![]() In this one, Duran Duran members Simon LeBon, Nick Rhodes and the Though "Die Another Day" I only consider good enough as this because a tribute to other 007 films were included. What sets this apart from the other Bond films is this music video and more than 30 years later it wasn't equaled. Duran Duran at the peak of their moment in the 1980's and composer John Barry was also part of the song's creation and with that partnershipĪ hit that truly fits the movie was conceived. Oh, sure, there’s been a Duran body count in other videos-all the boys except for Roger meet a bad fate at the hands of zombies in “ Night Boat,” and it’s up in the air whether Andy and Nick make it out of the exploding underground fortress alive in “ Union of the Snake”-but this video marks the sole foray into the disturbing realm of Duran-on-Duran violence."A View to a Kill" has a fair share of its detractors and few fans (like myself) but in one thing many followers of the James Bond franchise agree: it has theīest theme song - right there with "Live and Let Die" (can we call it a tie?). I feel like I just watched a Duran Duran snuff film. Despite his dainty appearance, Nick has always seemed like the Duran most likely to wreak terrible vengeance against anyone who crosses him). Barrie books, Tinker Bell was a vicious and vindictive little sprite. It’s like stepping on Tinker Bell (here, my literate and high-minded sister would be quick to point out that, in the original J.M. Murdering Nick-tiny, pretty, glittery Nick-is beyond the pale. It’s not like he was blowing up helicopters and blimps, Simon. Nick might’ve been an enemy spy, but after all, he was just taking a few harmless snapshots. John manages to shoot down one of Roger’s cameras, which he seems far too pleased about. Whose brilliant idea was it to arm Duran Duran? This will end in tears. He swivels it around and starts firing up toward the top of the tower, where Roger Moore and Grace Jones are still battling it out. John inserts coins into the slot at the base of the telescope. ![]() Presumably Nick is following Roger’s orders, but really, if I spotted someone who looked like John Taylor and I had a camera handy, I’d probably start snapping away, too. Nick then starts secretly photographing John. (I recently browsed through some reviews of Steve Malins’s unauthorized biography of Duran Duran over on Amazon-one reviewer complains that the book contains “…too many weird descriptions of Nick Rhodes as some kind of alabaster-skinned alien.” While at first this seems like a very valid and reasonable criticism, after watching this video, I’m not sure one can ever make the point too many times about Nick looking like an alabaster-skinned alien. Roger, who is sitting in the driver’s seat, teleports himself into the back of the van. The video opens on a catering van (“Chez Tayloire,” heh) parked at the base of the Eiffel Tower. In the entire video, no two Durans will directly interact with each other. Due to various intra-Duran conflicts, relationships within the band were strained, and as a result, each Duran filmed his scenes individually. John and Andy had broken off to join the supergroup The Power Station, while Nick, Simon, and Roger formed their own project, Arcadia. Fun concept, but it doesn’t quite mesh.Ĭompounding the problem: The band was fractured at the time, reuniting briefly to make this video after splitting into two distinct camps earlier in the year. ![]() The video is interspersed with scenes from the film-specifically, the sequence where Roger Moore’s Bond and Grace Jones chase each other all over the Eiffel Tower-cobbled together to make it look as though the Duran Duran boys are interacting with the Bond characters. Overall, though, it’s a little smug, and it isn’t quite clever enough to support the smugness. In fact, there’s some pretty great stuff here. ![]() The “View to a Kill” video features the Duran Duran boys as a quintet of gorgeous, glamorous spies who swarm around the Eiffel Tower and try to kill each other. The video was directed by Lol Creme and Kevin Godley, who were also responsible for the boys’ extra-sleazy 1981 “Girls on Film” video (and who, performing as the pop duo Godley & Creme, had their own big hit in 1985 with “Cry”-you remember, “You don’t know how to ease my pain…” In the realm of weird Duran Duran-related music trivia, this is right up there with Nick Rhodes producing Kajagoogoo’s “Too Shy”). Back in 1985, when I was young and the world was dazzling and new, I thought Duran Duran’s video for their hit single “A View to a Kill,” the theme song for the James Bond film of the same name, was really, really cool. ![]()
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