The World Is Not Enough

"To Be Is To Be Perceived," esse est percipi, the quote from Bishop Berkeley acts as the epigram for Samuel Beckett's only movie, Film (1965), starring Buster Keaton. Tomorrow Never Dies (l997), The World Is Not Enough (1999) and Die Another Day (2002) are the titles of some Pierce Brosnans. But contemplate Buster Keaton as one in the series of James Bond incarnations. To Be Is To Be Perceived fits right in with The World Is Not Enough (and is also reminiscent of the first proposition of Wittgenstein's Tractatus, "the world is everything that is the case") but there are some differences. The World Is Not Enough begins with Pierce Brosnan fencing off with a Swiss banker at an office in Bilbao, Spain. The Guggenheim is visible right out the window in the first scene. Three guns are turned on him, but he manages to vanquish his assailants only in time to see a red laser dot scanning his body. It's a gun pointed at him by a beauty in a speedboat. Brosnan grabs a specially equipped Jet Ski, all in the service of returning a cache of pounds sterling to its rightful owner. Of course the money's been dusted with explosive. Compare that with Keaton encountering his image in a mirror. You may not be able to take your eyes off him, though he's plainly unable to take his eyes off himself, for fear his solipsistic world will disappear. How do you like them apples?