chris kilby
Posts: 1189
Joined: 31/3/2010
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Skyfall finds the James Bond series in a reflective mood as it turns 50. But not too reflective.
Eon have really pulled out all the stops for Bond's golden anniversary. Starting with the relentless pre-title action sequence. Cars, bikes, a train and a JCB? You’d accuse them of trying too hard if it wasn’t so damn good. The motorbike chase alone, across the same Istanbul rooftops as Taken 2, makes the Liam Neeson actioner look sluggish and unimaginative by comparison. While Daniel Craig nonchalantly adjusting his cuffs after boarding the train in a typically unorthodox manner is pure Bond. It’ll be a while before they top Casino Royale’s freerunning chase though.
But for all the usual globetrotting, exotic locations and Scotland, Skyfall is actually very London-centric for a change, shrewdly capitalising on Olympics year and 007’s own iconic – and iconoclastic - contribution to that triumphant spectacle. And that means a lot of rain. It also means a lot of patriotic iconography: the evocative image of M standing before a row of coffins draped with Union Jacks, bobbies on the beat, the London Underground (there’s a lot of train action in this one – you can’t get more British than trainspotting!) and, amusingly, the recurring motif of the British Bulldog on M’s desk - a tacky, if resilient, knick-knack aimed at tourists. No comment.
Beautifully shot by regular Coen Brothers DP, Roger Deakins, Skyfall is the best-looking Bond film since Freddie Young lensed You Only Live Twice. It’s all silouhettes and shadows. Bond symbolically emerges from the shadows at the start and that silhouette fight in a very Blade Runner-like Shanghai is artily-shot to resemble a Maurice Binder title sequence.
There’s a lot of this sort of thing in Skyfall which subtly acknowledges Bond’s heritage in more satisfying ways than the excessive Die Another Day which looks like a Roger Moore Bond film by comparison. Skyfall is altogether a classier affair. Bond is burnt out and has to fight his way back after being left for dead? It’s Die Another Day without the invisible car! An act of penance by screenwriters Purvis and Wade?
But Skyfall doesn’t pay lip service to the past. It is about the past; how the past shapes and haunts the present. M is forced to “think on her sins,” while Bond confronts his own past for the first time in a refreshingly lo-tech, Scottish Highland-set climax which goes “back in time” to the stories of Conan Doyle and John Buchan which inspired Ian Fleming.
Skyfall doesn’t just homage Bond books and films. It homages everything! From Apocalypse Now to The French Connection, Witness to Harry Potter, Shakespeare to Tennyson in what is the film’s most powerful moment - “Not To Yield” could be the title of the next Bond film. Get Danny Boyle’s agent on t’phone.
“Mommy was very bad.” Given a lot more to do than usual, Judy Dench’s M plays surrogate mother to two warring sons like a regular Queen Lear and ends up in a literal wilderness. Which makes a pleasant change from all those surrogate fathers and sons in American movies.
M is haunted by the past in the formidable form of Javier Bardem’s Raoul Silva. Blond, flamboyant and, it must be said, outrageously camp, Silva is easily the best Bond villain in decades and the first to pose a serious physical threat to Bond since Sean Bean’s Alec Trevelyan in Goldeneye. Like the former 006, Silva is another renegade agent and a shadowy reflection of Bond himself. He IS Bond. He’s Bond gone bad. It’s the battle of the blonds. Which means it’s the battle of the Red Grant clones – Michael G Wilson must be dreaming!
Silva is the first fully rounded, three dimensional Bond villain. Well, as rounded as a Mephistophelean, hi-tech hybrid of Hannibal Lecter and The Joker (with a bit of Keyser Soze and Frank Spencer thrown in) can be - Silva is implausibly omniscient and omnipotent even for a Bond villain. He’s also the first sympathetic Bond villain. Bond and Silva both shed tears; Bond in a poignant echo of OHMSS, while it’s unclear if Silva sheds tears of pain, hurt or both. For he is ultimately a tragic figure, more sinned against than sinning (well, almost), and has every right to be pissed off. As well as being “dodgy foreigners,” Fleming’s villains were always afflicted in some way. And Silva’s affliction is genuinely harrowing as well as the single most horrifying image of the series. In keeping with Fleming, he’s also an arch sadist. “It’s some kind of sadistic game.” Especially when he plays William Tell. Or is that William Burroughs?
In a refreshing bit of villainous downsizing, Silva isn’t the usual megalomaniac out for world domination. No, he’s a very unusual megalomaniac out for revenge! Another nice nod to the books – at the start of Fleming’s The Man With The Golden Gun it’s a brainwashed Bond who tries to assassinate M! And there was me expecting a “Chicken Licken” too. That, in a knowing parody of the traditional Bond plot, Silva was somehow going to con the world into thinking the sky was going to fall as it were. While there is an element of that in Silva’s backstory, his actual plot has more than a whiff of Wikileaks about it which makes Silva… Julian Assange? He’s anything but Anonymous, though. Not with that barnet.
“It’s amazing the panic you can cause with a single computer.” Is it though? Cyberterrorism is THE action movie cliché of the 21st century. We get it – Bond is an analogue hero in a digital world. But it’s something I’d like to see the series get away from. Mission: Impossible had the same McGuffin, M:I 2 had its own “Chimera,” and M:I 3 beat Bond to Shanghai. The superspy world is clearly getting smaller. And more crowded.
The Silva Surfer is given a Shakespearean build-up - unseen, all-powerful, everyone is terrified of him. And his big entrance cheekily echoes Omar Sharif’s in Lawrence of Arabia – the second time Lean’s masterpiece has been invoked this year. Even more cheekily, it also echoes Frank N Furter’s entrance in The Rocky Horror Picture Show! It’s astounding alright…
Silva relishes a none-too-subtle rat analogy – nice. Skyfall is, er, plagued by rats. Silva compares Bond and himself to savage rats; rats infest the new MI6 located in Churchill’s bunker (which looks remarkably like the old MI6 of the Connery films); Q “smells a rat”; and Silva disguises himself as – what else? - PC 101…
In a genuinely electrifying moment which elicits gasps of disbelief, Silva tries to seduce Bond to the dark side. Literally. While caressing his thighs(!), Silva (or is that Silvia?) archly informs Bond through pursed lips that “there’s a first time for everything.” To which a surprisingly metrosexual Bond tartly responds: “What makes you think it’s my first time?” Well, Bond was in the navy. And went to Eton. Plus he wasn’t exactly Mr Inconspicuous at the airport – that black cap and shades combo was a bit Village People, wasn’t it?
Sexually ambiguous villains have been a curiously recurring feature of the last few Bond films. Le Chiffre admired 007’s physique while tenderising his knackers in Casino Royale. Silva challenges everything Bond stands for, including his sexuality, as surely as Le Chiffre threatened his masculinity. Just as Skyfall openly questions Bond’s relevance in a constantly changing world. Skyfall daringly, if not downright subversively, faces up to the very real possibility that after 50 years maybe Bond is irrelevant in the modern world of post-Cold War terrorism, of unseen enemies lurking in the shadows, of wars without frontiers. Even more than Goldeneye did. A relic of the Cold War indeed.
In an obvious nod to You Only Live Twice, Bond “dies” and after a baptism of fire and water is symbolically born again though conspicuously not Bourne again. Skyfall thankfully gets away from the Bourne stylings (or stealings) of Quantum of Solace which have become a bit of a cliché anyway. No, this one has more of the feel of a Christopher Nolan film - that spectacular entrance by yacht to what looks like the set of Inception. Bond even stands sentinel on a rooftop overlooking London like Batman. The hero Britain deserves or the shape of Bonds to come?
“Enjoying death” and looking rough, Bond loses it and it takes him a while to get it back again. Yes, James Bond’s not as good as he used to be. “Did you die? Is there any of the old 007 left?” Now there’s a question. Maybe Silva was behind that CRAIGNOTBOND website too! (Turns out he’s not as Scottish as he used to be either.)
Bond is conspicuously not a superman here. He is vulnerable. Weak. Mortal. This is the flawed Bond of Fleming’s later books when the author knew he was dying. Skyfall is a surprisingly downbeat film, morbid and death-obsessed. This is reflected in Danny Kleinman’s unusually doom-laden title sequence which out-Binders Maurice. Even heavier on the symbolism than usual, literally raining blood, fire, daggers and skulls, it is very Flemingesque. (The melancholy song marks a return to a more traditional Bond style and Adele gives good Shirley Bassey.)
Even more battered-looking than usual, Bond really gets the stuffing knocked out of him in this one – physically, mentally and emotionally. Verbally too. It seems like no time since Craig’s Bond was the new Double-Oh on the block. Now everyone’s queuing up to tell him he’s past it. Especially a very well-cast Ralph Fiennes whose trademark ambiguity is ruthlessly exploited for all it’s worth. Hang on a sec – wasn’t he John Steed? (Not The John Steed, obviously.)
Even Ben Whishaw’s new Q gets in on the act. Bond still has the same spiky relationship with his Quartermaster only now the roles have been reversed. Q is the cocky young upstart while Bond is the crusty one - “You still have spots!” There are a lot of ironic reversals like this – it’s not the villain’s base which gets blown up at the end this time. Q pointedly doesn’t dispense gadgets any more either: “Were you expecting an exploding pen? We don’t really go in for that anymore.” Looks like the gadgets really have their day now we all have them! Although the now charmingly retro gadget-laden Aston Martin makes a welcome comeback. And there’s a great ejector seat gag. Sometimes the old ways (and gadgets) are the best.
Q’s more anorak-wearing computer geek than tweedy boffin now - shoulda called him “IT.” This is all very droll, but it’s bound to have the purists up in arms. Despite the morbid navel-gazing and melancholy tone, Skyfall is more quip-laden than of late. There’s even a Lion King gag! Although Bond’s word association test probably gets the biggest laugh.
After 50 years of glamorous women, exotic locations and the jetsetting life of an international playboy at the taxpayers’ expense, Bond is finally forced to confront the mundane real world with amusing results - “Welcome to rush hour on the tube.” So it is with supremely poetic irony that Bond bursts in and saves a parliamentary committee after it loftily announces how quaint and obsolete he is! Not bad. For a physical wreck. An exemplar of British fortitude, indeed. (Where would the obituary of a secret agent be published exactly?)
Eon has raided the piggy bank for Bond’s birthday bash too. Skyfall is one of the best cast Bond films with a lot more big names than usual – Bardem, Fiennes and, delightfully, Albert Finney who famously turned down Lawrence of Arabia, could well have been Bond himself and looks like Hagrid Pennyworth here. Finney steals the show late in the day along with the best lines.
Naomie Harris’ Eve isn’t the best agent in the field but I’m sure MI6’ll find something else for her to do. I just hope her kick-ass credentials here don’t turn out to be just a sop in the long run. Bond’s other close shave with Eve is like Samson in reverse. In the very next shot, he’s in his tux and making a spectacular/ridiculous entrance to a floating Macau casino silhouetted by fireworks. Bond is very much back!
(Nice to see the return of the exotic pets too. Those komodo dragons were reminiscent of Live and Let Die’s crocodiles. Bond even uses one as a stepping stone!)
“Transition” has been a recurring theme of the last few Bond films and, Hudsucker-style, is Skyfall’s euphemism of choice. M’s “orderly transition” to “retirement,” Hong Kong’s “peaceful transition” when it was handed back to China and Bond’s transition from death to resurrection.
But the biggest transition of all is Daniel Craig’s final transformation into the James Bond we first met back in 1962. Turns out that Skyfall is the stealth conclusion of the “Bond Begins” prequel trilogy after all. Bringing the series full-circle, Skyfall sets up the Connery Bond films even more than Casino Royale did, restoring the reactionary old order of 50 years ago and undoing the progress made since Goldeneye in the process. Why, it’s political correctness gone BACKWARDS! Laptops and cellphones notwithstanding, Dr No could almost be the “next” James Bond film!
So what next? Where does Bond go from here? And where does this leave the series? Can we expect some more traditional Bondage from now on, hollowed-out volcanoes, cat-stroking villains, steel-toothed henchmen and all? As well as the return of Quantum? (Goldfinger ignored SPECTRE too. And what is Quantum but SPECTRE given a paranoid 21st century Bildburg Group makeover?) Whatever happens, Skyfall has set the bar very high indeed and will be a hard act to follow. Sounds like a job for Danny Boyle. He likes a challenge, does our Danny.
Critics (and normal people) have been falling over themselves to hail Skyfall “The best Bond film EVER!” It’s very good, but that might be just a wee bit premature. It’s only been out five minutes. And a backlash is inevitable if it hasn’t started already. My heart actually sank a bit when Academy darling, Sam Mendes, was announced as director. His films are OK but horribly overrated. I’d have preferred Danny Boyle meself, a much more cinematic director. But I hear he was busy at the time. And rumour has it 007 was involved…
But Mendes has done a terrific job. Skyfall might not be the best Bond film ever, but it is an instant classic right up there with Goldfinger, OHMSS and Casino Royale. Skyfall is the most director-driven Bond film and is all the better for it. A new precedent for what has always been a producer-driven franchise which traditionally hires anonymous, journeymen directors; safe pairs of hands who do what they’re told. After 50 years, is Eon finally confident enough to maybe relinquish some of that legendary control to directors like Mendes, Boyle and Nolan? After notoriously turning down Spielberg and Tarantino in the past? I do hope so. Tellingly there’s no self-indulgent Michael G Wilson cameo this time. But was that Mendes lying on the floor at the start – a Hitchcock-style cameo as a dead body?
Mendes also brought his regular composer, Thomas Newman, along for the ride. While indistinguishable from David Arnold’s recent efforts, Newman’s solid score is quite a departure from his trademark ethereal whimsy. I suppose composers get typecast like everyone else and he probably leapt at the chance to do something different. And there are some affectionate John Barry flourishes from the opening frames as well as nods to John Williams and Hans Zimmer. Arnold must have been gutted not to get the 50th anniversary Bond gig, though. Especially after lobbying so hard to get Shirley Bassey the song…
“How safe do you feel?” Skyfall is also the most overtly political Bond film. And, it must be said, the most reactionary. We are expected to cheer when M tells parliament that Bond (ie, MI6) shouldn’t be accountable to us plebs who only pay for all his dry martinis and Aston Martins. Hooray! Er… wait a minute. Sure, Bond’s just a fantasy. But he leaves himself wide open to this sort of criticism when the films insist on flirting with the “real world” like this. Skyfall kinda confirms all the nasty things Paul Greengrass says about Bond which I doubt was Mendes’ intention somehow. Kinda ironic then that Greengrass was at the premier. And that direct reference to the IRA seemed out of place in a Bond film even now. As was the suggestion that sultry but sad Severine was once a child prostitute.
So the most morally murky, complex and multilayered Bond film too. Skyfall really is extraordinary. Along with OHMSS, Licence To Kill, Casino Royale, yes, and the unfairly maligned Quantum of Solace, it is one of the most Flemingesque Bond movies if not THE most Flemingesque. Maybe even more Flemingesque than it intended? He was a bit of an old reactionary too.
A Bond film which is actually about something more than booze, birds and car chases for a change, Skyfall is surprisingly melancholy, poignant, sentimental even, and does to Bond’s psyche what Goldfinger’s laser almost did to his crown jewels. Even after 50 years this is one old dog who keeps learning new tricks. Jason Who?
Bond’s had a good 50th birthday and Skyfall is nothing short of an artistic triumph as well as a critical and commercial smash. Here’s to the next 50 years. 007 reporting for duty indeed. And I bet the gun barrel’s at the start of the next one.
Oh, and anyone who still questions Craig's legitimacy as Bond after this needs more than their critical faculties seeing to.
< Message edited by chris kilby -- 5/2/2013 6:19:35 PM >
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RE: Poor Plot - 
) rebuttal "If you want Bond of the Moore films, go watch the Moore films". 
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