The Elevator: An Overlooked Symbol in James Bond Films

The elevator (or lift, as some call it) has had a significant effect on society, since it was introduced in the mid-19th century. Now, about 160 years later, it has become a mainstay. Perhaps so much so that we no longer notice its impact. This may be true in James Bond films, as well. Are elevators merely purposeful to a film’s plot, or do they serve a deeper sociological/cultural purpose?

For certain, the elevator still holds a particular place in popular culture. The enclosed, confined space of an elevator has intrigued many storytellers. Just recently, a new play called Elevator has had a successful run in Los Angeles. And who can forget the 2010 film, Devil, a horror film that takes place in an elevator?

In 2014, author Andreas Bernard published a book titled Lifted: A Cultural History of the Elevator. Bernard notes that the elevator affected the definition of social status. Until Elisha Graves Otis designed the first functioning elevator, it was desirable to live (or stay) on lower floors of a building, thus avoiding long climbs up stairs. But as we know, since then, social status has been tied to living on top floors, particularly penthouses.

This change alone suggests great significance in Bond films, given that Bond has been chasing social status since he was orphaned, a point made in Casino Royale. Not surprisingly, it is this film in which the importance of the elevator is most notable. The film opens and theoretically ends with an elevator–and in both cases, the elevator is transporting the character to death.

So how might we approach the elevator’s symbolic importance in Bond films? Let’s take a look at how the elevator functions in different ways.

A Place of Battle and Pursuit

The elevator is a battlefield. And an especially confining one, at that. If we consider James Bond to be an archetypal warrior (or iconic hero),  part of it is based on his ability to demonstrate physical prowess in places where there is no place to run, nowhere to hide.

There is no greater example of this than in Diamonds Are Forever, when Bond takes on drug smuggler Peter Franks, in a small elevator, in Amsterdam. Bond follows Franks in, asks “What is your floor?” But Franks is suspicious. After Bond accidentally breaks the elevator’s window, in pulling his hand back to land the first punch, Franks turns around, and the fight is on.

In Quantum of Solace, Bond takes on three MI6 agents, assigned to escort Bond out of a Peruvian hotel. What we witness, as soon as the door closes, is Bond making quick work of all three agents, and he leaves them lying on the elevator floor, bloodied and unconscious.

But the elevator is more than just a place of battle. As a warrior, he also uses the elevator as a “tool,” as a means of pursuing the enemy. Consider his ride to the top floors of  Mexico hotel, in License to Kill, in his pursuit of drug lord and in Diamonds Are Forever, when he hitches a ride to the top floor of the Whyte House. In Skyfall, Bond leaps and grabs an elevator’s steel undercarriage, as he pursues Patrice to the top floors of a Shanghai high rise.

The Elevator to Doom: The Villain’s Lair

In Bond films (mostly earlier ones), elevators figure prominently in a villain’s lair or hideout. Each

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of the following features such an instance: Dr. No, You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Diamonds Are Forever, Live and Let Die, The Man with Golden Gun, The Spy Who Loved Me, A View to a Kill, and Skyfall.

Of these, the elevator in The Spy Who Loved Me figures most prominently as a place of doom. The floor of the elevator is a trap door, leading to a shark tank. Karl Stromberg demonstrates this early in the film, when disposing of his mistress, who had double-crossed him. He attempts to to do the same to Bond, later in the film.

In similar fashion, Diamonds Are Forever features a ride to doom, one that Blofeld describes as “just a lift.” But it isn’t. Bond is soon gassed inside. He is then taken, unconscious, by Mr. Wynt and Mr. Kidd to an underground pipeline to be disposed of.

Elevators acts as secret passageways, too, in both Live and Let Die (at the grave site) and A View to a Kill (at the stables).

The Elevator and Status

In both The Spy Who Loved Me and Licence to Kill,  the elevator is a means by which sexism is most explicitly demonstrated.

In The Spy Who Loved Me, Bond and Agent XXX pose as a marine biologist and his wife, to arrange a meeting with Stromberg. But upon arriving at Atlantis, Bond instructs XXX to stay behind, as he enters the elevator that will take him to the meeting. XXX’s disapproval at this highlights how the closing of the elevator doors also creates separation based on sex: males belong and females do not.

A similar instance occurs in Licence to Kill, when Bond instructs Pam Bouvier to stay behind, as he takes an elevator, another clear indication of male privilege. But these roles are somewhat reversed in Casino Royale, when Vesper Lynd tells Bond that he is not to take an elevator with her. “There isn’t enough room for me and your ego,” she said.

Furthermore, in the most recent Bond film, Spectre,  we see Bond and a woman travel up an elevator together, side by side and then in an embrace, in the pre-title sequence. Perhaps this is a sign of the times, a way of suggesting that men and women are now on equal terms.

Whatever the case, elevators will certainly continue to be fertile ground to explore the world of Bond.