James' World 2

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Before Daniel Craig arrived, James Bond hadn’t made sense for years. That’s not just because the character’s original conception — a borderline sadist who used and discarded women while eating elaborate meals, drinking to excess, and smoking constantly — felt increasingly out of time as the 20th century turned into the 21st. It’s because Bond fans could be driven to the brink of madness trying to connect one film to the next. A new actor would take over as Bond from time to time, but it was unclear whether or not the Bond of the moment and the Bonds of the past shared the same history. Why did some of the supporting cast remain consistent and others did not? Is it any wonder why a fan theory that “James Bond” was just a codename caught on in some corners?

The Craig films, which culminate this year with the fifth film in his cycle, No Time to Die, have treated both Bond’s retrograde personality and tangled continuity as problems that needed solving. They’ve addressed the former without making Bond fundamentally un-Bondian, emphasizing the toughness of his character and the emotional toil of the job rather than, say, his tendency to leer at every woman who crosses his path. And they’ve tried to smooth out the snarls of James Bond continuity while telling a multi-part story with a distinct beginning, middle, and seemingly definitive end.

It’s been a thoughtful overhaul filled with bold choices. But was it successful? Has Bond emerged from his turn-of-the-century transformation newly relevant? Did the attempt at making individual entries part of a bigger story work? To find answers here at the end involves first going back to the beginning.

When Casino Royale hit theaters in 2006, it earned comparisons to the then-fledgling Bourne franchise, and understandably so, given that it took cues from those films’ grittier approach to action — emphasizing tough, intense, sometimes bloody scenes of combat over effects-driven set pieces. The Bourne films were viewed at first as the anti-Bonds, an answer to the excesses—like, say, an ice palace or an invisible car—of the later Pierce Brosnan films.

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Photograph courtesy Everett Collection: Collage by Gabe Conte

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It’s been nearly twenty years since the reclusive, mysterious, almost mythical comedy writer John Swartzwelder left “The Simpsons,” and yet, to this day, one of the biggest compliments a “Simpsons” writer (or any comedy writer) can receive is to have a joke referred to as “Swartzweldian.” Meaning: A joke that comes out of nowhere. A joke that no one else could have written. A joke that sounds almost as if it were never written as if it’s always existed.

Take the following joke, a favorite among “Simpsons” writers and fans, which appears in Season 8’s “Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment,” when Homer stands atop a stack of barrels, outside a pawn shop, and delivers a toast to a gathered crowd: “To alcohol. The cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.”

Swartzwelder has been deemed “one of the greatest comedy minds of all time.” He is famously private and never grants interviews. Few photos of him exist, although he did make some animated cameos as background “Simpsons” characters—once as a patient in a psychiatric hospital. His voice can be heard on only one “Simpsons” DVD writers’ commentary, for “The Cartridge Family” (Season 9, Episode 5). Ambushed by phone, while at home cooking a steak, he sounds pleasant and courteous but eager to finish up the encounter, which lasts all of a minute and twenty-four seconds.

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Illustration by Vanessa Saba; Source images from Getty (top); “The Simpsons” (bottom)

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When we learned this week that Kathryn Hahn would play Joan Rivers in a series on Showtime called The Comeback Girl, the choice seemed like a no-brainer. Hahn, who recently stole the show as the nosy-neighbor-slash-powerful-witch Agatha in Marvel’s WandaVision, truly has the chops to channel the iconic, sharp-tongued comedy legend.

But something about the casting also landed funny. That’s because of a troubling trend: by playing Rivers, Hahn will swell the ranks of non-Jewish actresses who have portrayed Jewish women, fictional and real, recently. It’s happened with big-budget films like On the Basis of Sex, the Ruth Bader Ginsburg biopic in which the notably Jewish justice was played by (the lovely but not Jewish at all) Felicity Jones, as well as indie breakouts like Shiva Baby, featuring the talented rising star Rachel Sennott (not Jewish either) navigating the most awkward mourning gathering ever. Jones’ casting drew some outcry, while Sennott inhabited her character so successfully that most Jewish fans assumed she was the real deal.

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