man with a golden gun

• The Man with The Golden Gun film poster


  December 1974
• The Man with the Golden Gun


  • James Bond film released on 19 December 1974, starring Roger Moore as 007
  • Based on a book of the same name, written by Ian Fleming
  • Produced by the British company Eon (Everything or Nothing) Productions and distributed by United Artists
  • Estimated $7 million budget and grossed over $97 million at the world wide box office
  • To reflect the popularity of the Martial Arts film genre, with the rise of stars such as Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, there were several Kung Fu scenes and the film was filmed predominantly in Asia, having being shot in Hong Kong, Thailand and Macau
• Artwork for poster

  Produced by artist and illustrator Robert McGinnis
• Historical context

  • Prior to the 1990s, illustrations were much more commonly used on film posters due to the limited technology that was available
  • The film was set in the middle of the 1973 energy crisis, when the oil producing Arab nations proclaimed an oil embargo causing an oil crisis which had both short and long-term effects across on politics and the economy across the globe
• Film posters

  • Very visual and rely on images and limited text to promote the film
  • The images need to give the audience an idea of the film genre and hint at the narrative
• Central image

  Mid-shot of James Bond, smartly dressed holding a gun across his body
• Bond's image

  • Dominance of his image suggests he is the film's protagonist and so probably a 'good guy'
  • His attire connotes business and professionalism
  • The gun, an iconic part of Bond's 'uniform', signifies danger and action
  • He is looking directly at the audience, seemingly making eye contact
  • The intensity of his stare and the lack of a smile could connote how seriously he expects to be taken and that he appears calm despite the chaos surrounding him
• Actor's name

  • Roger Moore had become a household name after starring in the well-known TV series The Saint and playing Bond in the previous film, Live and Let Die, so his name is placed prominently
• Title and author

  • The title of the film appears with the name of the author who wrote the books (on which the films are based) at the bottom of the poster
• Credit block

  • Much smaller and tucked away so as not to divert the audience away from the main image or the rest of the poster
• Golden gun

  An extreme close up of a golden gun pointed right at Bond, with someone loading it with a bullet engraved with his name
• Golden gun

  • The colour connotes wealth and status
  • The fact we can only see the hand of the shooter creates intrigue and what Roland Barthes would term an enigma code for the audience, as we want to find out who is trying to kill Bond
• Enemies and people trying to kill Bond

  Codes that signify to the audience this is from the action/thriller genre
• Females

  • Flanking Bond, wearing very few clothes
  • Two are highly sexualised: bikini-clad, slim with perfect hour glass figure and long flowing hair
  • One appears to be looking at the golden gun assassin whilst pointing at Bond whilst the other seems to be putting her arm out in front of him, seemingly protecting him
• Representation of gender and ethnicity

  • Bond was iconic, representing masculinity as intelligent, strong and prepared to put yourself in dangerous situations
  • The sexualised representation of women suggests they are little more than bodies to be looked at
  • One female is dressed in a karate uniform and is shown in a martial arts pose, going against the dominant sexualised stereotype, and appears to be from a different ethnic group
• Representation of issues and events

  The 1973 global energy crisis, with the embargo on oil, is portrayed through the iconography of the power plant and the related explosions
• Encoding and decoding texts - the producers have encoded certain ideas into this text but it depends on the viewer's own social and cultural context how this image is decoded
• Feminist theoretical perspectives - the 'male gaze' which discussed how the audience is put into the perspective of a heterosexual man, denying the women human identity and relegating them to the status of objects to be admired for physical appearance