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Modesty Blaise
Modesty Blaise
At the beginning of 2001 the message told that Modesty Blaise, one of the few women icons, had died. Characteristically, she was shot in the South American mountains like Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid. Few minutes before she was shot she told her lifelong partner Willie Garvin that she suffered from a chronic tumor in the brain, and that she preferred to go with a bang than a whimper.
Like other female cartoon heroines Modesty Blaise was created by one of the male cartoonist in Fleet Street in 1963. Peter O'Donnell's ambition was to create a female who was strong and vulnerable. Although the criminal intrigues in which Modesty has been involved, mostly has been redeemed the claims of tension, there has been uncertainties regarding Modesty's moral standards, because McDonnell succeded in creating distinct limits for this. But it cannot have been easy because of Modesty's tragic background.
Modesty Blaise was found as a six-year-old orphan in Greece during WWII. She could not remember her name or the destiny of her family, probably because of traumatic memories. Modesty talked little about her childhood, but she was probably misused at the age of twelve. But she did not start hating man because of this traumatic experience. The reason for this was her mentor Lob, who had been a university professor. The old man fostered the young girl in addordance with his ideals, and he named the her Modesty. After the death of Lob Modesty was on her own, but she was hard and knew how to control men. She took part in a bloody quarrel in a gang in Tangier, Africa, and she became one of the gang leaders, and she and Willie Garvin planned to establish The Network, a syndicate specializing in theft and forgery. Modesty was, however, not a common criminal. She was a criminal with style and morals. She had developed empathic abilities under the guidance of Lob, but it is unsure whether her moral standards brought her into the service of Her Majesty or not.
The Network was dissolved, and Modesty and Garvin moved to London where she was contacted by Sir Gerald Tarrant. He needed help to solve problems which were difficult to solve using the directions of MI5's general activities. It is difficult to say exactly what were the qualities in O'Donnell's next books and strips. O'Donnell is neither a better nor a worse pulp author than Ian Fleming, who created James Bond. O'Donnell represented a younger generation, that was less conservative and in contact with the new pop culture. It is difficult to imagine Modesty Blaise without the swinging sixties as the socio-political background, and the tough British gangs.
The strip had a spontaneity of action, but it was dependent on the cartoonist. Jim Holladay who was the first cartoonist, managed to give O'Donnell's text a virtual depth because of the drawings of the milieus and the persons. Jim Holladay died in 1970, and the subsequent cartoonists were less competent.
Perhaps Modesty's contact with the spirit of the times and change to a genuin modern phenomena was caused by the idea of Modesty as a female and intellectual James Bond with a past as a criminal. The often banal criminal intrigues, in which Modesty took part, had the sole purpose to show her beauty. A repetitive phenomena is the desire of the gangsters to catch Modesty, and this is the reason why they caught Modesty to control her. O'Donnell incorporated Modesty as a young lady in a harem in Syria. But Modesty managed always to escape from these attempts to control her.
Modesty's relationship with Willie Garvin was based on equality between congenial spirits in which sex did not matter. This is the reason why Garvin called Modesty "the princess".
In the first books Modesty was emotional. But in the later books she was less emotional, and the relationship between Modesty and Garvin was based on a respective denial of the physical attraction between them. The attaction between them was obvious for the readers. The only scene in which Modesty and Garvin get a chance to express the passion to each other in the middle of an airplane catastrophe. They look in each other's eyes for twenty seconds and want to confess their love for each other before the pilot manage to control the airplane again.
There have always been speculations on Modesty's real age. In the last book she seems to be 52 years of age. She can also be 70 years of age because of all the important events which she has taken part in.
Anyhow, Modesty died four years ago in a collection of O'Donell's short stories. But O'Donnell writes about her death taking place in twenty years. In this way he has the possibility to continue the comix of Modesty.
Although Modesty's death in the world of literature. she seems to be very popular. Both Miramax and Quentin Tarantino plan to adapt the heroine to the screen. So far, there have been two attempts to adapt Modesty Blaise to the screen. The first adaptation happened already three years after the launching of Modesty. Joseph Loosey directed the movie, and he wanted to contact the youthful audience of that time by letting Monica Vitti and Terrence Stamp act the roles as Modesty and Garvin. The filmatic result was a failure in spite of some humorous moments. The choice of Vitti acting Modesty was a failure, because the Italian actress had an anaemic appearance, which was well-known from Antonioini's movies about ambivalence in the 1950's and the 1960's. Monica Vitti did not have the sexy elasticity and genuine pop sensibility, which the role as Modesty required.
Quentin Tarantino must be the director who has the ideal artistic temperament and the required pop sensibility, and a couple a years ago he managed to give the blaxtaploitation icon Pam Grier a new diginity and sex appeal in her role as Jackie Brown.
In many ways Modesty is the procursor to all the smart heroines who have been presented in strips and movies in the last 30 years. These heroines can be moral super heroines, dangerous ninjas or modern hybrids as Tank Girl and Lara Croft.
A comparison between Modesty and the Bond Girls concludes that the Bond girls represent who Modesty could have been if she had continued to be a criminal.
It is still unknown to me who will play the female lead role as Modesty. Rosanna Arquette, Angela Bassett, Catherine Keener, Sophie Marceau, Michelle Yeho and Sigourney Weaver are the most actual canditates. Hopefully, Tarantino can give Modesty the worthy leave on the screen which she deserves
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