Skyfall

On November 3, 2011, the announcement for the title of the 23^rd Eon Bond film awoke my curiosity.  Skyfall would obviously not be a villain’s name such as Dr No or Goldfinger, so would it be the name of a mission (though, that seemed a little obvious)?  Skyfall turned out to be the name of the hunting lodge Bond had lived in as a boy, a perfect title for a film in which by looking into Bond’s past, he comes full circle in the relationship with his mother figure, M.

Please note that, as always, I will be discussing the film’s plot in details so if you do not want to know what happens, particularly in the third act of Skyfall, please revisit this post after you have seen it.

In Casino Royale by starting with Bond at the beginning of his career, series writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade have tracked Bond’s development as a secret service agent and how he grows into the role physically (in Casino Royale he is almost too strong and eager for danger, by Skyfall Bond faces some of the challenges of injury and middle age), intellectually and emotionally.  One of the ways in which this growth was accomplished, was through Bond’s relationship with M, played by Judi Dench.

When Judi Dench became M in Goldeneye she was playing against Pierce Brosnan who was playing Bond as a veteran agent who had to learn to work for a woman.  Prior to Goldeneye M would give Bond his mission in the first act and might only appear briefly afterwards.  Beginning with Tomorrow Never Dies (Dench and Brosnan’s second Bond film), M started to appear throughout the films and even had a full supporting role in The World Is Not Enough.  When Craig first played Bond in Casino Royale and the series was rebooted, the producers wisely kept Dench, even though the other MI6 roles were eventually recast.  M is now more maternal and is treated by the films as a person.  M sees Bond’s potential and helps him focus and will always in a tough moment look at the big picture.  Bond loves M and is willing to die for his country but is by nature rebellious and always tries to get under M’s skin as a way of showing his affection.  I imagine that Bond had a similar relationship with his own mother.

 

Through seven films the audience has learned little of M’s life outside work.  We can surmise that between Casino Royale and Skyfall M (played by a woman in her 70s) has lost her husband (she is shown in bed with someone in Casino Royale and refers to her late husband in Skyfall).  She has moved from the flat in Casino Royale to a townhome in Skyfall and has a lot of work on her dining room table indicating she is pretty devoted to her job and perhaps has been even more-so since her husband passed.

Skyfall is directed by Sam Mendes, who, along with returning screenwriters Purvis and Wade, (and newcomer John Logan, who wrote Gladiator (2000), craft an elegant adventure that serves as a valentine to Judi Dench’s M.  Roger Deakins is the cinematographer who more than compensates for some of the jerky hand held camera work of Quantum of Solace with some beautiful (and beautifully staged) shots.   Alexander Witt and Stuart Baid, who were the second unit director and editor on Casino Royale, both return here to welcome effect.  Daniel Kleinmann, who had been the title designer of every film since Goldeneye (but had been forced to sit out Quantum of Solace due to director Marc Forster’s preference for another team) is also back.  Thomas Newman, who has worked a lot with Mendes, replaces David Arnold as the composer and he produces some fine scores, especially the Tennyson theme, but I feel that David Arnold understood the music of the series better.  Dennis Gassner, who took over the production design from Peter Lamont in Quantum of Solace, creates many memorable sets.  Naomi Harris plays a fellow agent who turns out to be Moneypenny, Ben Whishaw takes over the role of Q, reimagined as a young tech genius, Javier Bardem plays Silva, an ex-British agent with an agenda against M, and Bérénice Marlohe plays Severine.

Skyfall, due to a delay caused by bankruptcy suffered by MGM in 2010, was released four years after Quantum of Solace.  The extra time seems to have benefited the final product since Skyfall is meticulously crafted.  The film runs 143 minutes, which is close to Casino Royale’s running time and over half an hour more than Quantum of Solace, which felt rushed.  Mendes, who has directed several dramatic films such as American Beauty, Road to Perdition (which was the first film I thought of when Daniel Craig was announced as Bond-he played Paul Newman’s nasty son), and Revolutionary Road, but also has a lot of theatre experience.  There are also several lighter moments but they never devolve into silliness.  Craig looks much older than in Quantum and plays Bond as middle aged and goes through a mid-life crisis, questioning his dedication and purpose.  Bond goes through a similar experience to Bruce Wayne in The Dark Knight Rises, taken to his lowest point-a form of death- for which he has to fight his way back to defeat an overwhelming force.  One of the reasons Craig’s Bond is a bit self-destructive is that he does not care much about his career path (or his future) since he does not expect to live long; duty is all that drives him.  

From here I will comment on several of the moments of the film that I think stand out.

The pre-title sequence of the film is exciting, but I was disappointed that once again there was no gunbarrel (though here is what it would look like).  The design of the opening shot is curious though as Bond walking down a dark hall (which looks like a gunbarrel) toward the camera with his gun out (like the gunbarrel pose) which then moves behind him and follows him into a room, becoming the master shot for the brief scene that follows.  M is following the operation live, indicating that she will be a big part of this adventure.  When the chase begins afterwards it is not clear what city the characters are in since there is no title card but once Bond and the villain he is chasing, Patrice, ride the motorcycles onto the rooftops and the Blue Mosque appears in the background we see that Bond is once again in Istanbul.

The sequence contains a wide variety of action.  There is a car chase followed by a motorcycle chase on rooftops and then through the Grand Bazaar, then Bond follows Patrice onto a moving train.  Craig’s Bond is now less impulsive than in Casino Royale but still takes calculated risks such as when he crashes the motorcycle onto the bridge to hopefully land on the train.  The destruction of the train car is creative and Bond’s being wounded is a rarity, and is what probably causes him to not be able to overpower Patrice in their hand to hand fight, necessitating Eve’s (ultimately failed) intervention.  

I noted one thing in this scene which may or may not have been intentional.  In Casino Royale during the parkour scene early in the film at one point Bond chases Mollaka using a bulldozer.  Mollaka shoots at him and a bullet hits the glass very near Bond’s face and Bond, youthful and reckless, does not even flinch or duck and keeps going forward and gets away with it.  In Skyfall, when Bond is wounded he is also in a construction vehicle (an excavator this time) facing a single assassin shooting at him.  Bond also does not duck or make any attempt to avoid being shot but this time is wounded and pays dearly for it.  If this was intentional it shows that when you get older mistakes have bigger consequences.

Bond goes through a figurative death when he is accidentally shot by Eve (later revealed to be in the ribs) and then falls high off a bridge.  In reality someone falling from that height even into water would not survive but the way the film treats it allows me to suspend my disbelief.  This part of the sequence is staged and edited for maximum impact in M telling Eve to take the shot (a quick shot of Bond follows hearing this over his radio), and then after Eve shoots Bond, Mendes changes the perspective to M just hearing Eve say “agent down”.  Dench’s M has had to react to Bond’s supposed death before (in Tomorrow Never Dies and The World is Not Enough) but this time is by far the best-she has now ordered the death of someone who she loves like a son.  There is no music and as M quickly turns to the rainy window to avoid reacting in front of Tanner we hear the rain sounds increase thematically matching the mood.  Then there is a very smooth sound edit as the film shows Bond unconscious going down a small waterfall, which has a similar sound, which explains why the film won an Oscar for Best Sound Editing.

Bond’s falling down the waterfall leads straight into the main titles in which a giant female hand grabs him and takes him down the River Styxx.  Apart from several morbid images Skyfall (appearing for the first time as the word is sung) is seen.  We also see a dragon and a quick shot of Silva in a shadow form, which is where M later says he resides.  Adele’s beautiful Oscar winning song Skyfall feels appropriate since Bond just fell from the sky.  At the end of the titles the sky literally falls on Skyfall.

The opening lines of the obituary M writes for Bond matches the obituary Fleming wrote for Bond in the second to last chapter of You Only Live Twice with the changing of Japan for Turkey.  When Bond mentions the obituary to M prior to the climax of the film their exchange, the final calm one ever between them, is funny.  Ironically M drops the first F-bomb of the series in this scene.

When M meets Mallory, the character played by Ralph Fiennes (who conveniently has a last name beginning with M) as soon as he mentions M’s retirement Thomas Newman’s M theme, is introduced and is reprised during her death scene.  Mallory at first appears to be the stuffy superior (his posture and suspenders enhance this) who will be a roadblock to all the characters’ actions, but he is later revealed to be a former soldier who we is able to see the bigger picture and wants to ensure his players are up to the task.  When Mallory instinctively moves straight into the line of fire to protect M from Silva he shows his true colors.

This is the second time MI6 has been bombed (in The World Is Not Enough another attack occurs but with only one casualty).  The shot, which was in the teaser trailer, which shows all the caskets draped with the Union Jack with M standing dressed in black behind it is well framed.  Producer Michael G. Wilson, who has a cameo in each Bond film, shows up in the background here.  This is unexpected since he usually appears in a much lighter scene.  Here viewers are mourning and the timing for the cameo seems inappropriate.

Bond appears in a Turkish beach town, on a bender, never addressing the woman he is in bed with, popping painkillers and supporting himself with dangerous drinking games.  All three of the Craig Bond films so far have addressed Bond’s drinking making it clear that while Bond is incorruptible he is definitely not infallible and in fact is probably an alcoholic, though the films never actually declare this.  Bond probably feels that if M was willing to let him die then, he may as well be dead since he is taking no enjoyment form his actions and they are bound to kill him if he goes on like this.  No previous Bond film ever showed Bond acting so self destructively so I applaud the producers for embracing this.  

When Bond returns to London, once again, letting M find him in her home as she did in Casino Royale, their conversation is full of anger.  Bond is bitter and M is mad that he did not put his duty first and also for forcing her to live with the guilt of having ordered his death.  The scene is by far the most charged of any Bond/M scene in the series and ends with the coldly humorous line that Bond’s goods are in storage, which Dench delivers deliciously.

The sequence in which Bond reenters MI6 is accompanied by an interesting score that picks up during the physical tests (which Bond is failing-mostly due to his bad shoulder which he does not want to admit to anyone).  In my post for the teaser I mentioned the word association scene.  The teaser did not give away the funniest line in which when M is stated Bond answers “Bitch”, knowing that she is probably listening (although he is unaware that Mallory is also there).  Bond’s haunted reaction to the word “Skyfall” is obliquely referenced later when Silva reviews Bond’s profile and speaks of “unresolved childhood trauma”.  

The main purpose of the sequence is to illustrate that although Bond fails both the physical and psychological tests M makes the decision to send him after Patrice after he produces evidence (shrapnel from his wounded shoulder) that helps identify and locate him.  M is making up for her lack of faith from before.  Bond suspects this, asking her, “is there anything you want to tell me” but M lets him keep his dignity and denies it.

The sequence in China in which most of the second act occurs, although it does not have a major action sequence, is never less than engaging.  The music and blue tinted cinematography as Bond trails Patrice to the Shanghai skyscraper builds great suspense which peaks when Bond grabs onto the bottom of the glass elevator, which of course goes to the top, and is a variation on a scene from Diamonds Are Forever.

Bond, interestingly, does not try to stop the assassination.  It does lead to one of the most creative scenes in the series when Bond and Patrice fight in silhouette which is staged and framed like a seventies martial arts movie with shadows fighting and until the end of the fight it is not clear who is who.  The Chinese setting adds to this sense even though the choreography does not contain any martial arts. 

The following scene, in which Eve shaves Bond is playful, and beautifully photographed with the candles providing warm, though not really romantic, lighting.  The audience is left to decide whether or not Eve and Bond sleep together.  My sense is that no, she is intrigued by him but in a platonic way.  Both times that Bond makes a slight pass at her (trying to open her dress and later in the casino) she gently rebuffs him.  She also is not the least bit bothered when Bond goes off to see Severine.  Bond in turn is as relaxed around her as anyone.

I think the dialogue in the penultimate scene in which Eve’s identity is revealed is a little awkward.  I did not believe that Bond would not have known her name after being on two missions with her.  A better method might have been for Bond to call her by her first name while working with her and then as they entered the office at the end M could have called over the intercom and said something like “Miss Moneypenny, send 007 in” as Bernard Lee used to do in the older films.  Nonetheless Skyfall gives some good background to their relationship and their banter throughout the film is fun.

The cinematography and set design in the casino scene is breathtaking.  Bond’s entrance by boat into the mouth of the dragon is symbolic of the danger he is approaching as his actions will put him in direct contact with Silva.  I like the unbroken shot as Bond and Eve speak to each other over their microphones while casing the place separately.  There are a couple of references to Casino Royale in this scene.  First, Bond tells Eve “Don’t touch your ear” as he did to an associate in an early scene in Madagascar in Casino Royale.  Also when he is able to read Severine’s past based on her demeanor, dress and tattoo it recalls the scene in which Bond and Vesper read each other on the train.   Bond also says “I know when a woman is afraid and pretending not to be” which he saw directly with Vesper.

Bérénice Marlohe makes a brief but strong impression as Severine.  In public Severine acts like a literal dragon woman (her eye shadow and the way she blows out her cigarette smoke support this) recalling a quip Bond makes to Blofeld about Tiffany Case in Diamonds Are Forever.  However her best moment is on the boat when trying to find out if Bond is around without saying so as she is seen without her makeup and we see a glimpse of her vulnerability.  Severine is a tragic figure who is sadly beaten off-screen and then suffers a humiliating death.  In another Bond film Severine would have had a larger role but both younger women are pushed aside for M to take center stage in the third act.

I think the staging of the scene in which Bond and Severine approach the island is a little odd.  Bond snuck aboard the ship the night before but I wondered why the next morning he was not hiding but instead walked on deck knowing everyone on that boat except for Severine wanted him dead.  Perhaps there is a cut scene explaining Bond’s decision to effectively surrender instead of going after Silva discretely.

Silva’s entrance from the elevator as he tells the story of the rats (which is a Fleming type monologue-applying to him and Bond) as he approaches Bond and the audience in an unbroken shot shows us Mendes theatrical skills and Deakins’ cinematography working in peak form.  Bardem, who created one of the best screen villains as Anton Chigurh in No Country For Old Men, comes up with a unique approach here. Silva is a twisted creature, like Bond also left to die by M for the greater good, but a little childish too.  He is fiendishly clever with extravagant plans but also unable to control himself at key points, both when he has M at his mercy (in the court and church scenes).  When he tries to sexually intimidate Bond, Bond, like in the torture scene in Casino Royale, is able to get the upper hand with an unexpected response.  I like that the scene lasts for several minutes especially since we are halfway through the film and meeting the antagonist for the first time.  My only quibble would be that since the scene in taking place in 2012 (Silva refers to the scotch placed on Severine’s head as 50 years old and it says 1962 on it, which is the year Dr No was released), Silva seems too young to have been a Head of Station in the late 1980s. 

M’s scene with Silva is also drawn out since the relationship between provides Silva’s motivation to first humiliate and then murder M.  M is not without fault but though she is a little shaken throughout, she faces up to him.  Silva’s deformed face is typical of Bond villains.  I like that although Bond is present he has no lines in this scene; he is there to support M, who once out of the room, admits to Bond her role in Silva’s fate and thus accepts responsibility for what he became.

The following sequence seems to have a Christopher Nolan influence.  We see M facing an enquiry for MI6’s recent failures, along with Bond tracking Silva through the London Underground with a lot of crosscutting between the two as Silva makes his way to her.  M says at one point that she will not show the woman heading the enquiry her back and indeed she never does so to any of her antagonists throughout the film, although if she had announced the threat of Silva it could have saved several lives.    

On my first viewing I felt nervous as M reads the Tennyson poem, which felt like a death speech, also perhaps speaking of Britain's place in the film, a traditional country threatened by Silva's ultramodern cyberattacks.  As Silva charges in and holds M in his sights I felt she was doomed, and then felt a huge wave of relief as Mallory pulls her out of the way (which of course turned out to be short-lived).  The music editing is perfect as the suspenseful, violin driven Tennyson piece, which becomes more majestic as it appears M is about to have a grand death, stops and the propulsive Enquiry piece starts as Bond approaches the hall.  One the best elements of this heroic moment after Bond enters (to a couple of bars of the Bond theme) is that he does not start gunning every bad guy down (in fact he never even wounds anyone) but that his presence gives everybody cover, gives Silva a new target, and allows Mallory and Eve to enter the fight too and Silva and his men, now being shot at from three different angles, are forced to retreat.  Two other notable details were Bond getting fed up after a minute and just walking right into the middle of the room (a typical move for Craig’s Bond) and also that everyone was using pistols with loud bangs instead of automatic rifles.  The sound and smoke from the guns left a strong impact.

One of the most fun moments is the surprise appearance of the 1964 Aston Martin, which appears to be the same one from Goldfinger (it has the same plate).  Although the Daniel Craig series has a different continuity it is a great nod to the past and the machine guns actually help Bond this time (they were used to little effect in Goldfinger).  I will notice that no one seems to close the garage door after the car comes out of the garage.  M and Bond’s exchange in the car is hilarious.  More importantly though the car actually transports Bond and M and the audience to Bond’s past which finally reveals the source of the title of the film, Skyfall.

Oftentimes the grand finale of Bond films is the part I am least involved in.  Although there is always a great spectacle a lot of character goes out the window and it becomes just a question of staging and special effects which is fun to watch but often little more than that.  Casino Royale changed that by trapping Vesper in an open elevator in the sinking house, and giving Bond conflicted emotions about her while battling the Quantum henchmen.  Skyfall goes even better by taking Bond back to his boyhood home, and defending M, his surrogate mother, there.

In Bond’s aforementioned obituary in “You Only Live Twice”, Bond’s father is mentioned as being Scottish, I think because the film series had begun with Sean Connery playing Bond.   This gives the filmmakers an excuse to place Skyfall, a hunting lodge in which Bond lived with his parents, in the Scottish Highlands.  

One of the best scenes shows Bond and M stopped a few miles from the house.  When M steps out of the car she informs the audience who may not know, that Bond is an orphan, though a couple of the films have referenced this before.  Bond’s parents were killed in a climbing accident in France when he was eleven (“You Only Live Twice”).   Bond appears to be gathering his courage to finish the journey, while looking at the beautiful foggy countryside but he almost never speaks of his past again, allowing other characters to fill in the blanks to M and us.

The first shot from inside Skyfall from the top of the stairs is framed almost identically to a shot inside the house in Psycho.  The shot appears from the top of the stairs looking toward the front door.  I suppose this is an inside joke to M and Mother from Psycho or the fact that a lot of violence is about to occur in the house as it did in Psycho.

At this point Kincade appears, played delightfully by Albert Finney.  Kincade is Skyfall’s gamekeeper and is a tough old Scot with a very thick beard.  He is a kind of uncle to Bond and eagerly embraces the challenge of taking on Silva.  Interestingly, Finney (who has done a lot of accents in his long career) uses his normal English accent. Since Daniel Craig speaks in an English accent (and has always played Bond using his own voice) but is established as being from Scotland in this film perhaps Finney does so to match Craig, however if Bond went to England as an adolescent he probably would have adopted that accent anyway.  

Apparently the producers considered asking Sean Connery to play Kincade as a way of having Bond’s past represented in part by the actor who originated the role.  I think it was a wise choice not to do so since it would have distracted the audience, even though I can imagine Connery being a lot of fun as Kincade.  The Goldfinger Aston Martin is enough of a connection to the old Bond. 

When Bond introduces M to Kincade, Kincade misunderstands it and starts referring to M as Emma and I love that M is far too polite to correct him Kincade.  Kincade has a wonderful analogy to Skyfall calling her a grand old lady, indicating that M is one as well, in his flirty way, again treating M like a real person.  

The climax has a three act structure and lasts for about twenty minutes.  The first act takes place at twilight, in which the Aston Martin helps gun down the first wave of henchmen, and M, Bond and Kincade use several elaborate traps to finish off the rest.  The key moment is when M is wounded in the side but does not tell Bond (there is only a quick shot of her dropping the gun after the corner she was hiding behind is hit-not clearly showing if she was).  I think M stays silent so that Bond focuses on the battle.  The second act is when nighttime hits and Silva appears in the monstrous looking helicopter and destroys the Aston Martin (drawing a great reaction from Bond-you don’t mess with a man’s car) and shoots up the house.  The key moment is when Bond blows up the house and goes through the tunnel, which is a kind of birth canal for him since he had hid in there after the death of his parents-probably not wanting even Kincade to see his pain.  The third act is quieter and is simply Kincade and the weakening M going to the chapel near where Bond’s parents are buried-and Bond trying unsuccessfully to get there before Silva.

 I like the third act the best with Bond’s dark run on the river, daringly shooting the ice to avoid getting shot by Silva and the staging of the fight underwater.  Silva’s scene with M, seeing her hurt and at first being concerned, and then trying have her to kill them both because he cannot do so while looking her in the eye, is very scary.  Dench is terrific at playing the fear but trying to look strong.  Even though M briefly shrieks in fear the camera is not on her face so the audience does not see it. 

Some people have said they felt cheated that Bond does not have a big fight scene with Silva at the conclusion of the climax.  Both men are fit and about the same age so it could have been an exciting physical contest but Bond has just had a fight underwater and I think a pitched battle between the two at this stage would be anticlimactic (a la Superman’s final fight with Zod in Man of Steel) and would take the focus away from the confrontation between M and Silva and subsequently, M’s death.

M’s death is handled tastefully, and Bond’s helpless look to Kincade drives home the tragedy.  Bond is a knight who has slayed the dragon (Silva) in the castle (Skyfall) but lost the maiden (M) in the process.  It is hard (probably deliberately) to see because of the lighting but Bond cries in the scene and M’s theme plays leading right to the cut of Bond standing on a rooftop (probably of MI6) which had been the first shot of the teaser trailer.  

Did M have to die?  Dench’s M could have been retired as was suggested in the beginning of the film but her death is poignant.  I am glad that her death came in a film that celebrates her and gives the audience a chance to see M in different circumstances.   

At the end Bond is in the new M’s office which has the same set design as the one inhabited by Bernard Lee and Robert Brown in the older Bond films.  M is again a man, since Mallory has assumed the position (seemingly taking a demotion in order to do so).  Although in this case Mallory is only few years older than Bond whereas past male Ms were more paternal figure so there is yet a new dynamic to be explored.  

Some Bond fans have debated whether Casino Royale or Skyfall is the better film.  I think that both take Bond through intense experiences that are played for full dramatic effect.  Casino Royale explores Bond’s early days as an agent and he earns his place by going through a hazing both physical (being tortured by Le Chiffre) and emotional (letting his guard down and falling in love with Vesper to only be betrayed by her and then lose her).  Skyfall also tests Bond’s loyalty to M, the one stable figure in his life, after also being betrayed in a form by her and going through a physical (being wounded and shot off a bridge) and emotional (apart from M he also faces his past by bringing M to defend her at his boyhood home).  Both are long films but quick paced.  In the end this viewer slightly prefers Casino Royale since in losing Vesper Bond also lost his hope of a future and the effect was devastating.  When he lost M, Bond now older and having lived more, processes it better.

In summation Skyfall is the ideal 50^th anniversary celebration of the Bond series.  It gives the audience a fun time at the movies but also explores, concludes the strong relationship between Bond and Judi Dench’s M and paves the way for the future.  The closing gunbarrel to the Bond theme is the appropriate final note to this superb adventure. *****