I sat there watching the latest bond film in an IMAX theatre just as the filmmakers intended, but it just wasn't going the extra mile. At around the destruction of the subway I thought: "well, this is probably as good as it gets, as far as Bond is concerned. Respectable, sturdy and fun, but this isn't exactly art." I got to thinking about the recent history of the franchise. Same goes. Casino Royale worked beautifully on the big screen and I remember walking out feeling great about the future of the franchise considering it was the only Bond film I'd seen I was prepared to take seriously, but Martin Campbell is no artist. I liked Quantum, too, a good deal, and the editing was practically revolutionary where the franchise was concerned. It had the same structure as an old Bond, complete with a far-away location for the climax and a big, big explosion; I was satisfied where many others were hopelessly lost. But I think we can all agree that it falls a little short of perfection. Blame the editor I loved, blamed the script I applauded for taking my intelligence for granted, blame Forster, who was after the momentum of information and the speed of the world that had turned the old movies into artefacts instead of classics, blame the writers' strike that forced star Daniel Craig and Forster to rewrite as they went along, doing a pretty fucking good job in my opinion.
So, in the midst of this, comes a Prometheus-worthy shot of eyespresso in the form of that gorgeous, come-from-nowhere wide-screen shot of Scotland. Then my expectations shifted. Gone were the upper-register neons of Shanghai, the voluptuous candle-lit Macao interiors, the arid whites of the Japanese ghost town and the moistened, business-like blues, greys and browns of London. Suddenly we were somewhere else entirely and Roger Deakins, not Sam Mendes, was now in control. The rest of the film is in almost total darkness and Deakins uses every trick imaginable to at first sink to zero before using the black sky as a canvas onto which he paints an impressionist sky. He conducts colors and light like they were the string section of his great symphony while Mendes remakes Straw Dogs in the melody. The movie as a whole has problems, not the least of them technical - the sound edit needs work to be as cool as they wish it was, and the CG humans feel like a step backward considering the seamlessness of the motorcycle chase. So this is most definitely a better film and franchise film especially than say the still very sturdy Bourne Legacy, I can't make up my mind as to how it compares to Dark Knight Rises which maintained a more consistent tone and look but felt less human. And as much as I appreciate the wink-nudge references, I don't know they square with the film's back-to-basics story. So I ask you... What did I just watch?
-Scout
As far as I'm concerned, Skyfall starts when Javier Bardem gets off the elevator. At least, that's where it becomes a Sam Mendes film rather than a Bond film. No one in Bond history has done something so patient as let the villain do a monologue in one shot. Not to mention let the villain hide in the shadows for the first 40 minutes of the picture. Whether or not they let Mendes do any of the writing, I give him most of the credit for making so much of the film about M. No Bond film in history (and honestly, most action films) gives that much screen time to one of the female characters but the movie is arguably more about her than it is about Bond. Not to mention the entire 4th act of the film. Skyfall and Casino are five act films and generally the first two acts are fairly useless. The 4th act finds us at Skyfall and the remainder of the film broke the mold of every Bond film in history. Bond literally never on the defensive until this 23rd film. And its funny because though we've seen this kind of sequence a million times before, its somehow born anew in this film. But yes, you're 100% correct. As soon as the sun sets at Skyfall, and actually earlier if you wanna count the interiors of the hunting lodge, it's most definitely Deakin's show. But what's more is, I really think Mendes did this intentionally.
Shooting a sequence lit entirely by a burning house and making it look that good is no easy feat and I'm sure that scene in the script was the reason they gave the Deak a call in the first place. I also think that Deakins took the job to pay Elswitt back for rocking our worlds with the oil derrick sequence in There Will Be Blood [for which Elswitt won his oscar over Deakins' two simultaneous nominations that year -ed]. But yeah, the movie carries more weight than I've ever really felt in a Bond film before. Casino Royale definitely made us care about the characters but the Venice sequence of that movie is achingly dull. At least Skyfall manages to build upon itself rather than hit a peak and then plateau or come back down. Barring the final scene of course. The winks and nudges were a little too much for me and the whole ending seemed super clunky. I'm happy that MGM managed to not go down in flames because these are great modern action films but the back to basics idea sucks. If anything, they should have built off the emotional power of Skyfall and finished out Craig's Bond run with a two film storyline that uses his extremely fractured psyche because of the loss of M to really drive home Craig as an amazing 007.
-Fox
Tangent: Let me quickly point out that Elswitt had to somewhere have been contemplating Deakins shooting this when he signed on to shoot Bourne Legacy. I think it's safe to say that Deakins wins this round.
-Scout
For sure. I love the idea of a Amadeus-style rivalry between those two.
-Fox
-Scout
Before I saw Skyfall, I watched the other two Craig Bond films back to back. Literally hours before. I really enjoy both of them. They're fantastic action films. Some of the best in recent memory actually. Casino is well directed and shot and though its a better film than Quantum, the latter destroys it with it's cinematography and editing. And as Skyfall gets off and running it appears just like the previous two films. Fast paced, edited in a manic fashion and visually very pretty but not in a true film way. It's beautiful like a video game. Deakins is never not completely aware of what he's doing so if something looks good you can be damn sure he did it on purpose. But as Silva steps off the elevator the film shifts away from what we've come to expect from the latest Bond films. It stops. Quite literally. The camera doesn't move for a good two minutes while Silva approaches Bond, telling the story of trapping rats on an island. That's unheard of in most action films but the latest Bond stuff especially. It's funny because though I went into Skyfall really excited to have Mendes at the helm, the only real reason for that was Road to Perdition. I absolutely adore that film quite honestly for the same reasons I loved Skyfall.
In a genre filled with car chases and tommy guns, Mendes goes in the complete opposite direction creating a quiet, patient and emotional story. And though I had to laugh at the accuracy of your "Bond loves cars more than women" comment [I wrote on twitter/facebook that I thought it was a little troubling that Bond seems more distraught over the destruction of an antique car than he does when an important female character who he's had relations with is murdered in front of his eyes -ed], Skyfall is most definitely the most emotionally charged Bond film of all and I think that it has a lot to do with Mendes presence. So I guess to simplify all of this jaw whackin' into a few sentences, I feel that Mendes' fingerprints are all over the film once Silva shows up. The film is pretty manic and a tad sloppy up to that point, but once the story becomes focused, I really see Mendes trying as hard as he can to keep it that way. To really draw out emotional connections between Bond and M, Bond and Skyfall, and even Bond and Silva, as James sees himself heading down the same road Silva has, growing older and less useful in the eyes of the Secret Service. I'd be lying if I didn't think Skyfall could have done a lot of those things better but I think Mendes was the perfect director for the script they were working with and despite all the feelings bouncing around they did manage to keep that thing action packed, even at two and a half hours, which is unbelievably long for an action film. So with all that said, though I do credit Mendes and Deakins for whipping up one hell of a picture, I also think that the Bond's producers should be commended for really thinking on their material and picking the right auteur for the job.
-Fox
I couldn't agree more. Let's see just how the fuck they're gonna top this, eh?
-Scout
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