to be reflected in Bond, and every country and every city wants to be on the screen behind Agent 007 as he pursues villains and experiences adventures.
Bond has long been a shared European myth, born in the Cold War.
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