While I am underwhelmed by Leonardo DiCaprio's latest movie, Revolutionary Road - a juvenile simper at 50s suburban losers by gloating Hollywood winners - I am pleased by the news that the actor's production company Appian Way is working on a biopic of Bond creator Ian Fleming.
No one's cast in the role yet - certainly Leonardo can forget about it straight off, but an Orson Welles biopic would suit him, just as Will Smith was born to play Obama - and that allows me to offer some advice.
First, it's little realised that Fleming was a non-practising homosexual. In Dr No Bond meets Honeychile Rider whose bottom is "almost as firm and rounded as a boy's"; and at Eton, poems he wrote there are signed with what one writer calls the "sexually ambiguous name Cary Anan". So let's not hear anymore nonsense on this topic.
It would be entirely in keeping with Tinseltown lore that a seasoned cock-cunter play the part: if Michael Douglas can play Liberace, Milk star Sean Penn - though possibly too short and too American - could handle Fleming who was a very close pal of gay writer Turbott Wolfe. Colin Firth perhaps, but too dreary out of his britches. Josh Hartnett? Too pretty. Bill Nighy is a tad too old while Matt Damon would be an amusing piece of mischief given he's Bourne.
Actually, I think Fleming should be played by a woman. Cate Blanchett was a most excellent Bob Dylan in I'm Not There. The female who I think could incarnate Fleming most accomplishedly is Tilda Swinton, a wonderful Orlando in Orlando, a perfect complement to Quentin Crisp's convincing Queen Elizabeth I: it's as if The Darnley Portrait had been brought to life by the fabled, rouged cock-cocker - and admirer of Holly Woodlawn.
I can quite imagine Tilda posing as Fleming with the cigarette holder, reading out Paul Verlaine's lesbo poems - as he did - and sauntering in Jamaica with his companion Odo Cross, a former Guards officer who liked to wear his mother's pearls. I suppose Bond would have to come into it somewhere - but perhaps more could be made of 007's mystical, pagan provenance of which I have written before.
In my more whimsical moments, I theorise that super-butch Bond was only invented so Fleming could pretend to be the Bond Girls himself, in a psycho-sexually complex case of cock-cunting-cock. Perhaps in his mind's eye he saw himself as curvaceous Pussy Galore. To get paid lots of money to write in drag is quite a trick, I'd have thought.
I do hope Leonardo finds these suggestions constructive to his purpose.
No one's cast in the role yet - certainly Leonardo can forget about it straight off, but an Orson Welles biopic would suit him, just as Will Smith was born to play Obama - and that allows me to offer some advice.
First, it's little realised that Fleming was a non-practising homosexual. In Dr No Bond meets Honeychile Rider whose bottom is "almost as firm and rounded as a boy's"; and at Eton, poems he wrote there are signed with what one writer calls the "sexually ambiguous name Cary Anan". So let's not hear anymore nonsense on this topic.
It would be entirely in keeping with Tinseltown lore that a seasoned cock-cunter play the part: if Michael Douglas can play Liberace, Milk star Sean Penn - though possibly too short and too American - could handle Fleming who was a very close pal of gay writer Turbott Wolfe. Colin Firth perhaps, but too dreary out of his britches. Josh Hartnett? Too pretty. Bill Nighy is a tad too old while Matt Damon would be an amusing piece of mischief given he's Bourne.
Actually, I think Fleming should be played by a woman. Cate Blanchett was a most excellent Bob Dylan in I'm Not There. The female who I think could incarnate Fleming most accomplishedly is Tilda Swinton, a wonderful Orlando in Orlando, a perfect complement to Quentin Crisp's convincing Queen Elizabeth I: it's as if The Darnley Portrait had been brought to life by the fabled, rouged cock-cocker - and admirer of Holly Woodlawn.
I can quite imagine Tilda posing as Fleming with the cigarette holder, reading out Paul Verlaine's lesbo poems - as he did - and sauntering in Jamaica with his companion Odo Cross, a former Guards officer who liked to wear his mother's pearls. I suppose Bond would have to come into it somewhere - but perhaps more could be made of 007's mystical, pagan provenance of which I have written before.
In my more whimsical moments, I theorise that super-butch Bond was only invented so Fleming could pretend to be the Bond Girls himself, in a psycho-sexually complex case of cock-cunting-cock. Perhaps in his mind's eye he saw himself as curvaceous Pussy Galore. To get paid lots of money to write in drag is quite a trick, I'd have thought.
I do hope Leonardo finds these suggestions constructive to his purpose.
15 comments:
Perhaps Holly Woodlawn could be lured out of retirement to play Fleming.
So... censoring? Tsk, tsk.
Yer wha'?
Of course, it depends on what aspect of Flemming’s life they are planning to focus on; but I think Ralph Fiennes would make most people happy in that role. I’m afraid a story that would feature Tilda sounds beyond any project DiCraprio and his company (money, dirty money) would endorse (too artsy; and I find that his “I’m an artiste” attitude is just that, attitude).
The story would have to appeal to Bond fans (probably) to make money and if, in the history of the Bond films, the actors selected have had to be credited cock-cunt ers, believe me, they will know better not to portray any kind of gender ambiguity for this story.
It doesn’t matter how little or well known is his sexuality: He didn’t go around announcing it, he got married, had a son and you say he was non-practising (I say possibly self-hating, judging for this need to portray men so… er manly?). Although, what makes you so sure he was non-practising? How platonic do you think his - intimate - frienship with Noel Coward was? It sounds to me they were kindred spirits of sorts.
OX
Tilda Swinton can do anything. She is God.
I think this is the most absurd posting you have ever written. And that's saying something.
The idea of Fiennes as Fleming fills me with suicidal dread - all those pensive looks, the fake-soulful pose while he's whipping his dick out off-camera to fuck anything in sight; oh dear, no. An arthouse Fleming biopic is precisely what I have in mind - it should shed entire new light on the cock-cocker and shock and offend the sad army of 007 lovers who sit sit on their fat arses waiting to be entertained. They should be introduced to the topics of mysticism and cock-cockism - it would do the cunts good.
Dear Thombeau, I love Fabulon, it's my soulmate. And you are exquisitely correct on Tilda who only lately has enjoyed or suffered the tabloid celebrity she is owed. She is not human but an ET from another galaxy, she is me on stilts.
The real question is who they'd find to portray his
terrifying wife Anne.
I shuddered all the way through her published letters
(edited by Mark Amory). It put my Anglophilia to a severe test, let me tell you. She was both disdainful and viperish.
Perhaps Ms Swinton could play both husband and wife?
An excellent idea Toby, perfect.
"Revolutionary Road - a juvenile simper at 50s suburban losers by gloating Hollywood winners"
Like the line Madame. Spot on.
Tilda in both roles: wow, that sounds really interesting; but I insist: don’t expect Leo’s company to go that “Indy”, it won’t happen… I wish someone would work on a story for that, though. And if his wife was terrifying, well it seems it was only the proper match for him… according to a story published last year:
dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-511863/Why-Ian-Flemings-wife-invented-James-Bond.html
OX
I think I was supposed to spell it “indie”… still,
Tilda in both roles: a concept to be followed… and I’m sure she would just jump into it!
OX
The title of the Mail piece is fabulously and woefully misleading I must say, and dependent on one word: "Perhaps", at the end.
Will there be spanking ? I do hope so !
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